IAN FLEMING

DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER. LONDON: JONATHAN CAPE, 1956

8vo, FIRST EDITION, FIRST IMPRESSION (with "Boofy" for "Dolly"), PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR to intelligence officer Commander W.A. Dunderdale ("To | Bill | Who has helped | with the next | one | With affection | from | Ian") on front free endpaper, Dunderdale's later inscription ("To dear Chris | with all good wishes | Bill @ Biffy") on front fixed endpaper, original black cloth, lettered in silver, design to upper cover in silver and blind, DUST-JACKET, collector's black quarter 𒐪morocco solander box

FINE PRESENTATION COPY TO ONE OF🎃 THE INSPI𝓀RATIONS FOR THE CHARACTER OF BOND.

Commander Wilfred. A. Dunderdale (1899-1990), known to some as “Biffy”, was a British spy and intelligence officer who worked closely with Fleming a number of times during the Second World ꧋War.

Born in Odessa, the first legend of Dunderdale’s espionage has t♏he nineteen-year old spy successfully sneaking into Russia to spy on submarines in his old school uniform.

Posted to Paris from 1926 onwards, he s🍸poke fluent Russian, German and French. He wore immaculate suits, gold Cartier cufflinks, smoked Balkan cigarettes and drove around Paris in a bullet-proof Rolls Royce.

During his stationing in Paris, Dunderdale cultivated friendships with eastern European emigres. It was 🍬through these close links that he learnt of the Polish cipher-breakers who had made progress in breaking the German Army’s previously secured three-roter Enigma machine. The Po✨les, fearing invasion, allowed the British spy to collect and smuggle two copies of the German machine to London. It proved to be the biggest single contribution to the vital intelligence results achieved by the British decoding centre at Bletchley Park.

Dunderdale was of specific service to Fleming in providing help with the plot of the fifth James Bond novel, From Russia With Love, which centres on a plot by the Soviet counterintelligence agency to assassinate Bond. As bait for the plot, the Russians use a beaﷺutiful cipher clerk and the Spektor, a Soviet decoding machine, which was not a Cold War device, but a direct echo of the Enigma.