How is naming done in MI6?
Bond is 007. WE have seen 006 and 008 in Bond movies. My question is how is this naming done to the agents in MI6? Does the number signify the serial no of an agent or the aptitude or the seniority? What is it?
Best Answer
Bond's number—007—comes from the English spy and polymath John Dee, who signed his letters to Elizabeth I with 00 and an elongated 7, to signify they were for her eyes only.
The number was also assigned by Fleming in reference to one of British naval intelligence's key achievements of World War I: the breaking of the German diplomatic code. One of the German documents cracked and read by the British was the Zimmermann Telegram, which was coded 0075, and which was one of the factors that led the US entering the war.
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Do MI6 agents have codenames?
This week Downing Street named Sir John Sawers as the new head of MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service. Fans of James Bond may be glad to know that the post still carries a one-letter code name, C.Why is head of MI6 called M?
A further inspiration for M was Maxwell Knight, the head of MI5, who signed his memos as "M" and whom Fleming knew well. The tradition of the head of MI6 signing their name with a single letter came from Mansfield Smith-Cumming, who would sign his initial "C", with green ink.What does C stand for in MI6?
The Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service serves as the head of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, also commonly known as MI6), which is part of the United Kingdom intelligence community. The Chief is appointed by the Foreign Secretary, to whom they report directly.Does MI6 have 00 agents?
In Ian Fleming's James Bond novels and the derived films, the 00 Section of MI6 is considered the secret service's elite.What Do We Know About Britain's Spy Agencies?
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Answer 2
From Wikipedia:
Although pronounced "Double-O", the O refers to zeros. In the British and Commonwealth armed forces, soldiers and officers are assigned identity numbers; the United States military does likewise. During Ian Fleming's work in Vichy France, an agent's anonymity was imperative, and, when the agent was military, it was convenient to use the last three digits of the agent's number as identification.
In World War II, Britain's Special Operations Executive agents did not have identifiers assigned to them such as the 00 or related 'systems' of nomenclature. Specific agents would be known to high command by their own names, and when deniability was at stake, their service numbers in long form, or else by invented codenames.
For the sake of romance and memorability, Fleming used the 00 and mystical number 7 for James Bond – himself a shell for the reader to inhabit.
Answer 3
There is little doubt that the intent of Fleming and the Bond producers in using 00 is to emphasize the exclusivity of the agent number and it is explicit that his category is "licensed to kill", certainly a rarity in government agents. There can't be more than ten of them (presumably), though often he interacts with special forces with dozens of members on a single team.
The specific choice of 7 almost certainly relates to his incredibly good luck: lucky at games of chance, women, and getting out of tight squeezes.
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