The Birth of the James Bond and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Franchise

The Birth of the James Bond and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Franchise

Larry Holzwarth - December 23, 2019

The Birth of the James Bond and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Franchise
William Donovan consulted with Fleming and his boss when setting up the agency which became the OSS. Library of Congress

3. Fleming began to work with his American counterparts before the United States entered the war.

In 1940, William “Wild Bill” Donovan served as the American liaison to British Intelligence services in his capacity as a special advisor to President Roosevelt. In 1941, Donovan was tasked with the creation of the Office of the Coordinator of Information, a new agency designated to assimilate all of the intelligence gathered by the agencies of the Navy, Army, and State Department. The office was intended to coordinate the separate agencies, instead due to turf wars and professional jealousies it ended up duplicating their work in many cases. Eventually, it merged into the Office of Strategic Services (OSS).

Fleming traveled to Washington DC, with Godfrey, to work directly with Donovan in creating the new agency, which was known as the OCI. Godfrey had been instrumental in convincing Roosevelt of the necessity of the new agency, which was opposed by Army and Navy Intelligence. The OCI included propaganda and news broadcasting wings, and intelligence and covert action wing, When the United States entered the war the wings were split into the OSS and the Office of War Information, which later became the United States Information Agency, parent agency of the Voice of America during the Cold War.

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