6 replies to this topic

[TheREAL008]

I had this thought earlier, what if Deaver just simply revamped the Special Operations Executive and made that a clandestine part of MI6? Would it have worked slightly better than the Overseas Development Group acting independently of MI6 and everything else?

I realize the need to a shadowy operation to have some kind of official cover, but perhaps it's just me...perhaps re imagining the SOE might have added alittle weight to the novel as a whole.

Anyone care to counter?

[Jim]

I wonder if the ODG thing made much impact - until this thread came up I had forgotten that the idea was that Bond was in something new (not that I am passing judgment). Thinking back I can't think there was much that Bond was doing that he wouldn't otherwise have done under the 00 section structure.

I do appreciate that this is all make believe and I feel slightly soiled now. But then I am getting old. Getting up twice nightly used to mean something else.

[Dustin]

The ODG idea, sadly, comes across as rather redundant, pointless and downright silly invention in CB. The allusion to the historical SOE wants to draw a parallel here but misses the point and raison d´être of the original. It was founded as a makeshift guerilla/terror/commando organisation at a time when Britain didn't have much experience in that field, nor the necessary military equipment and manpower to fight the Germans on the Continent conventionally. An operations outfit had to be formed quickly, with all the available means and people, however ill-equipped these people happened to be for the cause, many of them just bringing along a bit of language skills - often rusted - and the readiness to kill the enemy. The SOE's idea was to polish the languages, add a basic layer of conspirative tradecraft and sabotage skills and then send these people off to the Continent or North Africa to give them opportunity to practise their readiness. Many did not come back. With the advent of the small and highly mobile British Commandos some of the raiding and sabotage missions of the SOE were taken over by these.

Today the basic situation is fundamentally different from 1940, with SIS and MI5 firmly in place as well as SBS and SAS for military and counter-terrorism operations. Yet Deaver invents not only the ODG but also the Division Three as a counterpart, adding two more organizations to the merry circle. Their purpose - despite the unnecessary glossary - remains mysterious. The explanation given in said glossary indicates 'to investigate and neutralise threats' (Division Three) or 'identify and eliminate threats' (ODG); the ODG even by use of 'extraordinary means'. Impressive, undoubtely. But also quite superfluous, given that this is what MI5, SIS and perhaps the Yard (provided they aren't too busy with getting cuddly with the Murdoch minions) are paid to do, during working hours at least.

But as a matter of fact I'm not at all concerned about adding - fictionally - two more clueless beaurocrat rat races to the existing ones; I like watching my taxes work, even if it's only in a book. What bothers me here is the unvarnished and nearly documentary way in which Carte Blanche makes fun of the 'two 'n' eight' shape of things in Britain in 2011. While the ODG is supposed to be a front for the less respectable customs of the secret and security services it's nothing less but shocking that the South African police officer not only knows about the ODG's purpose - probably read it in News of the World - but also about Bond's 00-number and the meaning of this little device; doubtlessly from the many films and books breaking that secret to the public.

No, it's really beyond me why anybody would want to go to all this trouble with another, newer, better and more deadly Black Ops ™ organisation when it's practically as much of a secret as the date. It's sloppy writing and should have been edited or cut altogether. The same goes for the entire ODG/Division Three outfit, there seems to be an enormous number of people involved, with surveillance and high-end technical support and mobile raid forces and whatnot. So where is the reason to keep this within supposed 'black ops' groups when most of it involves the entire security apparatus? Is this supposed to mean MI5, Special Branch and SIS aren't able to keep mum about such operations? If so I probably have to agree, ableit for different reasons. But within Deaver's book it's illogical, all the more so as the ODG is explained as an official government branch, giving Bond's work for this department even less of a cover. Fleming's various fronts for his Secret Service (Omnium Corporation, Universal Exports, Transworld Consortium and so on) strike me as more realistic and workable than the whole ODG mumbo jumbo.

[TheREAL008]

I tend to agree with both of you. Perhaps if Deaver had the Double O Section remain a part of MI6 but keeping it off it's book would have been more realistic to the times. If I could have helped pen CB, I would have had that instead of the ODG.

Oh and Jim? Way too much info bud.

[Dustin]

It would have made more sense if the ODG simply had been designated the operations section of the MI6, not as a rival doing the same work a second time - and probably even worse botched. If there is anything to be learnt from American experience it surely is not to clutter up the picture with any number of bureaus, administrations, agencies, groups and units, all wanting their own part of the glory and the funds. I'd like to live with the blissful illusion that at least in Bond's fictional world people are able to learn from yesterday's -ups.

Edited by Dustin, 09 August 2011 - 04:27 PM.

[Von Hammerstein]

I didn't think it was necessary to move Bond from MI6. That whole "organization so secret that not even the intelligence community knows about it" harks back to UNCLE (not that that's a bad thing) but has been used to death, Just think of the spy fiction organizations that had that premise: Mark Hood's Intertrust, Charles Hood's The Circle,
Then there's DIECAST, UNITY, HARM, and even Steve Victor's ORGY. Bond needed to stay "Brirish Secret Service" And if the idea was to keep this new ODG out of sight and out of mind, it sure didn't work with the two MoP's telling M to pull Bond out of Cape Town. If it was necessary to change Bond's employer than it should have stayed the Special Operations Executive and the Overseas Development Group could have been the cover name like Universal Exports was in the Fleming novels, sort of like how the CIA supposedly used (uses) the US Agency for International Development for some of it's covers. But I think Bond should have stayed with MI6 (SIS) and the 00 section could have been something created as a strictly black book operation that only M and Tanner knew about.

Edited by Von Hammerstein, 20 August 2011 - 10:32 PM.

[CasinoKiller]

The impression I seemed to get from Carte Blanche is that MI6 is in charge of conventional intelligence gathering, whereas the ODG is a black ops group. In a way, it does answer a minor issue with the Fleming novels and the films...in that, Bond, as an agent of MI6, seemed to be less engaged in intelligence gathering and 'spying' per se and more involved in all sorts of commando missions i.e. he wasn't sent out to spy on the enemy as much as he was sent out to destroy the enemy. What Deaver has done is come right out and state openly that Bond is not a spy but a black ops agent...this could of course have been accomplished by having the 00 Section be the black ops wing of MI6 itself, but there's nothing fundamentally wrong with Deaver's way. The only perceivable problem might be that having Bond belong to another organisation might take away from the legend of 007 belonging to THE 'Secret Service' or 'Her Majesties Secret Service'...