Skyfall - Silva question
Halcon
Zen TemplePosts: 487MI6 Agent
I'm sure i've asked this somewhere else before....so to be an MI6 00 agent, one doesnt have to be English? (it's a question that hits me EVERY TIME i see Skyfall and forget to ask) ?:)
Comments
Silva was an MI6 agent but I don't think he was a 00. We only know he worked for M in the 90s when she was Hong Kong section chief.
What exactly was Sylva's job title?
and does anybody remember the backstories of all those local Section heads? Fleming must have written a few paragraphs to establish each of those characters, because that sort of thing was related to his own Intelligence experience.
Kerim Bey in particular I don't think was British.
Someone with more knowledge of the real-life workings of the secret service might know more about this.
Suffice to say (and most of this is freely available on Google) you can deduce certain aspects of possibility. Most foreign agents can be locally recruited and run by officers or handlers a host or foreign nation they work or report too. If you look back to the past to the most famous examples, this was the best modus operandi during the old World Wars and Cold War days. Look at the US series ‘The Americans’ for example loosely based on some truth of the time.
To be an Officer or agent handler of the host nation you will need to be a legitimate citizen of that nation (generally assumed to have deeper loyalties and traceability). You will be traceable in order to be vetted and pass deep security and background checks (the level is deliberately both intimidating and frightening amazing what the state security service can dig up or what come back to haunt from the past). If successful tests both physical and mental follow and of course specialist training in due course if you pass these. Most organisations follow a selection, recruitment and training process to deliver the end product they want (under constant review and assessment where failure is definitely an option). This has to be completed before anyone becomes operational and receives assignments in the service of the host nation at home or abroad.
Some foreign nationals may desire to serve another nation or change nationality for their chosen cause or belief, but if recruited most likely will be encouraged not to do so in order to maintain their cover and usefulness where they reside. Think Kim Philby and crew, to be useful to mother Russia they had to fully embrace the UK establishment (and did even though it seemingly repulsed them as communists) to be useful agents for decades as agents of the state, but they were run by Russian handlers.
There are many examples from both World Wars and the Cold War of similar examples (even in Bonds world as well thanks to Flemings experiences). Reality is any security service will assess each overseas opportunity to recruit ‘sources’ individually based on merit, usefulness and operational output to determine best approach in handling.
This may account for ‘foreigners’ (like Silva) seen as working in SIS when in fact the report to or work for them.
Of course the new dynamic of the modern world is many countries are multi cultural and so people can be 2nd or 3rd generation living in one country but the family originated from another, so it may be possible to recruit home grown talent you could logically deploy or embed overseas think Skyfall (or the converse threat of course i.e could be recruited by foreign powers - beware the enemy from within as many nations now experience).
It’s a complex world ‘Christ I miss the Cold War’
Cheers :007)
Cheers :007)
No doubt it will be a good read reality (when linked to real operations in war) can sometimes but much more interesting than fiction.
Cheers :007)
I never really understood why spy agencies don't accept foreigners, cause foreigners can do better spy work, if they are not suspected to be from that country. I read that you have to be born in the U.S. to join the CIA, yet if the CIA wanted to spy in a foreign country, it would be easier for someone from that country with that race and accent to go undercover, wouldn't it?
"- That is something to be afraid of."
MI6 is an arm of the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland ("UK" for short). The UK consists of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland therefore anyone from those member countries is eligible to join MI6.
"Great Britain" is a geographical term rather than a political one, referring to the largest of the British Isles (a collection of islands including GB, Ireland (geographically), the Isle Of Man, the Hebrides, Shetlands, etc etc.) It's called "Great Britain" to distinguish it from what is nowadays called Brittany. Therefore the word "British" can apply geographically to a person from these islands.
The character James Bond as specified by Ian Fleming has a Scottish father and a Swiss mother, and was educated in England and Scotland. Fleming makes almost nothing of Bond's Swiss ancestry, preferring to stress Scotland and England (see OHMSS, YOLT, TMWTGG). Indisputably James Bond is BRITISH as have been most of the actors who have played him (Connery: Scottish, Moore: English, Dalton: Welsh/English, Brosnan: Irish, Craig: English + Niven: English/Scottish) with the obvious exceptions of Lazenby (Australian) and Nelson (American).