A WRITER who was instrumental in making the first James Bond film was himself suspected of being a spy by Britain’s MI5.
Wolf Mankowitz, who helped to write the screenplay for Dr No, featuring Ursula Andress as Honey Ryder, as well being the screenwriter for the spoof Bond film Casino Royale, was investigated by the Security Service for 14 years because of suspected links with the Soviet Union, according to newly-released files.
The writer, playwright and broadcaster was covertly photographed outside the Soviet consulate and had his telegrams to friends in Moscow intercepted, but he was never caught doing anything more suspicious than wearing a duffel coat.
This did not stop MI5 from warning the BBC, for whom Mankowitz worked, that “he must be regarded as a risk to security, should he have access to classified information”.
Suspicion lurked that Mankowitz, who is also remembered for writing the Cliff Richard musical Expresso Bongo, had Soviet sympathies because of his wife’s membership of the British Communist Party in the 1940s.
A document from April 1945 notes that he was a “convinced Marxist” even while he served in the British Army. A description from his commanding officer suggested that he was unlikely to lead an uprising, however. “(He is) a highly-strung individual of nervous temperament … Even if he possesses communist views I do not think he has the personality or strength of character to pass them on to fellow soldiers.”
He came under suspicion again when he flew to Moscow in 1956 to deliver a lecture on copyright. A telegram that coincided with the visit records a journalist friend asking him if he could use his “magic touch” to get permission to photograph Nikita Khruschev. This request apparently came to nothing.
MI5 told the BBC not to let Mankowitz have access to any sensitive materials in 1951 and 1957. After the second request the BBC said that Mankowitz was working on a translation of Chekhov’s The Bear, which “would not be likely to give him any access to classified government information”.
MI5 finally gave up in 1958, two years after Mankowitz called for the withdrawal of Russian troops from Hungary and, in February 1957, spoke in support of free expression for Russian writers. His file ends with a newspaper cutting of a conversation he had on a TV show with Ludovic Kennedy. Asked by Kennedy whether he was a communist, Mankowitz replied: “No. I’m not a communist, I’m an anarchist.”
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