The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) found inspiration for its gadgets in U.K. author Ian Fleming's world-famous "James Bond" series, according to new research by a U.K. university.
Gadgets such as the poison-tipped dagger shoe in "From Russia With Love" and the tracking device featured in "Goldfinger" were developed by the CIA in the 1950s, the University of Warwick revealed this week.
According to declassified documents and interviews cited in the study, the devices were made soon after Allen Dulles, director of the CIA between 1953 and 1961, became friends with Fleming, a spy fiction writer who worked for British intelligence during the Second World War.
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"Dulles himself claimed in the 1960s that he had met Fleming at a dinner party at the London offices of MI6 [London's international intelligence service] and was, effectively, spellbound by this meeting," Dr Christopher Moran, assistant professor of U.S. national security at the University of Warwick, told CNBC.
"It was soon after this that he instructed his technicians and staff to try to replicate the gadgets."