JAMES BOND'S TASTES:
"007 IN NEW YORK" and
NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN

By John Mariani

         The two James Bond subjects treated in this article are unrelated and therefore require being treated separately. The first is from a 1966 collection of short stories entitled The Octopussy Collection that appeared after Ian Fleming’s death in 1964. (I’ve already written about both the story “Octopussy,” and the subsequent film.) The collection also includes “The Living Daylights,” whose title was used for a movie many years later (to be discussed in another article), and “The Property of a Lady,” which never was. “007 in New York” is a tossed-off bit of memoir, with Bond musing about his favorite hotels and restaurants in New York.
     The story was originally called “Reflections in a Carey Cadillac” and was first published in the NY Herald Tribune in October 1963.
     The slim plot involves Bond flying to New York to track down a British agent who is unwittingly sleeping with a KGB agent. 007 is to meet her at the Central Park Zoo’s Reptile House, but finds there is no such exhibit there and she does not show up.
      While on the BOAC airliner to New York, Bond recalls the great fun he used to have at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem years before.  Upon landing he checks into the Astor Hotel, originally built in 1905 and famous as a venue for New York’s social elite. It also appeared in the film The Clock. By 1966 the hotel had been sold and re-sold, that year for $10.5 million, but it was demolished a year later.
         Bond preferred the hotel’s location near Times Square, where he liked going to the Automat (below) and always laughed about the big BOND clothiers neon sign on Broadway. He has a martini at the ‛21’ Club (where he’d dined with Tiffany Case in Diamonds Are Forever), then heads for lunch at the Grand Central Oyster Bar & Restaurant (left), which opened in 1912 in the train terminal’s underbelly, where he intends to savor their famous oyster stew with a Miller High Life beer. But he finds the cavernous dining room too noisy, so, after considering Chambord and Le Pavillon, he decides on lunch at the baronial Edwardian Room in the Plaza Hotel, where he has  another martini, smoked salmon, Taittinger Brut Rosé Champagne and scrambled eggs (the recipe from his maid is provided), musing that “one could never tell with American food. As long as they got their steaks and seafood right, the rest could go to hell.”
         He plans to have dinner with a New York girlfriend named Solange at Lutèce, the city’s finest French restaurant of its day, then drinks with CIA agent Felix Leiter at the Embers nightclub.
        

         The title for the film Never Say Never Again came from a remark actor Sean Connery’s wife Micheline made after years of his refusing to play Bond ever again. Roger Moore had already embraced the character as of 1967, and, now six years later, Connery was coaxed back into the role by other producers who got hold of the literary rights to Thunderball, which Connery had starred in in 1965, but not the right to use the title, so Never Say Never Again was used. As it turned out, Octopussy, which came out the same year, was a far better Bond flick than Never, which suffered from cheap production values and a weak script. Connery looked like he was phoning it in.
        Never Say Never Again follows the Thunderball novel’s  plot to a large extent, though it differs greatly from the earlier film, both of which begin with 007 being forced to check into Shrublands Clinic (right) by M, who contends Bond’s skills are being compromised by too much “white bread, red meat and dry martinis,” to which Bond replies, “Well, I suppose I can cut out the white bread, sir.”
       Once checked in and having been told of the clinic’s strict diet of  bland health foods, Bond breaks open a suitcase full of Russian sevruga caviar, Georges Bruck foie gras, Absolut vodka and Château Cheval Blanc. While there, he spies on a beautiful nurse named Fatima Blush (Barbara Carrera) beating a patient whose face is bandaged. Blush sends an assassin named Lippe to kill Bond, who, after a savage fight, blinds the man by throwing a beaker of Bond’s urine sample at the man.

        Blush works for SPECTRE, run by Ernst Stavro Blofield (Max von Sydow), who has plans to steal atomic warheads in order to extort billions from NATO. Bond follows a lead to the Bahamas, checking into the British Colonial Hilton Hotel, where he goes to its Gazebo Bar for a martini, where Blush sweeps onto the beach and splashes Bond, saying she hopes she didn’t get him too wet. Bond responds, “Yes, but my martini’s still dry.”
He also meets Domino Petachi (Kim Basinger), lover of  Maximilian Largo (Klaus Maria Brandauer), SPECTRE's top agent.
         Bond then heads for Nice, where Blush also arrives at a café on Villefranche-sur-Mer.  Bond finds that Largo is hosting a gala event at the Casino Royale (actually the Casino de Monte-Carlo, also used in Dr. No), and he crashes the party, where he and Largo play a 3-D video game called Domination that 007 wins. After a car and motorcycle chase, Bond is captured by Blush, who forces Bond to declare in writing that she was his "Number One" sexual partner. Bond responds, “Well,  there was this girl in Philadelphia once . . .” then kills Blush with his poison fountain pen.
       Invited aboard Largo’s yacht, the Flying Saucer, Bond finds Domino, and attempts to make Largo jealous by kissing  her; they are captured and brought to Palmyra, Largo's North African base of operations. 007 escapes and rescues Domino, and they find the first warhead, then search for the other at the Tears of Allah, below a desert oasis in Ethiopia. In an underwater battle, Largo is shot and killed by Domino with a speargun, Bond finds the bomb and defuses it. He returns with Domino to the Bahamas, where, while sipping tropical cocktails, he declares to her never again to work as a secret agent.      

Calloway: Go home Martins, like a sensible chap. You don't know what you're mixing in, get the next plane.

Martins: As soon as I get to the bottom of this, I'll get the next plane.

Calloway: Death's at the bottom of everything, Martins. Leave death to the professionals. — The Third Man

         Four hours later, the Airbus landed at Heathrow at noon, and, after getting their bags and exiting through customs, they found two men in tweed coats in the airport lobby holding a sign saying “CAVUTO/GRECO.”  The two Americans looked at each other, trying to puzzle out who the men might be, since they hadn’t told anyone they were coming back to London early.
         One man was of average height, in his fifties, wearing a gray fedora; the other tall, hatless and younger by twenty years. When David and Katie walked towards them, the older man spoke.
         “Miss Cavuto, Mr. Greco? Welcome back to London.  A bit early, I believe. May we take your bags?”
         “Not until I know who you are,” said David, knowing another cop when he saw one. “I assume you’re London police?”
         “No, actually, we are with British intelligence,” he said, showing them ID.  “My name is Peter Chambers, this is my associate Mr. Collings.  We would be very grateful if you would come with us to discuss your trip to Moscow.”
         David said, “How so? Miss Cavuto and I had business visas to visit Russia, if you’d like to see them.”
         “That won’t be necessary,” said Chambers. “It’s simply a matter of your having had an interview with a certain Colonel Kovalyov yesterday.”
         David said, “And what brings you that conclusion?”
         “Mr. Greco, Miss Cavuto, Colonel Kovalyov contacted us and told us you would be coming in on this flight and that perhaps we’d like to speak with you about your brief stay in Moscow.”
         Katie said, “You and Kovalyov speak to one another?”
         “Well, of course,” said Chambers. “Cold War is over, you know. No more cloak and dagger.  Even James Bond avoids the Russians these days.”
         “Kovalyov said that, too,” said Katie. “But, Mr. Chambers, we are American citizens and I don’t think we have to talk with you if we choose not to. As a matter of fact, I think we’d like to go straight to the American Embassy.”
         Chambers glanced at Collings and let out a small sigh, then said, “That is well within your right, Madam. But, quite frankly, we already know what you were doing in Moscow and whom you saw and who it was here in London who led you to him. We would just like to set the record straight on some items. We’ll do the talking, you just listen, how’s that? We can do it right here at the airport, if you like.”
         Katie asked to speak to David alone for a moment and Chambers nodded, saying, “By all means.”
        They went off to a noisy corner of the lobby.  Katie said, “Why in God’s name is everyone so anxious to speak with us about our seeing Philby? They already know that we did. It’s not like he was passing secret documents to us to give to Russian agents in London.”
         David said, “Unless there’s something in that note about the pills, but I can’t see that of any importance to them. I guess I don’t see any reason not to speak with them, as long as they don’t start asking questions we don’t want to answer.”
         Katie and David walked back to the men and said, “Okay, we’ll listen to what you want to tell us.”
         Chambers said, “Fine, won’t take more than ten minutes and you’ll be back at your hotel, and back to the States whenever you choose to leave.”
        The group headed to an elevator and went up two floors, then to a nondescript door with only a number on it. Inside was a small front room with one unoccupied desk and a larger room to the right, where Collings led them. Except for a Union Jack flag in the corner, it might have been Kovalyov’s office.
         “Can I get you two anything?” asked Chambers. “Tea, coffee, water?”
         Katie and David said no thanks and sat down in silence.
         “Well, then, here’s what this is all about,” began Chambers. “As I’m sure you’ve surmised, we are aware that your . . . business trip was to visit a man you believed to be the Soviet double agent Kim Philby.  May I ask why you made such contact?”
         Ignoring for the moment Chambers promise not to ask questions, David asked, “Are you saying you don’t know?”
       “As a matter of fact, we do. We understand that you, Miss Cavuto, are a reporter at . . .”—he glanced at a piece of paper in a file—“McClure’s magazine, and that you are trying to find out who was the inspiration for the character of Harry Lime in the movie The Third Man, is that correct? Sounds like an intriguing idea.”
         Katie gave away nothing, feeling quite sure that Chambers had no thumbscrews in his top drawer.
         The officer went on. “And I understand that you’d been in touch with an ex-MI6 agent named Joseph Southey, as well as a former Soviet agent named Leonid Lentov.”
         David was not surprised by anything Chambers had to say but was anxious to know what Southey and Lentov had told Chambers, who kept speaking.
         “Now there’s nothing illegal about your speaking with such people, nor did they apparently tell you anything to compromise their own situation. Mr. Southey didn’t give away any secrets, did he? And Mr. Lentov had none to give.  And Mr. Southey would not vouch for what Mr. Lentov told you about Mr. Philby still being alive in Moscow and that he might be thrilled to speak with two Americans about Graham Greene.”
         Chambers stopped speaking and folded his arms, waiting for Katie or David to say something.
     David did: “I assume you know I’m a former NYPD detective, Mr. Chambers?”  The British officer nodded and stayed silent.  “So, you know I’m pretty familiar with interrogation techniques,” said David.
         “I’m sorry, Mr. Greco, I wasn’t aware you were being interrogated.  I’ve done all the talking.”
 Katie spoke up. “Mr. Chambers, can you get to the point, please? What exactly is it you’d like us to tell you?”
cambers got up from his desk and let a little more light in through the Venetian blinds, then said, “I never use the words ‘let me be honest with you,’ because you know very well it means nothing. So, instead, let me say I’m being candid when I say that we believe you and Mr. Greco would be better off going back to the United States and letting this Philby thing drop. I’m not suggesting you are in any physical danger—certainly not from us or the Russians—but I believe your alleging that Kim Philby is alive and well in Moscow could bring you and your magazine considerable legal trouble, probably a libel suit.”
         Katie felt sure Chambers knew that the Russians had stolen her pocket recorder with all her proof.
     “I’ll let my publisher and lawyers deal with that,” she said.
         “Even without proof, except your word against theirs?”
         “Who do you mean?”
         Chambers paused again, looked Katie straight in the eye, then at David.
         “In the first place,” he said, “libel is much easier to prove here in the UK than in your country, and easier still in Russia. Your insisting Philby is alive, without a mountain of proof, will probably not hold up in an English or Russian court of law.”
         David got up from his chair and said, “You’re beginning to sound intimidating. You saying the people we saw in Moscow were not the Philbys? Because we’re very sure they are.”
         “Not according to our friends, the Russians. They insist that Kim Philby is resting quietly in a Moscow cemetery and that those people you interviewed were actors who entertain investigators just like you.”
   “That’s what Kovalyov told us,” said Katie, “but I’m surprised you just accept what a former KGB agent would tell you about a turncoat British spy. A chapter we’d like to forget.”
         “Meaning,” said David, “you’d prefer not to find Philby alive, because it would open up MI6 to a whole new chapter of accusations of ineptitude?”
         “Mr. Greco, I can assure you that MI6 and a lot of people up and down what you Americans call a totem pole were embarrassed, scorned and lost their careers over the case. Possibly, even a suicide or two. But that was back in 1963—thirty-five years ago.  But let’s for the moment say that Kim Philby is alive and living in a flat in Moscow. He’s already published his memoirs, which were judged to be mostly nonsense and propaganda. What more can he add to the whole sordid story? Almost everyone on our side who was involved in the Philby case is dead now. If he is alive, he’d be well into his eighties, I believe, and very possibly senile. No one would take anything he has to say seriously. If there’s anything left to say at all.”
         Katie was finding it hard to believe what she was hearing. But David knew from experience that the last thing any police department wants to hear is that an old, burnt-out case with no new victims is suddenly reignited and casts further ignominy on personnel who had long ago retired or passed away. 
         Katie then remembered the line from The Third Man and repeated it:   “‘Leave death to the professionals.’ Is that what you’re trying to tell us, Mr. Chambers?”
       Chambers looked at Katie, took a breath and said softly, “I’m not trying to tell you anything, Miss Cavuto. You’re free to leave right now. I just hope you will take to heart what I said about publishing something you cannot prove and cannot go back to Moscow to get further support for your contention.”
         “Then we can go?” asked David.
         “My colleague will show you out. Enjoy London.”
         Katie and David collected their luggage from the outer office, assuming they’d been thoroughly gone through; Katie had not been asked to surrender her handbag.
         Outside, the two Americans caught the Heathrow Express (left) into London, arriving at Paddington Station, then catching a taxi back to the hotel they’d stayed at before going to Moscow. Both were dragged out by tension and the jet lag and the meeting with Chambers.
         “I’ve got a splitting headache,” said Katie, rubbing her temples.
         “Need aspirin?” asked David.
         “No, I’ve got some. Where are you off to?”
         “I’m going to try to find a drugstore and see what I can find out about those pills. And if they have them I’ll buy some for our man Philby.”
         “Love to tag along, but I’m just going to collapse. Let me know what you find out.”
         David would have preferred to stay in Katie’s room and massage her headache away, hear her murmur with her eyes closed and drop off to sleep, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it and feared that if he asked if she would like him to do it, she might say no—in the nicest possible way.  High school phobias never really fade when a guy wants to ask a girl out.