Bond gadgets: fact, fiction, fun

Nov. 18, 2002 - The girls, you could argue, are just a distraction in James Bond films. The gadgets are the real stars, and time and time again, they save Bond’s skin. Now if you’re the type who can’t help un-suspending your disbelief, then you can’t help wondering just how realistic Bond gadgets are. CIA-types and geeks love to bicker over that one. But the question is really irrelevant, according to Bond techno-watchers. What’s important is that 007’s gadgets have worked at all, helping shape a generation of Baby Boomers who — far from fearing technology, like their parents — embraced gadgetry as a potential electronic panacea for the world’s ills.

There's little to dispute that Bond’s electronic wizardry has had its moments. Both the car phone and the digital watch made their Silver Screen debut thanks to Bond — not to mention the debuts of the combination Rolex watch/saw and the seaworthy Lotus Esprit. Bond films have always tried to be “two minutes ahead of reality,” says John Cork, co-author of “James Bond: the Legacy.”

In fact, Bond was often farther out than that. It’s nearly impossible, for example, with our sophisticated 2002 eyes, to understand how revolutionary was in 1965. Scuba diving is a recreational sport today, but 40 years ago, few had seen images of submarine life. By filming much of “Thunderball” under water in the Bahamas, showing Bond scrambling about in everything from scuba gear to mini-attack submarines, the film quite literally introduced Bond fans to a whole new world. During the next four decades, Bond has regularly used gadgets to take him and his fans to places they had never seen — and he’s inspired many to follow in his footsteps.

“I was mesmerized by ‘Thunderball.’ To see an enormous underwater battle, it was tremendous,” said Chase Brandon, a 30-year CIA veteran who now acts as the agency’s liaison to Hollywood. Brandon is a perfect choice for the job. He does a dead-on voice imitation of Sean Connery; and in his office hang framed LPs that are the soundtracks to Thunderball, and He was a boy when the first Bond films hit, and when the CIA recruited him in college, he didn’t think twice.

“I didn’t really think everybody got an Aston Martin with ejector seats. But I did hope there would be some neat equipment and lovely ladies, and there were,” he said

But Bond’s gadgets didn’t only inspire future secret agents; they inspired scientists, too, says Cork.

“I’m out on this book tour, and I can’t tell you how many engineers have come up to me and said ‘I got interested in engineering because of James Bond.’ ”

The movies don't get it
Well, both future agents and engineers set themselves up for disappointment that way, says spy expert Keith Melton, because real-world spies actually avoid gadgets as best they can. Melton, author of “The Ultimate Spy Book,” claims to have the world’s largest collection of former KGB gadgetry. His cache is on display at both The International Spy Museum in Washington and at the CIA’s spy museum. Melton thinks Bond’s techno-wizardry is pure hogwash.

“The movies just don’t get it,” Melton says. “A spy wants the fewest gadgets possible. Because being caught with a gadget is a death warrant. ... There is no real-world counterpart to a car that shoots with machine guns.” Real spies carry as little technology as possible, and draw as little attention to themselves as possible — hardly 007’s style. “The world of James Bond is fiction. Bond wouldn’t last 4 minutes as a real spy.”

While mini-cameras and small imaging devices for document copying are real-world inventions, most undercover work really is decidedly low-tech, agrees E. Peter Earnest, the Executive director of the International Spy Museum — himself a CIA agent for 36 years. Take the case of FBI turncoat Robert Hanssen.

“What he used was simple technology. He wrapped stuff in plastic bags and hid it under a bridge. That kind of primitive signaling has been used for a couple of thousand years,” he said.

Throwing cold water
Of course the CIA is going to throw cold water on Bond gadgets, says Carl Hindmarch, director of a new a new National Geographic Channel documentary named “Spy Tools.” The film debuts Nov. 24, to coincide with the release of and is hosted by former Bond actor

“If you talk to any intelligence service member, they’re going to downplay all this,” Hindmarch said. “This is basically an industry about keeping secrets.”

But in the documentary, Hindmarch got several former agents to open up about their tricks of the trade, and they are surprisingly Bond-like, he said.

“The briefcase used in is almost an identical copy of equipment that was created for the Second World War,” Hindmarch said. Simple exploding suitcase, or briefcases with hidden compartments, were standard equipment. So were audio and video surveillance equipment that’s in dozens of miniature shapes and flavors in Bond films — not unlike a 1960s CIA experiment which Hindmarch will reveal in his film in which an audio bug was inside a cat, to take advantage of the cat’s superior hearing skills.

But Bond filmmaker Michael Wilson deserves ever more credit than that, Cork says. Not only did Bond movies accurately reflect current spook tech toys; in some cases, the movies have predicted them. Military designers watched Bond films for inspiration, he said, and the films gadgetry helped inspired a prototype called the SmartTruck, a technology-loaded, anti-terrorism personal mover. And the Star Trek-esque cloaking device which will hide Bond’s Aston Martin in “Die Another Day” is based on real LCD panel technology that’s been demonstrated for use in concealed military tanks on the battlefield.

“Michael Wilson likes to understand how it could be real, how it could work,” Cork said. “His modus operandi is to be within the realm of possibility.”

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