Secret agent, master gambler, notorious ladies' man — it's not hard to see why World War II intelligence agent Duško Popov helped inspire the creation of James Bond.
Duško Popov was a wealthy Serbian lawyer, a shameless playboy, and one of the greatest double agents of World War II. He passed false information to the Nazis for MI6, Britain’s foreign intelligence service, while also reporting to Yugoslavian officials.
Popov came to despise the Nazi Party while attending the University of Freiburg in Germany in the 1930s, and he was even accused of being a communist and briefly detained by the Gestapo in 1937. But this arrest didn’t stop the Abwehr, Germany’s military intelligence agency, from recruiting Popov as a spy a few years later.
Popov agreed to collect information for the Nazis — but then he went straight to MI6 and offered his services as a double agent.
When the Abwehr asked Popov to gather information about Pearl Harbor’s defense system, he alerted the FBI that an attack may be forthcoming. However, J. Edgar Hoover didn’t trust Popov because he was a counterspy, and he seemingly never passed the warning on to the U.S. military.
Public DomainDuško Popov, the secret agent who may have inspired James Bond, in 1941.
Meanwhile, back in Europe, Popov was sharing just enough legitimate information with the Germans to keep them from growing suspicious while still passing on fabricated military secrets meant to deceive them. One of his most dangerous missions was Operation Fortitude, part of an Allied deception strategy leading up to D-Day in 1944.
The goal was to convince the German High Command that the Allies were planning an invasion in Calais, not Normandy, in order to direct soldiers away from the site of the upcoming battle. The operation was successful, and D-Day became one of the major turning points of the war.
In addition to Duško Popov’s wartime accomplishments, his career as a spy may have also had an unexpected impact on pop culture.
Because Portugal remained neutral during World War II, Popov often traveled to Lisbon to report to his handlers in the Abwehr. During a stint there in the summer of 1941, he drew attention at Casino Estoril by putting down an extravagant bet during a game of baccarat.
This incident was witnessed by future author Ian Fleming, then working for Britain’s Naval Intelligence Division. After the war, Fleming went on to write his famous series of spy novels starring none other than James Bond, and it’s believed that Popov may have inspired the iconic character.
Duško Popov emerged from the war safely, without the Nazis discovering his true loyalties. He never intended to reveal his role as a double agent. But after a book about Britain’s Double-Cross System was published in the 1970s, Popov decided to write his own autobiography, Spy/Counterspy, detailing a life that even 007 himself would envy.
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