Supposedly, Rosa Klebb defected from SMERSH to work for SPECTRE and it was kept so secretly that only the highest of Soviet officials knew about it. But if Soviet officials knew about it, wouldn't they wish to make that public? She was working against them on the opposing team by aligning herself with SPECTRE.
shareYou have to remember, the Soviets were far more interested in saving public face than exposing their enemies. Defecting was viewed as spitting in the face of Mother Russia, and the upper echelons relentlessly promoted their country as a worker's paradise on earth. Any short-term benefits that came from publicizing Klebb's defection would be offset by the (perceived) major public relations hit that would follow such an announcement. In other words: "If your country is so awesome and devotion-inspiring, why are people leaving?"
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Yeah I agree. This is what the movie seemed to be implying. Rosa defected and the upper ranks hid it to avoid the embarrassment.
I dont think they were banking on her returning to Soviet territory to use her previous rank to influence things.
I think the movie probably fudged that question about as well as they could. But the whole thing about Klebb's "defection" really just points out how the Bond movies went totally out of their way, to the point of inventing lame/confusing subplots, in order to AVOID saying anything bad or unflattering about the Soviets. That's definitely (IMHO) the wimpiest aspect of the series. In the novel of FRWL, Ian Fleming's plot presents the reader with a very direct, straightforward attempt of the Soviet secret police to assassinate a British agent, just because he was a British agent. The movies weren't about to go within 100 miles of that!
shareThe books show Fleming's view of Britain's place in the world. So in FRWL the Soviets want to kill the best espionage agent in the world, who is British. By the time you get to YOLT Britain has declined to such an extent that Bond is sent to Japan to ask them for access to their intelligence network.
Fleming himself stopped using the Russians as the villains in Thunderball back in the late fifties and invented SPECTRE, though he did bring them back in TMWTGG.
Sort of, but not quite. SPECTRE was developed for a potential Bond movie, Longitude 78 West. The movie didn't come off, so Fleming used SPECTRE in Thunderball, based on ideas conceived in the screenplay. He was sued by Kevin McClory, who owned the screenplay rights and ended up settling. Eon made an agreement with McClory, to adapt the book, but McClory retained ownership of Bloefeld and SPECTRE, which is why they disapepar, after a while.
Fleming had moved away from SMERSH in a lot of his books.They disappeared after Live and Let Die, then reappeared for From Russia With Love. Moonraker features Hugo Drax, who is an independent. Diamonds Are Forever features mobsters. They return in FRWL; but, Dr No features him working with the Russians; but, not SMERSH.
Fortunately, Ah keep mah feathers numbered for just such an emergency!
I don't know what the reasoning behind adding SPECTRE into FRWL was, but I think it works and is better than the book. Having SPECTRE playing the Russians and British against each other is a lot more interesting/entertaining in my opinion than just UK vs USSR. In the book the Russians plan seems pretty weak, they make some moves which seem pretty stupid, and basically the whole idea of choosing British Intelligence/Bond as their target is subject to some pretty flimsy reasoning. Fleming spends the better part of 2 chapters trying to rationalize the whole caper as if he realized the whole thing was kind of a reach but needed to find some way to justify it to the audience. The movie, with the inclusion of SPECTRE, makes much more sense to me. For instance the two assassination attempts on Kerim, in the movie the Russians are lashing out at him because they don't know what's going on and SPECTRE has pinned a couple of deaths on the British. In the book it just doesn't seem to go along with the rest of their plan, which is supposed to be subtle and not make Bond too suspicious. They try to blow him up just before Bond arrived and then try to kill him at the gypsy camp right in front of Bond. Not exactly subtle and had they succeeded probably would have hurt their plans more than helped. The whole thing relied on Bond (and M) being comfortable/confident enough to take the more dangerous Oriental Express exit instead of just getting on a plane. It was supposed to look like the Russians knew nothing about the defection (otherwise they would have arrested her), yet suddenly they declared war on Bond's ally and head of Station T. I don't know, so many things in the book seemed flimsy whereas in the movie they seem perfectly natural thanks to SPECTRE being involved.
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