The Man with the Golden Typewriter by Bloomsbury Publishing
Authors: Bloomsbury Publishing
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âAll but tirelessly, we taxed and challenged each other over the years, each accusing each other for what he himself was. I fancied myself the realist and he the romantic. He fancied me as the romanticist and he the realist. [. . .] I explained to him after the manner of the cold-blooded Genoese of whom I am born, that the romantic was the reality, and in no case more than his. Unflaggingly, he on his part, declared that the harsh physical world was the reality and that romanticism was an escape. Immersed in the American school of Walter Winchell and Damon Runyan, to me the world was a vivid, magical, series of adventures, New York a Baghdad on the subway. Fleming vividly accepted this â as a fascinating fiction. He reminded me of a certain 19th Century boulevardier of Paris, who, it was said, would lapse into melancholy pensiveness, unable to reconcile himself to the death of Henry of Navarre, four centuries gone. Fleming, though he did not know it and would not accept it, was a knight who could not reconcile himself to the fact that women were not Elaines in ivory towers, and that the world was not one of black and white values.â
All the same, Cuneo admitted that Fleming was quite happy to ignore the ivory tower if it suited him. On a wartime visit to London he brought a selection of nylon stockings, at the time all but impossible to obtain in Britain.
âOne day I dropped by Commander Flemingâs desk and threw on it a half dozen pair. âLong, medium and short,â I said. âI assume youâre playing the field.â âActually, Iâm not,â he said, and feeling I might have invaded his sensibilities, I said, âGood, there are others who are,â and reached for the packet. With a card-sharpâs fleetness of hand he was stuffing them into his Navy jacket. âNo,â he said. âIâm not but some of my friends are.â He assumed his attitude of thoughtfulness and added beatifically, âTheyâll be glad to have them.â
âWe roared with laughter. It seems to me we were always roaring with laughter and this is how I principally remember him. [. . .]
âWe almost suffered emotional âbendsâ the day the war ended. Tension went out like a power line turned off. When I came into Billâs office the next day, he shoved at me a copy of the London Times and pointed a finger to a single line. It read, âThe Home Secretary told the Commonslast night that the emergency having ended, habeas corpus was restoredâ. âI guess thatâs what it was all about,â he said. âI guess it was,â I said, and we both went over to â21â.
âLike it or leave it, aside from its horrors, you miss the frightful challenge of war. I think Fleming missed it as much as most; he seemed both grumpy and disconsolate.â
Their friendship continued after the war and became even closer when Cuneo was appointed President of NANA, the North American Newspaper Alliance, a once-famous news agency in which Fleming and his friend Ivar Bryce became involved and which they hoped might still have legs.
TO ERNEST CUNEO, North American Newspaper Alliance, 229 West 43rd Street, New York 36
As Vice-President of NANAâs European branch, and with Bryce as a roving Vice-Chairman, Fleming arranged for an office to be opened near his own, into which moved one Silvia Short who acted as both London Editor and Manager. While co-ordinating transmissions from Kemsley Newspapers he also embarked on a succession of deals to develop new outlets for NANAâs services (the details of which are, alas, unrecorded), and to organise contributors. He sought, too, to clarify the rates that their correspondents received.
8th June, 1953
Dear Ernie,
In great haste.
1. Please see my letter of May 29th. The suggested payment to Manor was twenty
dollars
, not pounds. No wonder the collective hairs of N.A.N.A. rose on its
âAll but tirelessly, we taxed and challenged each other over the years, each accusing each other for what he himself was. I fancied myself the realist and he the romantic. He fancied me as the romanticist and he the realist. [. . .] I explained to him after the manner of the cold-blooded Genoese of whom I am born, that the romantic was the reality, and in no case more than his. Unflaggingly, he on his part, declared that the harsh physical world was the reality and that romanticism was an escape. Immersed in the American school of Walter Winchell and Damon Runyan, to me the world was a vivid, magical, series of adventures, New York a Baghdad on the subway. Fleming vividly accepted this â as a fascinating fiction. He reminded me of a certain 19th Century boulevardier of Paris, who, it was said, would lapse into melancholy pensiveness, unable to reconcile himself to the death of Henry of Navarre, four centuries gone. Fleming, though he did not know it and would not accept it, was a knight who could not reconcile himself to the fact that women were not Elaines in ivory towers, and that the world was not one of black and white values.â
All the same, Cuneo admitted that Fleming was quite happy to ignore the ivory tower if it suited him. On a wartime visit to London he brought a selection of nylon stockings, at the time all but impossible to obtain in Britain.
âOne day I dropped by Commander Flemingâs desk and threw on it a half dozen pair. âLong, medium and short,â I said. âI assume youâre playing the field.â âActually, Iâm not,â he said, and feeling I might have invaded his sensibilities, I said, âGood, there are others who are,â and reached for the packet. With a card-sharpâs fleetness of hand he was stuffing them into his Navy jacket. âNo,â he said. âIâm not but some of my friends are.â He assumed his attitude of thoughtfulness and added beatifically, âTheyâll be glad to have them.â
âWe roared with laughter. It seems to me we were always roaring with laughter and this is how I principally remember him. [. . .]
âWe almost suffered emotional âbendsâ the day the war ended. Tension went out like a power line turned off. When I came into Billâs office the next day, he shoved at me a copy of the London Times and pointed a finger to a single line. It read, âThe Home Secretary told the Commonslast night that the emergency having ended, habeas corpus was restoredâ. âI guess thatâs what it was all about,â he said. âI guess it was,â I said, and we both went over to â21â.
âLike it or leave it, aside from its horrors, you miss the frightful challenge of war. I think Fleming missed it as much as most; he seemed both grumpy and disconsolate.â
Their friendship continued after the war and became even closer when Cuneo was appointed President of NANA, the North American Newspaper Alliance, a once-famous news agency in which Fleming and his friend Ivar Bryce became involved and which they hoped might still have legs.
TO ERNEST CUNEO, North American Newspaper Alliance, 229 West 43rd Street, New York 36
As Vice-President of NANAâs European branch, and with Bryce as a roving Vice-Chairman, Fleming arranged for an office to be opened near his own, into which moved one Silvia Short who acted as both London Editor and Manager. While co-ordinating transmissions from Kemsley Newspapers he also embarked on a succession of deals to develop new outlets for NANAâs services (the details of which are, alas, unrecorded), and to organise contributors. He sought, too, to clarify the rates that their correspondents received.
8th June, 1953
Dear Ernie,
In great haste.
1. Please see my letter of May 29th. The suggested payment to Manor was twenty
dollars
, not pounds. No wonder the collective hairs of N.A.N.A. rose on its
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