http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/ London Sunday Times February 13 2000 CANADA � Fleming: flunked first test Camp X spy school gave Fleming licence to kill Peter Conradi ON A secluded estate on the Canadian side of Lake Ontario, some 2,000 spies, resistance fighters and allied officers - including Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond - gathered during the second world war to learn sabotage, counterfeiting, code-breaking and how to kill silently. More than half a century later Jeremy McCormack, 35, a Canadian film-maker, has pieced together a detailed account of a complex so secret that, even now, his government refuses to acknowledge its existence. Former British, American and Canadian graduates of the camp have described for the first time in his television documentary, Camp X, what happened at North America's first school for secret agents. They confirmed that Fleming, who was personal assistant to the director of British Naval Intelligence, trained there, fuelling speculation that the experience provided material for his Bond novels. The camp was established in 1939 on 280 acres of farmland, 30 miles east of Toronto. The initiative came from William Stephenson, a colourful, Canadian-born millionaire industrialist and first world war flying ace, who was a friend of Winston Churchill. Nothing is left of it now, apart from a small patch of grass marked Intrepid Park. American officers soon be-gan training, too, even though the United States did not enter the war until 1941. Such was the secrecy surrounding their presence that even William Lyon MacKenzie King, the Canadian prime minister, was not told about the facility. Many of the instructors were British: Major William Fairbairn, the British former head of the Shanghai police and an expert in martial arts, taught recruits to kill with a doubled-bladed knife. Paul Dehn, who later co-wrote the script of Fleming's Goldfinger, was head of propaganda. Besides Fleming, other prominent pupils included "Wild" Bill Donovan, who went on to found the Office of Strategic Services, the fore-runner of the Central Intelligence Agency, and David Ogilvy, who helped set up Ogilvy & Mather, the advertising agency. The motto on the wall of one training room read: "Kill or be killed." John Ainsworth, who trained there, recalls an exercise in which he was ordered to kill a German at a hotel in town, who was said to "know too much". To test his determination, he was told the gun contained live bullets, although they were actually blanks. He obeyed orders. Fleming was given the same test, but flunked it. "Ian said, 'I can't do it, I can't shoot an unarmed man,' " Ainsworth said. "He learnt to, though. The conversion of Ian Fleming was extraordinary." Recruits were also trained in underwater sabotage, had live ammunition fired over their heads and received lessons in lock-picking from burglars. Iroquois Indians taught them to move stealthily through the woods. Women learnt the art of extracting information in bed. German prisoners of war from a nearby camp were brought in to prepare students for capture by subjecting them to mock interrogations, beating their feet with rubber hoses and attaching electrodes to their testicles. "They did everything possible, except kill you or do something that would do you permanent damage," Ainsworth said. The camp was always a centre for code-breaking and signals, relaying some of the German Enigma codes broken at Bletchley Park in Britain. Those who attended the camp were sworn not to divulge any information about it. Decades later, still bound by both the British and Canadian official secrets acts, many remain reluctant to talk about Camp X. Additional reporting: George Clogg, Vancouver
CANADA
Fleming: flunked first test Camp X spy school gave Fleming licence to kill Peter Conradi
ON A secluded estate on the Canadian side of Lake Ontario, some 2,000 spies, resistance fighters and allied officers - including Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond - gathered during the second world war to learn sabotage, counterfeiting, code-breaking and how to kill silently. More than half a century later Jeremy McCormack, 35, a Canadian film-maker, has pieced together a detailed account of a complex so secret that, even now, his government refuses to acknowledge its existence.
Former British, American and Canadian graduates of the camp have described for the first time in his television documentary, Camp X, what happened at North America's first school for secret agents.
They confirmed that Fleming, who was personal assistant to the director of British Naval Intelligence, trained there, fuelling speculation that the experience provided material for his Bond novels.
The camp was established in 1939 on 280 acres of farmland, 30 miles east of Toronto. The initiative came from William Stephenson, a colourful, Canadian-born millionaire industrialist and first world war flying ace, who was a friend of Winston Churchill. Nothing is left of it now, apart from a small patch of grass marked Intrepid Park.
American officers soon be-gan training, too, even though the United States did not enter the war until 1941. Such was the secrecy surrounding their presence that even William Lyon MacKenzie King, the Canadian prime minister, was not told about the facility.
Many of the instructors were British: Major William Fairbairn, the British former head of the Shanghai police and an expert in martial arts, taught recruits to kill with a doubled-bladed knife. Paul Dehn, who later co-wrote the script of Fleming's Goldfinger, was head of propaganda.
Besides Fleming, other prominent pupils included "Wild" Bill Donovan, who went on to found the Office of Strategic Services, the fore-runner of the Central Intelligence Agency, and David Ogilvy, who helped set up Ogilvy & Mather, the advertising agency. The motto on the wall of one training room read: "Kill or be killed."
John Ainsworth, who trained there, recalls an exercise in which he was ordered to kill a German at a hotel in town, who was said to "know too much". To test his determination, he was told the gun contained live bullets, although they were actually blanks. He obeyed orders.
Fleming was given the same test, but flunked it. "Ian said, 'I can't do it, I can't shoot an unarmed man,' " Ainsworth said. "He learnt to, though. The conversion of Ian Fleming was extraordinary."
Recruits were also trained in underwater sabotage, had live ammunition fired over their heads and received lessons in lock-picking from burglars. Iroquois Indians taught them to move stealthily through the woods. Women learnt the art of extracting information in bed.
German prisoners of war from a nearby camp were brought in to prepare students for capture by subjecting them to mock interrogations, beating their feet with rubber hoses and attaching electrodes to their testicles. "They did everything possible, except kill you or do something that would do you permanent damage," Ainsworth said.
The camp was always a centre for code-breaking and signals, relaying some of the German Enigma codes broken at Bletchley Park in Britain.
Those who attended the camp were sworn not to divulge any information about it. Decades later, still bound by both the British and Canadian official secrets acts, many remain reluctant to talk about Camp X.
Additional reporting: George Clogg, Vancouver
