In Ian Fleming's James Bond novels and the derived films, the 00 Section of MI6 are considered the secret service's elite. A 00 agent holds a licence to kill in the field, at his discretion, to complete the mission. Goldfinger establishes that the section usually has only three agents at a time; the films, beginning with Thunderball, establish the number of 00 agents as fewer than 12.
In the British and Commonwealth armed forces, soldiers and off...
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In Ian Fleming's James Bond novels and the derived films, the 00 Section of MI6 are considered the secret service's elite. A 00 agent holds a licence to kill in the field, at his discretion, to complete the mission. Goldfinger establishes that the section usually has only three agents at a time; the films, beginning with Thunderball, establish the number of 00 agents as fewer than 12.
In the British and Commonwealth armed forces, soldiers and officers are assigned identity numbers; the United States military does likewise. During Ian Fleming's work in Vichy France, an agent's anonymity was imperative, and, when the agent was military, it was convenient to use the last three digits of the agent's number as identification.
In World War II, Britain's Special Operations Executive agents did not have identifiers assigned to them such as the 00 or related 'systems' of nomenclature. Specific agents would be known to high command by their own names, and when deniability was at stake, their...
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