常時英心:言葉の森から 1.0

約10年間,はてなダイアリーで英語表現の落穂拾いを行ってきました。現在はAmeba Blogに2.0を開設し,継続中です。こちらはしばらくアーカイブとして維持します。

bring/come in from the cold

この記事にはまいった!噂のようなものは見聞きしていましたが...。そうかあのGreensもMaughamも...。ところでこの見出しどんな意味なのでしょうか。せめて、小山本くんに答えてもらいましょう。とにかく驚いた。「大阪地検のエース」が広大法学部出身との事実を読んだときと同じくらいの衝撃です。(UG)
Book brings Britain's real-life James Bonds in from the cold
Britain's foreign intelligence agency MI6 published the first authorised history of its early years Tuesday, revealing the exploits of both real-life James Bonds and its worst ever traitor.
"MI6" was written by Keith Jeffery, a history professor at Queen's University in Belfast who was granted access to unseen archives from the shadowy agency's creation in 1909 until the start of the Cold War in 1949.
In tales of derring-do worthy of a spy novel, its agents blew up ships and infiltrated Nazi-controlled Europe and the Soviet Union, while finding time to sip champagne and refine their seduction techniques.
The book also confirms for the first time that the famed British authors Graham Greene, W. Somerset Maugham and Arthur Ransome were members of MI6 staff.
Jeffery said that he had been granted access to the "holy grail of British archives", adding that unlike the papers of other British intelligence agencies the ones he had seen would never be made public.
"It was a bit like an opportunity of being, perhaps not behind enemy lines, but like being dropped like an agent into a foreign country," he said at the launch of the 810-page book at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London.
One spy, Bill "Biffy" Dunderdale, was a close friend of Ian Fleming, the author of the "James Bond" novels - and Dunderdale's "penchant for pretty women and fast cars" may have made him the model for 007, the book says.
Jeffery says talk of agents having a "licence to kill" was, however, a myth, with the MI6 archives showing that the agency was involved in the illegal killings of only two people in the period the book covers.
But its agents did bomb five ships as part of a "Operation Embarrass", a campaign to discourage post-war Jewish refugees from sailing to then British-controlled Palestine.
MI6 also spied on its own allies including the United States and the "Free French" of World War II resistance hero Charles de Gaulle.
And it also shows early signs of the treachery of Harold "Kim" Philby, who rose to the upper ranks of MI6 before he was exposed as a Soviet double agent and member of the infamous Cambridge spy ring.
Former MI6 head Sir John Scarlett, who left the service last year, said at the book launch that authorising the history was a "radical step... there has been nothing like it before and there are no plans for something like it in the future."
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/book-brings-britains-reallife-james-bonds-in-from-the-cold-2085709.html
             
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/A30/20100530/1275213663
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/A30/20100605/1275721920