Ī naval theme runs throughout Fleming's description of M and his surroundings, and his character was described by journalist Ben Macintyre as 'every inch the naval martinet'.

In the final novel of the series, The Man with the Golden Gun, M's full identity is revealed as Vice Admiral Sir Miles Messervy KCMG Messervy had been appointed Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service after his predecessor had been assassinated at his desk. John Pearson, The Life of Ian Fleming Novels įleming's third Bond novel, Moonraker, establishes M's initials as 'M**** M*******' and his first name is subsequently revealed to be Miles. While Fleming was young, his mother was certainly one of the few people he was frightened of, and her sternness toward him, her unexplained demands, and her remorseless insistence on success find a curious and constant echo in the way M handles that hard-ridden, hard-killing agent, 007. There is reason for thinking that a more telling lead to the real identity of M lies in the fact that as a boy Fleming often called his mother M. . Fleming's biographer John Pearson also hypothesised that Fleming's characterisation of M reflects memories of his mother: Melville recruited Sidney Reilly into government service and foiled an assassination plot against Queen Victoria on her 1887 Golden Jubilee. Īnother possibility for the model of M was William Melville, an Irishman who became the head of the Secret Service Bureau, the forerunner of both MI5 and MI6: Melville was referred to within government circles as M. The tradition of the head of MI6 signing their name with a single letter came from Mansfield Smith-Cumming, who would sign his initial 'C', with green ink. A further inspiration for M was Maxwell Knight, the head of MI5, who signed his memos as 'M' and whom Fleming knew well. Other possible inspirations include Lieutenant Colonel Sir Claude Dansey, the deputy head of MI6 and head of the wartime Z network, who achieved different interpretations of his character from those who knew him: Malcolm Muggeridge thought him 'the only professional in MI6', while Hugh Trevor-Roper considered Dansey to be 'an utter shit, corrupt, incompetent, but with a certain low cunning'.

After Fleming's death, Godfrey complained 'He turned me into that unsavoury character, M.' Rear Admiral John Henry Godfrey, Fleming's superior at the Naval Intelligence Division and a basis for M.įleming based much of M's character on Rear Admiral John Godfrey, who was Fleming's superior at the Naval Intelligence Division during the Second World War.

My Secret by Mallory West