During the 1940s, a playboy spy became one of wartime’s most successful double agents, as well as the reported inspiration behind James Bond.
A gambler and womanizer who spoke several languages, Dusko Popov was approached by a friend working for the Abwehr, Germany’s military intelligence.
But Dusko was vehemently anti-Nazi. He went straight to the British and volunteered his services, adopting the codename 'Agent Tricycle'. Intelligence officers then created realistic - but false - information for Dusko to pass back to his Nazi spymaster.
And it was during this time, that Dusko’s path crossed with a British naval intelligence officer called Ian Fleming, later the creator of James Bond.
Jane Wilkinson tells the story using BBC archives.
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(Photo: Dusko Popov. Credit: AFP via Getty Images)
