Watching James Bond defend the Western World for over 50 years


I'll admit it, I'm a big James Bond fan, and have been one since I was a kid in the 1960s. He has always been a defender of the Western World, which includes England of course (he works for the British government) and also the United States (where I live). He's a defender of the status quo. That is, he's one of those mysterious people who work behind the scenes to keep everything the way it is, like the cable guy who makes sure that I always have an internet connection. And I've always admired people like that.

I started watching the movies in the 1970s, and I read the books, which were written beginning right after World War II in the early 1950s. The character had been in military service, and after the war ended, he was hired to fight in what was called "the Cold War", which was between the West and the East.

Bond drank his martinis made out of vodka, not gin, because he spent a lot of time in Russia, which became the Soviet Union after World War II. He was a spy, and the idea was for him to get ahead of any potential trouble that could lead to war, by being an assassin. Whether people like him actually existed I have no idea, and I'd really rather not know. This was just fantasy for me. My main interest was in the cars he drove, and the beautiful women who admired him wherever he went.

I followed the character into the 1970s, when the United State's relationship with the U.S.S.R (Russia) was still tense. There was some mention of detente, but mostly the Russians were still clearly seen as enemies of the Western World. And then it got very complicated in the 1987, when James Bond's adventuring in "The Living Daylights" teamed him up with some people who were fighting against the Russians.


Figuring out who, politically, were the bad guys got very confusing for James Bond, and the Western World. True history is very complicated, and doesn't fit well into fiction.

Speaking for myself, I like both fantasy and reality. My main interest is the history of Arizona, and the West, and there are times when I like to find out the truth (even if it's painful) and times when I want to watch a "spaghetti Western" and enjoy the West of the Imagination.
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