TLS signed “Yours ever, Ian Fleming,” one page both sides, 8 x 10, Kemsley House letterhead, March 30, 1950. Letter to journalist and spy Antony Terry of the British Press Centre, in part: “William Todd has just brought the January wordage statistics up-to-date, and he gives me the gratifying news that during that month you led all other correspondents in wordage published throughout our papers. This was a really outstanding performance after so short a period in your new assignment, and I send you my congratulations…One small point: on looking through the illustrated papers which you sent me, I found one or two articles which might have made excellent Sunday paper features—for instance, one of a German scientist's battle with a sea serpent in the Red Sea, one giving a German artist’s sketches of an underwater tank (military), and finally an excellent piece on the sole survivor of the Reamgen bridge fiasco, giving his reasons why the bridge was never blown…please keep an eye open for ideas off the usual track of the news and either send me cuttings or use them yourself as a basis for Sunday paper features…Please also do not forget my first guidance letter to you which contained suggestions for various semi-cultural and sociological airmailers, aimed in the first instance at the ‘Sunday Times.’ Don’t keep your nose too firmly to the grindstone. We can easily do without news coverage for a day or two, if you are giving your time and thought to other important side issues. At present no correspondent in Germany seems to be concerned in any way with literature, the arts, education, inventions and so forth. I would like you to be the first to touch on these aspects of German life, not forgetting that for two or three hundred years Germany has been associated in people’s minds with other things than war and politics.” Fleming handwrites the salutation, “Dear Antony Terry,” and adds his initials, “IF,” below a typed postscript, “Your admirable features for the ‘Press & Journal’ have made a grand debut.” In very good to fine condition, with creasing and handling wear, and a rusty pin hole to the upper left corner.
As foreign manager of the Kemsley newspaper group's Sunday Times, Fleming hired Antony Terry to be posted abroad. Terry had experience and expertise in German culture from his youth there and his service in World War II, making him an ideal man for the job. Utilizing this legitimate news organization as a cover, Fleming also ran an intelligence outfit known as Mercury which used foreign correspondents to gather information in sensitive foreign zones. A highly desirable letter from the career that later inspired the spy writer's world-famous stories.
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