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The Spying Game
Have you ever wondered whether the world of James Bond is fact or fiction ? Well, here are a few answers.
In 1965, the KGB, the Soviet Union's notorious secret intelligence agency, invented something called a 'Lipstick gun'. Britain's secret intelligence service, MI6, promply referred to it as 'The kiss of death'.
The lipstick was employed by KGB operatives during the Cold War. This 4.5 millimetre single shot weapon was disguised as a tube of lipstick, easily concealed in a handbag. The existence of such a clever weapon was first detected by British intelligence agents at 'Checkpoint Charlie' at the border between west and east Berlin in the late 1960s.
Earlier, East Germany's infamous cold-blooded 'Ministry for State Security', known as the Stasi, developed a sub-miniature camera allowing agents to take photographs of internal or external 'enemies' , while pretending to check the time of day on their watch. It used a particular sort of film with only six exposures.
The East Germans invented this piece of espionage technology as early as 1949, and it helped the Stasi keep files on over six million East Germans.
These devices, amongst many others, are now on view at the International Spy Museum, at 800 F Street North West, Washington DC.
And just to add a bit of glamour , there is also on display, James Bond 007's original silver Aston Martin DB5, used in the film 'Goldfinger'.
But, beware, machine weapons are still hidden behind the rear number plate.
