Editing From Russia, with Love (novel) (section)

===Plot inspirations===
[[File:Enigma-G.jpg|thumb|upright|alt=A mechanical machine, much like an old-fashioned typewriter, is in a wooden box|The [[Enigma machine]] was used as the basis for the fictional Soviet Spektor decoding machine]]

As with several of his works, Fleming appropriated the names or backgrounds of people he knew or had heard of for the story's characters: Red Grant, a Jamaican river guide—whom Fleming's biographer [[Andrew Lycett]] described as "a cheerful, voluble giant of villainous aspect"—was used for the half-German, half-Irish assassin.{{sfn|Lycett|1996|p=282}}{{sfn|Macintyre|2008|p=90}} Rosa Klebb was partly based on [[Zoya Voskresenskaya|Colonel Rybkina]], a real-life member of the Lenin Military-Political Academy about whom Fleming had written an article for ''The Sunday Times''.{{sfn|Macintyre|2008|p=93}}{{sfn|Halloran|1986|p=163}} The Spektor machine used as the bait for Bond was not a [[Cold War]] device, but had its roots in the Second World War [[Enigma machine]], which Fleming had tried to obtain while serving in the [[Naval Intelligence Division (United Kingdom)|Naval Intelligence Division]].{{sfn|Chancellor|2005|p=97}}

The idea of the Orient Express came from two sources: Fleming had returned from the Istanbul conference in 1955 by the train, but found the experience drab, partly because the restaurant car was closed.{{sfn|Benson|1988|p=12}}{{sfn|Black|2005|p=30}} He also knew of the story of Eugene Karp and his journey on the Orient Express: Karp was a US naval attaché and intelligence agent based in Budapest who, in February 1950, took the Orient Express from Budapest to Paris, carrying a number of papers about blown US spy networks in the [[Eastern Bloc]]. Soviet assassins were already on the train. The conductor was drugged and Karp's body was found shortly afterwards in a railway tunnel south of [[Salzburg]].{{sfn|Chancellor|2005|p=96}} Fleming had a long-standing interest in trains and, following his involvement in a near-fatal crash in 1927, associated them with danger; they also feature in ''Live and Let Die'', ''Diamonds Are Forever'' and ''[[The Man with the Golden Gun (novel)|The Man with the Golden Gun]]''.{{sfn|Chancellor|2005|p=16}}

The cultural historian [[Jeremy Black (historian)|Jeremy Black]] points out that ''From Russia, with Love'' was written and published at a time when tensions between East and West were on the rise and public awareness of the Cold War was high. A [[Operation Gold|joint British and American operation]] to tap into landline communication of the [[Soviet Army]] headquarters in Berlin using a tunnel into the [[Soviet occupation zone|Soviet-occupied zone]] had been publicly uncovered by the Soviets in April 1956. The same month the diver [[Lionel Crabb]] had gone missing on a mission to photograph the propeller of the Soviet cruiser ''[[Soviet cruiser Ordzhonikidze|Ordzhonikidze]]'' while the ship was moored in [[Portsmouth Harbour]], an incident that was much reported and discussed in British newspapers. In October and November that year a [[Hungarian Revolution of 1956|popular uprising]] in Hungary was repressed by Soviet forces.{{sfn|Black|2005|p=28}}