James Bond, Maxwell Smart, and Illya Kuryakin were among the spy fiction characters that captured Americans' imaginations in the ‘60’s and let them dream of a life filled with intrigue and adventure.

Among those swept up in the spy fiction craze was Danny Biederman, a Hollywood screenwriter specializing in movie and TV spy fiction, who realized at an early age that collecting spy show memorabilia was safer than actually being a spy.

So it was with interest that the Nest discovered the CIA’s Fine Arts Commission is now hosting the first major exhibition of 400 props, photographs, and works of art from Biederman’s private collection of 4,000 items - and they've put a selection of their gear online too.

The Spy Fi Archives web site is a look at how Hollywood viewed intelligence work during the Cold War and beyond. When President John F. Kennedy revealed his fondness for Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels in the early 1960s, the spy fiction craze began in the United States and internationally.

While real CIA intelligence officers were tight-lipped about their life-and-death cold war mission, the movie industry filled the void with glamour, intrigue, and in the case of Roger Moore - cheesy humor - with some interesting implications for the real world of intelligence.

The Shoe Phone and the Pen Communicator were fantasy precursors to today’s wireless communications. James 'Wicked Wild' West’s sleeve gun device a variation on the Office of Strategic Services’ glove pistol from WW II, fulfilling the spy world’s need for concealment.

These are examples of art imitating life.

Their world also reflected the diversity in personnel necessary for an effective intelligence gathering organization - from Bill Cosby in "I Spy" to Diana Rigg in "The Avengers".

You can see the CIA's tribute to Spy-Fi over at ...

http://www.odci.gov/spy_fi/spy_fi_archive.html