LONDON - Controversy has been roiling the MI6 Intelligence Service after news broke of sexual misconduct allegations against a top agent named James Bond. The agent, who also goes by the name 007, stands accused of harassing dozens of women over the course of 55 years.
The allegations began last Thursday when Tiffany Case, a former diamond importer, reported a series of incidents involving Bond over the course of several weeks. According to Case, Bond repeatedly made suggestive comment about her appearance, broke into her hotel room, then later ran his hand along her backside and stuffed a cassette tape into her bikini bottom.
Bond has denied the allegations. “I remember the sequence of events very differently,” he said in a statement on Friday. He then added that in his recollection, Case’s employer was involved in an attempt to build a super-laser and take over the world, forcing the two into a necessary professional relationship.
After Case’s allegations became public, other women began coming forward with similar stories of harassment and abuse. On Saturday, Kissy Suzuki, a government employee in Japan, claimed that Bond repeatedly chased her through subway tunnels and pressured her into an unwanted sexual relationship by suggesting that it was necessary in order to stop a nuclear war.
Common threads appear throughout many of the stories that women are now bringing forward. Bond often brought women to isolated locations, such as airplanes, private Caribbean beaches, life rafts in the middle of the ocean, ski slopes, cable cars, uranium mines, or the top of the Golden Gate Bridge. He frequently offered them alcoholic beverages or attempted to impress them with various gadgets concealed in his clothing and business supplies. Many women report that Bond made unwanted advances and continued to pressure them after they had signaled unwillingness with their words or body language.
Women who were facing Bond’s advances often received little support from their employers. Pussy Galore, a pilot and leader of an all-female flight squad in the employ of international trading magnate Auric Goldfinger, says that Bond made aggressive sexual comments towards her while on an airplane flight and then assaulted her on a horse farm owned by her employer. She says that Goldfinger encouraged Bond’s behavior and refused to investigate allegations of harassment.
Bond’s long career has seen controversy before. He has earlier been implicated with involvement in the destruction of privately owned volcanoes and ice palaces and has been charged with reckless endangerment and failure to return stolen property.
The head of MI6, M, held a press conference to address the allegations. “We are conducting a thorough investigation of all of the allegations made against Mr. Bond”, she said on Monday. “We take this matter very seriously and have relieved Mr. Bond of his duty to investigate corporate villains plotting world domination until further notice.”
