TLS signed “Yours ever, Ian Fleming,” one page both sides, 8 x 10, Kemsley House letterhead, April 11, 1950. Letter to journalist and spy Antony Terry, in part: "Seal rang me up in the morning and it is clear that the Foreign Office are getting very busy as a result of my broadside. Fortunately Seal was Private Secretary to the First Sea Lord during most of my naval career, and we know each other well. I am not sending you a copy of the financial memorandum, but I can tell you that the costs of a staff correspondent in Washington and in Paris are slightly over half your estimated figure of £697 a month for Berlin. This is despite devaluation and despite the very heavy telephone traffic we have with Paris…Could you please explain to me by return why it is that the Association of Journalists in Berlin has not made common cause in this matter. What are the other correspondents proposing to do about it all? I have not bothered to talk to any of my colleagues in London, but naturally I shall be glad to make common cause with any organized demarche by other national papers. I feel sure that the ridiculous state of affairs revealed by your estimates will be sufficient to bring the whole subject up on the highest level in the Foreign Office and in Germany." Fleming adds the salutation in his own hand. In fine condition, with staple holes and paperclip impressions to the upper left corner. While working as foreign manager of the Kemsley newspaper group's Sunday Times, Fleming hired Terry to be posted in Germany. 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—Terry was one such correspondent.
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