William Stephenson Sir William Samuel Stephenson , CC , MC , DFC ( 23 January 1897 – 31 January 1989 ) was a Canadian soldier , airman , businessman , inventor , spymaster , and the senior representative of British intelligence for the entire western hemisphere during World War II . He is best known by his wartime intelligence codename Intrepid . Many people consider him to be one of the real - life inspirations for James Bond . Ian Fleming himself once wrote , " James Bond is a highly romanticized version of a true spy . The real thing is . . . William Stephenson . " Early life . Stephenson was born William Samuel Clouston Stanger on 23 January 1897 , in Point Douglas , Winnipeg , Manitoba . His mother was from Iceland , and his father was from the Orkney Islands . He was adopted early by an Icelandic family after his parents could no longer care for him , and given his foster parents ' name , Stephenson . He left school at a young age and worked as a telegrapher . In January 1916 he volunteered for service in the 101st Overseas Battalion ( Winnipeg Light Infantry ) , Canadian Expeditionary Force . He left for England on the " S . S . Olympic " on 29 June 1916 , arriving on 6 July 1916 . The 101st Battalion was broken up in England , and he was transferred to the 17th Reserve Battalion in East Sandling , Kent . On 17 July he was transferred to the Canadian Engineer Training Depot . He was attached to the Sub Staff , Canadian Training Depot Headquarters , in Shorncliffe , and was promoted to Sergeant ( with pay of Clerk ) in May 1917 . In June 1917 he was " on command " to the Cadet Wing of the Royal Flying Corps at Denham Barracks , Buckinghamshire . On 15 August 1917 , Stephenson was officially struck off the strength of the Canadian Expeditionary Force and granted a commission in the Royal Flying Corps . Posted to 73 Squadron on 9 February 1918 , he flew the British Sopwith Camel biplane fighter and scored 12 victories to become a flying ace before he was shot down and crashed his plane behind enemy lines on 28 July 1918 . During the incident Stephenson was injured by fire from a German ace pilot , Justus Grassmann , by friendly fire from a French observer , or by both . In any event he was subsequently captured by the Germans and held as a prisoner of war until he managed to escape in October 1918 . By the end of World War I , Stephenson had achieved the rank of Captain and earned the Military Cross and the Distinguished Flying Cross . His medal citations perhaps foreshadow his later achievements , and read : For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty . When flying low and observing an open staff car on a road , he attacked it with such success that later it was seen lying in the ditch upside down . During the same flight he caused a stampede amongst some enemy transport horses on a road . Previous to this he had destroyed a hostile scout and a two - seater plane . His work has been of the highest order , and he has shown the greatest courage and energy in engaging every kind of target . < br > - Military Cross citation , Supplement to the London Gazette , 22 June 1919 . This officer has shown conspicuous gallantry and skill in attacking enemy troops and transports from low altitudes , causing heavy casualties . His reports , also , have contained valuable and precise information . He has further proved himself a keen antagonist in the air , having , during recent operations , accounted for six enemy aeroplanes . < br > - Distinguished Flying Cross citation , Supplement to the London Gazette , 21 September 1928 . Interbellum . After World War I , Stephenson returned to Winnipeg and with a friend , Wilf Russell , started a hardware business — inspired largely by a can opener that Stephenson had taken from his POW camp . The business was unsuccessful , and he left Canada for England . In England , Stephenson soon became wealthy , with business contacts in many countries . In 1924 he married American tobacco heiress Mary French Simmons , of Springfield , Tennessee . That same year , Stephenson and George W . Walton patented a system for transmitting photographic images via wireless that produced 100 , 000 pounds sterling per annum in royalties for the 18 year run of the patent ( about $ 12 million per annum adjusted for inflation in 2010 ) . In addition to his patent royalties , Stephenson swiftly diversified into several lucrative industries : radio manufacturing ( General Radio Company Limited ) ; aircraft manufacturing ( General Aircraft Limited ) ; Pressed Steel Company that manufactured car bodies for the British motor industry ; construction and cement as well as Shepperton Studios and Earls Court . Stephenson had a broad base of industrial contacts in Europe , Britain and North America as well as a large group of contacts in the international film industry . Shepperton Studios were the largest film studios in the world outside of Hollywood . As early as April 1936 , Stephenson was voluntarily providing confidential information to British opposition MP Winston Churchill about how Adolf Hitler ' s Nazi government was building up its armed forces and hiding military expenditures of eight hundred million pounds sterling . This was a clear violation of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles and showed the growing Nazi threat to European and international security . Churchill used Stephenson ' s information in Parliament to warn against the appeasement policies of the government of Neville Chamberlain . World War II . After World War II began ( and over the objections of Sir Stewart Menzies , wartime head of British intelligence ) now - Prime Minister Winston Churchill sent Stephenson to the United States on 21 June 1940 , to covertly establish and run British Security Coordination ( BSC ) in New York City , over a year before U . S . entry into the war . BSC , with headquarters at Room 3603 Rockefeller Center , became an umbrella organization that by war ' s end represented the British intelligence agencies MI5 , MI6 ( the Secret Intelligence Service , or SIS ) , SOE ( Special Operations Executive ) and PWE ( Political Warfare Executive ) throughout North America , South America and the Caribbean . Stephenson ' s initial directives for BSC were to 1 ) investigate enemy activities ; 2 ) institute security measures against sabotage to British property ; and 3 ) organize American public opinion in favour of aid to Britain . Later this was expanded to include " the assurance of American participation in secret activities throughout the world in the closest possible collaboration with the British " . Stephenson ' s official title was British Passport Control Officer . His unofficial mission was to create a secret British intelligence network throughout the western hemisphere , and to operate covertly and broadly on behalf of the British government and the Allies in aid of winning the war . He also became Churchill ' s personal representative to U . S . President Franklin D . Roosevelt . Stephenson was soon a close adviser to Roosevelt , and suggested that he put Stephenson ' s good friend William J . " Wild Bill " Donovan in charge of all U . S . intelligence services . Donovan founded the U . S . Office of Strategic Services ( OSS ) , which in 1947 would become the Central Intelligence Agency ( CIA ) . As senior representative of British intelligence in the western hemisphere , Stephenson was one of the few persons in the hemisphere who were authorized to view raw Ultra transcripts of German Enigma ciphers that had been decrypt ed at Britain ' s Bletchley Park facility . He was trusted by Churchill to decide what Ultra information to pass along to various branches of the U . S . and Canadian governments . While it was was still neutral , agreement was made for all trans - Atlantic mails from the USA to be routed through the British colony of Bermuda , 640 miles off the North Carolina coast . Airmails carried by both British and American aircraft were landed at RAF Darrell ' s Island and delivered to 1 , 200 censors of " British Imperial Censorship " , part of BSC , working in the Princess Hotel , who examined letters for secret communications before resealing them to leave no indication that they had been read . With BSC working closely with the FBI , the censors were responsible for the discovery and arrest of a number of Axis spies operating in the US , including the Joe K ring . After the war , Stephenson lived at the Princess Hotel for a time before buying his own home in Bermuda . Under Stephenson , BSC directly influenced U . S . media ( including newspaper columns by Walter Winchell and Drew Pearson ) , and media in other hemisphere countries , toward pro - British and anti - Axis views . Once the U . S . had entered the war in Dec . 1941 , BSC went on to train U . S . propagandists from the United States Office of War Information in Canada . BSC covert intelligence and propaganda efforts directly affected wartime developments in Brazil , Argentina , Colombia , Chile , Venezuela , Peru , Bolivia , Paraguay , Mexico , the Central American countries , Bermuda , Cuba and Puerto Rico . Stephenson worked without salary . He hired hundreds of people , mostly Canadian women , to staff his organization and covered much of the expense out of his own pocket . His employees included secretive communications genius Benjamin deForest " Pat " Bayly and future advertising wizard David Ogilvy . Stephenson employed Amy Elizabeth Thorpe , codenamed CYNTHIA , to seduce Vichy French officials into giving up Enigma ciphers and secrets from their Washington embassy . At the height of the war Bayly , a University of Toronto professor from Moose Jaw , created the Rockex , the fast secure communications system that would eventually be relied on by all the Allies . Not least of Stephenson ' s contributions to the war effort was the setting up by BSC of Camp X in Whitby , Ontario , the first training school for clandestine operations in Canada and North America . Some 2 , 000 British , Canadian and American covert operators were trained there from 1941 to 1945 , including students from ISO , OSS , Federal Bureau of Investigation , Royal Canadian Mounted Police , United States Navy and Military Intelligence , and the United States Office of War Information , among them five future directors of what would become the U . S . Central Intelligence Agency . Camp X graduates operated in Europe ( Spain , Portugal , Italy and the Balkans ) as well as in Africa , Australia , India and the Pacific . They included Ian Fleming ( though there is evidence to the contrary ) , future author of the James Bond books . It has been said that the fictional Goldfinger ' s raid on Fort Knox was inspired by a Stephenson plan ( never carried out ) to steal $ 2 , 883 , 000 , 000 in Vichy French gold reserves from the French Caribbean colony of Martinique . BSC purchased from Philadelphia radio station WCAU a ten - kilowatt transmitter and installed it at Camp X . By mid - 1944 , Hydra ( as the Camp X transmitter was known ) was transmitting 30 , 000 and receiving 9 , 000 message groups daily — much of the secret Allied intelligence traffic across the Atlantic . Honours . Stephenson died on 31 January 1989 , aged 92 , in Paget , Bermuda . For his extraordinary service to the war effort , he was knighted into the order of Knights Bachelor by King George VI in the 1945 New Year ' s Honours List . In recommending Stephenson for knighthood , Winston Churchill wrote : " This one is dear to my heart . " In 1946 Stephenson received the Medal for Merit from President Harry S . Truman , at that time the highest U . S . civilian award ; he was the first non - American to receive the medal . General " Wild Bill " Donovan presented the award . The citation paid tribute to Stephenson ' s " valuable assistance to America in the fields of intelligence and special operations " . The " Quiet Canadian " was recognized by his native land late : he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada on 17 December 1979 , and invested in the Order on 5 February 1980 . On 2 May 2000 , CIA Executive Director David W . Carey , representing Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet and Deputy Director John A . Gordon , accepted from the Intrepid Society of Winnipeg , Manitoba , a bronze statuette of Stephenson . In his remarks , Carey said : Sir William Stephenson played a key role in the creation of the CIA . He realized early on that America needed a strong intelligence organization and lobbied contacts close to President Roosevelt to appoint a U . S . " coordinator " to oversee FBI and military intelligence . He urged that the job be given to William J . " Wild Bill " Donovan , who had recently toured British defences and gained the confidence of Prime Minister Winston Churchill . Although Roosevelt didn ' t establish exactly what Sir William had in mind , the organization created represented a revolutionary step in the history of American intelligence . Donovan ' s Office of Strategic Services was the first " central " U . S . intelligence service . OSS worked closely with and learned from Sir William and other Canadian and British officials during the war . A little later , these OSS officers formed the core of the CIA . Intrepid may not have technically been the father of CIA , but he ' s certainly in our lineage someplace . On 8 August 2008 , Stephenson was recognized for his work by Major General John M . Custer , Commandant of the U . S . Army Intelligence Corps . Custer inducted him as an honorary member of the U . S . Army Intelligence Corps , an honour shared by only two other non - Americans . Legacy . In 1997 , a new public library built in Winnipeg was named for him , after a vote was held to choose the name of the new library . Leo Mol donated a miniature of his statue of Stephenson to the library . On 24 July 1999 , The Princess Royal unveiled , in Stephenson ' s hometown of Winnipeg , Manitoba , near the Provincial Legislature on York Street , Leo Mol ' s life - sized bronze statue of Stephenson in military aviator uniform . The monument is dedicated to Stephenson ' s memory and achievements . On 15 November 2009 , Water Avenue was renamed William Stephenson Way in Winnipeg . Whitby , Ontario , has a street named for Stephenson , which connects with streets named Intrepid and Overlord . In 2004 Sir William Stephenson Public School was opened in Whitby In Oshawa , Ontario , Branch 637 of the Royal Canadian Legion is named for Stephenson . Located in southern Oshawa , Ontario , is a park named Intrepid Park , after Stephenson ' s code name . This park is located in the vicinity of what was formerly Camp X . Disputes . In 1976 British - born Canadian author William Stevenson published a biography of Stephenson , " A Man Called Intrepid " . Some of the book ' s statements have been called into question , notably in Nigel West ' s " Counterfeit Spies " ( 1998 ) . " Intrepid " was probably not Stephenson ' s codename , but BSC ' s telegraphic address in New York . Stevenson was a frequent visitor to Bermuda , where Stephenson had taken up residence during after the war . He was an ex - naval officer , having served in the Fleet Air Arm during the war with prominent Bermudian lawyer William Kempe ( a founding partner of Appleby , Spurling & Kempe ) , a prominent Bermudian law firm ( another author and frequent visitor to Bermuda was ex - naval officer Ian Fleming ) . Many consider to be a more reliable account H . Montgomery Hyde ' s " The Quiet Canadian " ( 1962 , before Stevenson ' s book ) . But generally acknowledged as the most accurate account of Stephenson ' s life is Bill Macdonald ' s " The True Intrepid " ( 1998 ) , with foreword by a CIA staff historian . The book clears up the spymaster ' s fictitious background and contains oral histories from his ex - agents . Popular culture . In 1979 Stephenson was portrayed by David Niven in the miniseries " A Man Called Intrepid " , based on William Stevenson ' s bestseller , " A Man Called Intrepid " . In 1983 a Canadian company , Nova Games , Ltd . , published an arcade game called " Intrepid " , about a spy infiltrating the KGB , named ostensibly after William Stephenson ' s codename . In 1998 , actor portrayed Stephenson in a revival of the Canadian TV series " Witness to Yesterday " .