The time when spy agencies officially didn't exist

007 would have been an officer, not an agent. Officers are employees, whereas an agent is a secret source used to gather information. "There is not a single case of SIS ever disclosing the identity of agents even after something like 100 years," says the intelligence historian Nigel West. Keith Jeffery, when researching his history of MI6, spoke to active officers about whether they would be happy for their identity to be revealed 60 years or so down the line. "Some were happy to be part of the history of it," he says. "But because it is technically living a lie, some really did not want their families to find out."

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