THE THUNDERBALL AFFAIR

FROM-UNCLE 1-1 (WAVERLY)
TO-UNCLE 11-2 (KURYAKIN)
SUBJECT: THRUSH-SPECTERE JOINT PROJECT

MR. KURYAKIN,

IT HAS COME TO OUR INTELLIGENCE SECTION'S ATTENSION MEETINGS BETWEEN KNOWN THRUSH OPERATIVES, AND SUSPECTED MEMBERS OF TERRORIST ORGANIZATION-SPECTERE.

COUNTERMEASURES INDICATED.

PURSUIANT TO THIS END BRITISH SECERET SERVICE OO AGENT JAMES BOND ARRIVING YOUR LOCATION THIS DAY.

FULL BRIEFING THIS OFFICE 0900AM THIS DAY.


WAVERLY SENDS
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In the summer of 1965 my best friend,Larry Poteet, and I, were secret agents. He was British Secret Service agent James Bond, and I was Illya Kuryakin (see-I WAS ILLYA KURYAKIN-ARCHIVE-05/04-05/11). We spent the entire summer in the woods,fields, and barns, of rural Tennessee, battling the forces of evil.
We each had our own arsenel of spy technology. I had theAgent Zero-M radio rifle, camera pistol, and 45 Thompson machinegun/with scope. I had UNCLEcomunicators made from ink pens, a shoulder holster made from an elastic cloth belt, and dozens of toy pistols, and rifles. Larry had the Multi-pistol 09, Mattel shootin shell m14, and 45, the official 007 James Bond rifle/pistol in attache' case, and dozens of toy pistols, and rifles of his own. We both had wrap around "sting-ray" sunglasses, ofcourse.

007 came up with the plan. He had TV then. We were still in the Lizzy Ann Grant house , and our only contact with the outside world was a plastic, five tube, AM radio.(see- Tales Of History And Explaination- archive- 05/18-05/25) So he was the one that saw the Thunderball promo on tv, and came up with the idea to go to the big city of Cookeville, and see it. There was, and still is, no theatre in Monterey. It was sheer genius! We take the morning Trailways bus to Cookeville , see the movie, and take the evening bus back to Monterey. We began saving money, and counting the days.

I spent that night at the British embassy (aka-Larry's house). Breakfast in a Tennessee home in those days was a wonderfull thing! Larry's Grandmother was up long before us, and when we made our way blinking, and yawning into her kitchen, she had a feast on the table. Eggs, bacon, sausage,fried potatos, and ofcourse, biscuits & sawmill gravy. (How did Merle Haggard put it? "Back before micro-wave ovens, when a girl could still cook, and still would...")
This was a pretty big adventure for two barely 13 yr old boys, in 1965. Traveling twenty miles to another town..no parents! We had a ball. we were at the Saundland Cafe in Monterey at the crack of dawn, two round trip tickets to Cookeville in hand. Both of us with toy pistols in shoulder rigs under our sport coats, and other spy gear in our pockets, boarded the bus. ( Can you imagine this in our post 9-11 world?) We were off.

On our own in the streets of Cookeville with hours to kill before the Princess Theatre opened, a reconaiscence mission was in order. We prowled the area around the theatre, attacked a THRUSH satrap in a funeral home , and hid out in a huge section of concrete pipe sitting in the edge of the parking lot of the Big K store. It was hot in our sport coats, which we needed to conceal our shoulder holsters, and even secret agents have to pee, so we sought the airconditioned comfort of the store. Being almost teenagers we ended up in the album section.
After lunch in the Jackfrost Cafe (then on the corner of Broad, and Cedar) it was finally showtime!! The movie was ambrosia for two spy crazy 13 yr old boys. Submarines, the Aston Martin, jetpacks, and that break-away hydrofoil in the Disco Volante!! Way cool! We would spend months recreating our own encounters with SPECTERE, and Emilio Largo. And there were the Bond girls, mostly scantily clad through out the movie, that were of no small interest to us also. We would eventually lose intrest in our toy guns. But not today.