SPECTRE

SPECTRE ("Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion") is a fictional organisation featured in the James Bond novels by Ian Fleming, as well as films and video games based in the same universe. Led by criminal mastermind Ernst Stavro Blofeld, SPECTRE first formally appeared in the novel Thunderball (1961) and in the film Dr. No (1962). The international organisation is not aligned with any nation or political ideology, enabling the later Bond books and Bond films to be regarded as somewhat apolitical. The presence of former Gestapo members in the organization can be considered as a sign of Fleming's warnings about Nazi fugitives after the Second World War, as first detailed in the novel Moonraker (1955). In the novels, SPECTRE begins as a small group of criminals, but in the films it is depicted as a vast international organisation with its own SPECTRE Island training base capable of replacing the Soviet SMERSH.