What the Hell is a Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang?

I suppose we should start the story with Felix Leiter, the C.I.A. secret agent who was a close friend with Bond, James Bond.  Felix Letter started the whole ball rolling.

This is kind of a fuzzy start, since Felix Leiter doesn’t actually exist:  he is a creation of the writer, Ian Fleming, but Fleming created the character and named him after two close friends:  Felix was the middle name of Ivar Bryce and Leiter was the surname of Marion Oates Leiter.  This was a friendly gesture and would probably have been completely forgotten if weren’t for the fact that Marion Leiter was also a close friend of John and Jackie Kennedy.

Fleming recycled a lot of names in his books, naming characters after people, places and events throughout his life.  He wrote all of the Bond books at Goldeneye, his Jamaican beach house, which was named for…no, not the book…for Operation Golden Eye from World War II.  As a British intelligence officer, Fleming had been in charge of a secret plan to install spies throughout Spain in the case it fell under Nazi control.  (If you are wondering about the origin of the name James Bond, he was the author of Fleming’s favorite book on birds of the Caribbean.  And the German code name for the Zimmerman Telegram during World War I was 0070.)

In March of 1960, Ian Fleming came to Washington D.C. to visit Marion Leiter and while she was driving him around Georgetown showing him the sighs, she spotted John and Jacquelyn Kennedy out for an afternoon walk.  As she was already scheduled to have dinner with the couple at their home that night, on impulse she stopped the car and asked then Senator Kennedy if she could bring a friend to dinner, introducing Fleming to the future president.

“James Bond?” said Kennedy, “But of course, by all means—do please come.”

It turned out that Kennedy was a fan of Ian Fleming and enjoyed reading his novels.  It was Leiter, in fact, who had first given him one of Fleming’s novels, Casino Royale, to read while he was recovering from back surgery.  The chance introduction on the streets of Washington would lead to a lasting friendship between the two men.  When President Kennedy publicly recommended the novel From Russia With Love in 1961, stating it was one his favorite books, sales of the book in the United States skyrocketed, eventually making Fleming one of the top selling authors in the United States, and attracting the interest of Hollywood.

The friendship was relatively short, but Fleming did reciprocate the publicity gift Kennedy had given him.  In his novel The Spy Who Loved Me, the author has Bond stating that the world needs more leaders like Kennedy.  Kennedy remained a fan of Flemings work—the last movie he watched was the From Russia With Love, and the night before his assassination, as he rested in the Texas Hotel in Fort Worth, he relaxed by reading Fleming’s latest novel, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

In The Man With a Golden Gun, the first Bond book written after Kennedy’s assassination, the book opens with Bond relaxing with a glass of bourbon while reading Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage.

When the Bond books took off in America, several things happened all at once.  First, Fleming became the top crime writer in America.  Second, Hollywood signed Fleming to a five movie deal, and third, Fleming suffered a heart attack.  At the top of his career, Fleming had to stay home and recuperate.

Fleming didn’t have the closest relationship with his son, Caspar, and while he was resting, his son told him one day, “You like James Bond more than you like me.”  Chastened, Fleming feverishly embellished a bedtime story he used to tell his son—who he nicknamed 003-and-a-half—and finished his only book for children, Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang: The Magical Car.  Unfortunately, the book came out two months after Fleming’s death from a second heart attack.

By the time the book came out, the Bond movie franchise was firmly established by Albert R. Broccoli, an American movie producer who produced the Bond films in Great Britain, with American financing.  It was largely the reception of American audiences that turned James Bond into an enduring franchise.  Broccoli had found success with Dr. No, From Russia With Love, and Goldfinger, so it was only natural for Broccoli to be interested in making a film from Fleming’s latest book.

Purchasing the rights to the book, Broccoli hired Roald Dahl, who had written the screenplay for You Only Live Twice, to work with director Ken Hughes to produce a screenplay from the children’s book.  The writers shortened the title and substantially changed the plot, adding a female lead named Truly Scrumptious, in honor of the outrageously named female characters Fleming had written into his Bond books. 

The movie had more than a few connections to the Bond films.  John Stears, who had designed Bond’s Aston Martin (along with all sorts of other machines—from Luke Skywalker’s Landspeeder and the iconic Jedi lightsabers to R2D2—was hired to supervise special effects.  Ken Adam, the set designer for the Bond film, designed the true hero of the film, the car.

Actually, six of the cars were built, only one of which actually functioned on the road.  Though a stick shift is visible, actually the car had an automatic transmission as Dick Van Dyke, the star of the movie, did not know how to operate a manual transmission.  Today, the car is owned by director Peter Jackson, who used to chauffeur the actors of The Hobbit around New Zealand in the vehicle while a sound system installed in the trunk would play the theme song from Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang.  (And I bet that obnoxious music is mentally playing in your head right now.  NASA used the music—ONCE—as the wakeup song for the International Space Station.  The astronauts threatened to take the station to a different planet.)

The movie was not exactly a great success, losing money at the box office and receiving poor marks from the critics.  Recently, three sequels of the book were released, and a musical by the same name had a brief run.  But, neither the books nor the movie answer a fundamental question:  What the hell is a Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang?

When asked, Ian Fleming said that he needed his heroic car to produce a distinctive sound, so he had named it after the race cars of the 1920’s built by Count Louis Zborowski and his engineer Clive Gallop.  While the count was one of the richest men in the world and thus able to finance his hobby, Gallop was a former fighter pilot in the Royal Air Force.  The first of three cars to be named Chitty-Bang-Bang, was fitted with an air-cooled Maybach aircraft engine (the oversized exhaust pictured was a phony to confuse the competition) and was unbelievably loud—so much so that the village of Canterbury passed an ordnance that Count Zborowski, whose workshop was nearby, was prohibited from entering the town in the car.

When asked about the distinctive name, the count would smile, and say that the car was named after the distinctive noise that an aircraft engine makes—which is highly unlikely since the exact nature of the car’s engine was a closely held secret.  Eventually, the car was replaced with Chitty-Bang-Bang 2, and the original was sold to the family of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

At one point, it was even suggested the name referred to Lelitha Chitty, a female aeronautical engineer.  This was unlikely since her fame was unknown by the time the race car was created.

So where did the name really come from?  Undoubtedly, the name came from Clive Gallop.  During World War I, while stationed at the front, soldiers in Gallop’s unit would occasionally request a pass—usually referred to as a chit or chitty—for just a few hours off base in order to visit what the French locals called a maison close.  (Or what is generally called a whorehouse).

Surely, I don’t have to explain the Bang-Bang portion of the name!

A Crass Lesson?

For some rather obvious reasons, I’ve been thinking about a man made extravagantly rich by his dealings in real estate, who turned politician and eventually engaged in military actions in Iran.  No, I’m not thinking about President Trump.  (Frequent readers should remember that not only have I rarely mentioned any current president, but engaged in military actions in Iran.  No, I’m not thinking about President usually steer from current politics for the simple reason that the best tasting fruit grows higher in the tree.)

No, I was thinking of Marcus Licinius Crassus, the wealthiest Roman politician and, some would argue, the wealthiest man in history.  (Any list of the wealthiest people in history has to eliminate heads of state, since theoretically they “own” their empires.  Time Magazine, for example, once wrote that the wealthiest man in history, at $4.6 trillion, was the Emperor Augustus because he owned all of Egypt.  How they arrived at that figure is anyone’s guess.)

Crassus got his start working for his father, a Roman consul.   When his father was appointed to be the governor of Spain, Crassus accompanied him and was responsible for the operations of the silver mines that his father acquired.  That politicians seem to magically acquire wealth is a truism that is millennia old.

At the death of his father, Crassus inherited wealth—the exact amount is hard to determine, but in today’s money, it is somewhere between $10 and $100 million.  It is very difficult to compare monetary units from antiquity to today, as earning potentials and prices of commodities have changed so drastically that it is sort of like figuring out the square root of blue.  Let’s just say that the amount of gold Crassus inherited would make him a rich man at any point in human history. 

Crassus was ambitious and eager to not only increase his wealth, but also to be recognized as a powerful politician.  In Rome, achieving this kind of power required a military background, regardless of your wealth.  When a civil war broke out in the Roman Empire between Marius and Sulla, Crassus correctly predicted the winning side, raising and equipping an army with his own funds and joining the forces of Sulla.  Though a private army sounds strange by our standards today, it was a common practice even in early American history.  Such private militias fought on both sides of the American Civil War, and if Theodore Roosevelt hadn’t raised the volunteer regiment of Rough Riders to fight during the Spanish American War, it is highly unlikely that he would ever have become president.

Crassus—and his army—fought for Sulla, who once he was victorious took over the leadership of Rome and promptly began punishing his enemies by publishing a proscription list naming his political and military opponents.  If anyone listed was killed, his executor received a reward for his service, while the property of the executed was seized by the state and auctioned off to refill the Roman treasury.  Sulla turned over the proscription process to Crassus.

It is at this point in our story, that Crassus becomes a real estate tycoon.  First, to settle a few private vendettas, he added a few names to the proscription list—notably those who were men of property.  Second, at the public auctions, Crassus purchased slaves and real estate at bargain prices.  You can easily imagine that other wealthy people might have prudently decided against competing too vigorously in those auctions for fear that they, too, might find themselves added to the proscription list.

Crassus had a real skill in recognizing the value of the men who worked for him, reminding me of an old story—possibly apocryphal—about J.P. Morgan:  When the famous financier was asked what his most valuable asset was, the reporter probably expected to hear about a bank, a railroad line, or possibly a factory.  Instead, Morgan answered, "My good men. Take away everything else, but leave me my good men and in five years, I will have it all back."

In the case of Crassus, there was very little chance that anyone would take away his good men, as they were his slaves.  Crassus not only bought slaves with talents (particularly architects, stonemasons, and carpenters), but he actively schooled his men, teaching them to read.  Frequently, Crassus, himself, acted the role of teacher for such classes.

Among his slaves, Crassus raised a 500 man private firefighting force.  Although the population of Rome was nearing a million residents, the city lacked any municipal firefighting force.  Since the majority of the inhabitants lived in cramped high-rise vertical slums and everyone cooked over open fires, major fires were a nightly occurrence.  On the first sound of an alarm, Crassus and his private fire brigade would rush to the site and….calmly watch the building burn.

Crassus would volunteer to buy the structure from the panicked owner at what were, quite literally, fire sale prices.  The owners could either accept the paltry offer or continue to watch their investment go up in smoke.  Usually, the owners accepted and Crassus would have his men put out the fire and begin making repairs.  Frequently, Crassus would then rent the building to the former owner or tenants.

Such practices were both legal and ruthless.  It did not take long before Crassus (pictured at left with a Roman combover haircut) was not only the largest owner of real estate in Rome, but according some sources, he owned over half the city.

The Civil War had thinned the ranks of the Roman Senate, and many of the senators remaining were resistant to Sulla’s heavy-handed changes, so Sulla expanded the Senate from 300 to 600 men, appointing 450 new senators to fill the vacancies.  Senators were expected to live in suitable houses with ample servants, both of which Crassus could happily provide at bargain prices. 

Now a wealthy man with excellent political connections, Crassus began to loan money to impoverished men of potential that he believed had a future in Roman politics, such as the young Julius Caesar.  These friendly deals allowed Crassus to not only secure political favor, but help to protect the vast wealth that he was amassing.

How wealthy was he at this point?  If you took just the amount of gold that Crassus could have raised by liquidating his holdings, then use today’s price as a measure, Crassus was worth somewhere between $2 and $10 billion dollars—which coincidentally, is roughly where Forbes Magazine guesstimates the present worth of President Trump.

To cement his political power, Crassus needed a military success.  Though the initial slave revolt of Spartacus was only 78 men, the repeated bungled Roman attempts to squash the revolt brought an additional 120,000 rebels to join the former gladiator.  By the time Crassus volunteered to lead an army to stop the revolt, it was a crisis that threatened the empire.  a small slave revolt had grown to what historians call the Third Servile war.  (You know you have a problem with “the help” when you have to start numbering the wars with them.)

In the early days of the campaign, one of the Legions under Crassus bolted from the battle field.  Crassus solved this crucial morale problem by reintroducing the old Roman custom of decimation.  Of the 500 men who had fled from battle, he divided them into ten groups of fifty, then by lottery, selected five men from each group to be executed.  While this might have been harsh, it certainly improved discipline.

Note.  I wish this was a lesson that all the talking heads in media could learn—decimate means to kill off one-tenth.  You cannot decimate a group of people to the last man as there are always nine left.  Perhaps if we decimated a few news organizations they could remember that a tornado cannot completely decimate a trailer park.

With careful tactics and a newly inspired army, Crassus crushed the army of Spartacus, killing most of the rebels while capturing 6000, who were crucified along the 350-mile length of the Appian Way.  With typical Roman attention to detail, the crosses were evenly spaced, with 17 executed men for each mile.  No one knows whether Spartacus was among the crucified or had perished in battle.

For his victory, Crassus demanded a Roman triumph upon his return, but the Senate—wary of his popularity—agreed only to a lesser ceremony, an “ovation”.  Crassus agreed, then from his own pocket had 10,000 tables set up along the processional route, gifting the people with the equivalent of enough food to feed the entire city for three months (effectively turning an “ovation” into a massive political rally).  In essence, he gave himself a triumph as evidenced by his wearing the laurel wreath reserved for triumphs instead of the traditional myrtle wreath used for ovations.  While the mainstream media—I mean Senate—hated it, the people of Rome loved it.

Back in Rome, Crassus funded the election of Julius Caesar to become the Pontifex Maximus.  As rivalry for leadership in Rome continued, it was Caesar who fashioned the First Triumvirate in 60 BCE, in which power was divided among Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus.  For a while, this move even created a sort of uneasy peace in Rome.  Crassus, however, believed he needed a bigger military victory to cement his position and used his political clout to secure the governorship of Syria, making no secret that once there, he intended to start a war with the Parthian Empire to the East.  (What was once the Parthian Empire consists today of Iraq, Iran, and a chunk of Turkey).

That Crassus was also after the gold of Parthia was no secret, nor was it a secret that there was no pressing need for such a military invasion.  Upon his arrival in Syria, Crassus promptly led an army of 40,000 Roman soldiers over the Tigris River—an act that was effectively a declaration of war.

There is no need to describe in detail Crassus’ defeat at the Battle of Carrhae as there are endless books about the subject.  (I recommend Sampsons’ Defeat of Rome in the East.) The biggest single error was that Crassus expected the Parthians to fight like all of the other enemies that Rome had vanquished, which is to say by a pitched infantry battle fought in close combat.  Though the Romans outnumbered the Parthians four to one, the Parthians’ army consisted entirely of cavalry, most of whom were archers.  The Parthians simply refused to engage the heavy Roman infantry, but slowly destroyed their enemy at a distance with an inexhaustible supply of arrows.  If the Romans rushed the cavalry units, the Parthians would withdraw while turning almost 180 degrees in the saddle to launch arrows at their pursuers, the infamous ‘Parthian Shot’.

Crassus failed because he assumed his enemy would fight along traditional lines, and so he died along with half of his men (another ten thousand were taken prisoner).  After the battle, the Parthians supposedly poured molten gold through the mouth of the severed head of Crassus to quench his thirst for gold.

In the end, Crassus did get his triumph...in a way.  From among the survivors, the Parthians selected a Roman who resembled Crassus to represent the fallen Roman leader.  Dressing him in women’s clothing and deploying a small army of prostitutes as his soldiers, the Parthians paraded him through the streets of Parthian towns, calling it the Triumph of Crassus.