This Legendary Secret Agent Served As The Inspiration For James Bond. The Tale of Sidney Reilly: "The Ace of Spies"

In the cloak-and-dagger world of espionage, few men had a more unique and distinguished career than the "Ace of Spies" Sidney Reilly

Depiction of Sidney Reilly “The Ace of Spies”

Background

One of the first things Sidney Reilly did upon entering the clandestine world of spying was to hide the origins of his birth, to effectively blur his history and disguise his past.

One of the nuggets of disinformation he disseminated regularly was that he was born to Polish-Jewish parents Pauline and Gregory Rosenblum in 1874 and maintained a wealthy estate in Grodno Governorate of Imperial Russia.