The story of Sir William Samuel Stephenson.(1896-1989) aka Intrepid, Secret intelligence chief, born in Point Douglas, near Winnipeg, Canada, of Scottish descent. Educated in Winnipeg, he became involved in British secret intelligence through visits to Germany to buy steel in the early 1930s. His information on Enigma, the German cipher machine, led to MI6's acquisition of a prototype in 1939. In 1940 he was appointed British intelligence chief in North and South America, representing the interests of MI5, MI6, and Special Operations Executive. The novelist Ian Fleming, a member of his wartime staff, is said to have adopted Stephenson as a model for the character "M' in the James Bond books.
