The Search For Thrush Central

(i) In The Man From UNCLE TV series, Thrush Central was merely referred to.

(ii) In The Rainbow Affair by David McDaniel, UNCLE learns that Thrush Central is tripartite and mobile with three Ultimate Computers.

(iii) In The Hollow Crown Affair by David McDaniel, "...U.N.C.L.E. misses raiding Thrush Central by mere minutes." See The UNCLE Chronology here.

(iv) In The Final Affair by David McDaniel, UNCLE destroys the three Centrals and invades Thrush Island. When Solo asks a Thrush guard who is on the other end of a phone line, the guard replies "My boss," and assents when Solo inquires, "The Boss? Acting Central?" (p. 87) UNCLE captures the island. End of Thrush as an international organization.

Two Sequences

From James Bond's first encounter with SMERSH in Casino Royale by Ian Fleming to UNCLE's eventual destruction of Thrush as a global organization in The Final Affair by David McDaniel is one long literary sequence although it might not be easily recognizable as such.

The highlights are:

Bond's defeat of SMERSH;

Krushchev's disbandment of it;

Blofeld's recruitment of former members of SMERSH and of similar organizations into SPECTRE;

Bond's destruction of two versions of SPECTRE;

his assassination of Blofeld in Japan;

his reinstatement in the Secret Service and continued conflict with the KGB;

the introduction of Thrush on TV;

the elaboration of Thrush in original novels by David McDaniel;

the eventual destruction of Thrush.

There is a second sequence:

SPECTRE originated in a screen treatment;

from there, it moved not only into Fleming's novels (see above) but also into the James Bond films;

in the films, SPECTRE's numbered members were controlled by a mysterious Number One;

this numerical system was duplicated by the totalitarian Village in The Prisoner TV series;

the Prisoner realized that he was Number One and destroyed the Village.

In Casino Royale, Bond bankrupted Le Chiffre who was then assassinated by SMERSH. This tradition of the evil organization eliminating its own failures was continued both by SPECTRE and by Thrush.

Three Organizations

There are three versions of SMERSH:

a real WWII counter-espionage organization;

a fictional organization introduced in Ian Fleming's first James Bond novel;

an organization described in a dodgy dossier that was handed in to The Sunday Times and that influenced Fleming's presentation of the fictional organization in his fifth James Bond novel.

(This explains, if it does not excuse, Fleming's claim, in an initialed author's note, that From Russia, With Love presents an accurate account of SMERSH.)

There are perhaps three versions of SPECTRE:

a fictional organization in a screen treatment by Ian Fleming, Kevin McClory and Jack Whittingham;

a fictional organization introduced in Fleming's novelization of the screen treatment;

a larger fictional organization introduced in the first Sean Connery James Bond film.

There are two accounts of Thrush:

it is introduced in The Man From UNCLE TV series;

it is creatively elaborated in David McDaniel's original UNCLE novels.

Since Fleming had planned a James Bond TV series and also had some input into the UNCLE TV series, there is a direct line of descent from SMERSH through SPECTRE to Thrush. Furthermore, former members of the disbanded SMERSH joined SPECTRE and former members of the WWII SMERSH might well have joined Thrush.

Thrush In McDaniel's Novels

I think that The Man From UNCLE TV series and novels developed separate terminologies. Thus, "Thrush Central" on TV but "the Council" and "satrapies" in the books, although David McDaniel pulled it all together and gave Thrush a history.

Ward Baldwin, the "Satrap" of San Francisco, was the same age as Thrush. Thus, it had always existed in his experience and he was seventy five when to his surprise it was destroyed in 1970. However, he had been primarily interested in the scientific research aspect of his work for the organization and his life continued without much change after 1970.

McDaniel in effect created characters and an organization that had never been seen in the TV series.

Confirmations

In the 1960s, when I was a fan of the James Bond novels, the James Bond films and The Man From UNCLE TV series, I thought that the Ultimate Computer would be able to match a male character with a perfectly compatible female partner. David McDaniel's The Final Affair reveals that Napoleon Solo married a Thrush agent on precisely this basis. Thrush faked her death when she reported that she would be unable to turn Napoleon.

At least twice in the TV series, there were major power conflicts within Thrush. Mandor, describing himself as "the second man in Thrush" and pretending to defect, got UNCLE to close down only those Thrush bases that were not loyal to him. Two agents were to release a gas that would destroy free will in all human beings except those who were protected with them in their base. They were to be joined there by the current leaders of Thrush but decided to release the gas before those leaders arrived... Of course, UNCLE thwarted the plan in any case. The Final Affair confirms the occurrence of "...a power struggle which had shaken the whole Hierarchy." (p. 56)

Raduysya Mariye

In David McDaniel's unpublished novel,  The Final Affair, Illya Kuryakin prays on a battlefield:

"Raduysya Mariye, blagodati poliaya, Gospod s't'voyu; blagosloyenna ti mezhdu zhenami i blagosloyven' plod' chryena tvoyevo Iisus'. Syvataya Mariye, matyer' Bozhi, ya molu o nas' gruishnikh' ninui, i v' chas' smyerti nashyey. Amin'." (pp. 94-95)

I recognize the prayer because of:


the positioning and repetition of "Mariye";

the positioning of "Iisus";

the phrase "matyer' Bozhi," which looks like "mater (mother) of Someone";

The James Bond novels, which tell us that SMERSH means "SMERt SHpionan," "Death to Spies";

"smyerti," which could be a genitive plural of "smert."

When a few words have been identified, others seem to follow, e.g.: "chas' smyerti nashyey" = "the hour of our deaths"?

Thrush History II

According to Ward Baldwin's reminiscences in The Final Affair:

the First Council was only five men;

the early Hierarchy used Hollerith cards to maintain a central information service about professional criminals in London at the end of the nineteenth century;

the Hierarchy became international in the first twenty years of the twentieth century, partly thanks to the Great War;

the Thrush symbol first appeared on a blazer badge in Chicago in 1923;

the first and fourth decades of the twentieth century were periods of internal reorganization and of a broadening power base;

the Hierarchy profited from both sides during WWII;

the Hierarchy is information, which cannot be destroyed.

We want to read more. David McDaniel transformed an impossibly powerful and well-resourced conspiracy into a barely plausible and fascinating organization with an unexpected history and a unique, complex and intricate structure.