The Twenty Committee
When World War II broke out, Masterman was drafted to become the chairman of the Twenty Committee, which was a group of British intelligence officials, including wartime amateurs, who held the key to the Double Cross System, which turned German spies into double agents working for the British. Its name was a pun based on the Roman numeral XX and its double-cross purpose.
Strictly speaking, the Committee was responsible for providing information for the agents to be transmitted to the Abwehr and other German intelligence agencies, deceiving them of Allied intentions and war plans. It was Section B1(a) of MI5, established by Lt. Col. T.A. Robertson, who had the task of finding, turning and handling the agents themselves.
Although Masterman ran the system, he credited MI5 with originating the idea. It is widely assumed that the writer Ian Fleming, himself involved in wartime intelligence, adapted Masterman's name for the (female) character of Jill Masterson in his James Bond novel Goldfinger (1959).
Read more about this topic: John Cecil Masterman
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