Nuclear weapons often figure in the James Bond tales. In Thunderball (1961), nuclear blackmail is the focus of the story. SPECTRE, a terrorist organization, steals two nuclear bombs and demands that Great Britain and America pay it $100,000,000 or it will blow up first a valuable government installation and then a large city. This theme of terrorists struck a nerve in a public worried about the potential of nuclear war, and Thunderball was a spectacular best seller.

SPECTRE'S scheme is intricately worked out. Bribes to a corrupt pilot in the Royal Air Force yield a stolen aircraft, a dead aircrew, and two nuclear bombs. Pretending to be treasure hunters, SPECTRE operatives hide the bombs at sea, off the Bahamas. A British rocket testing center in the Bahamas is their first target; Miami is the second. The narrative moves too fast for readers to worry much...