SMERSH

Spetsyalnye MEtody Razoblacheniya SHpyonov (Russian for Special Methods of Spy Detection), better known as SMERSH, is a Soviet counterintelligence agency featured in Ian Fleming's early James Bond novels, introduced in the first novel Casion Royale. Many of the villains from the novels were affiliated with the organization, including Le Chiffre, Mr. Big, and Auric Goldfinger. Starting with the novel Thunderball, after Fleming predicted that the Cold War might end in two years time and decided that a more politically neutral villain was necesarry, SMERSH was replaced by the terrorist organisation SPECTRE as 007's main nemesis.

In the film From Russia with Love, Bond is led to believe he is being targeted by SMERSH, but it revealed that the agency's leader, Rosa Klebb, is a member of SPECTRE and working for Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

Trivia

 * Fleming based SMERSH off of a real life Soviet Agency of the same name.