General Gogol

James Bond Character


bgcolor=#039
fgcolor=#fff
name=General Anatol Gogol
portrayed=Walter Gotell
gender=Male
affiliation=KGB
status=Retired
role=Bond ally/Bond official

General Anatol Alexis Gogol is a fictional character in the James Bond films "The Spy Who Loved Me"," Moonraker", "For Your Eyes Only", "Octopussy", and "A View to a Kill". In the films, he is the head of the KGB. In his final appearance in "The Living Daylights", he has transferred from the KGB to the Soviet Foreign Ministry. General Gogol is portrayed by Walter Gotell; in addition to his appearances as General Gogol, he appeared in "From Russia With Love" (1963) as Morzeny.

Despite the popular assumption about the James Bond series' Cold War focus, Gogol is never depicted as a true villain. At his most hostile, he is a respectful competitor and more often is an ally against the common foes of peace.

Overview

His first appearance is in "The Spy Who Loved Me", where he is seen sending Anya Amasova to recover an important roll of microfilm. Later in the film Gogol and Bond's boss, M, form an alliance, which is the start of the Anglo-Soviet relationship. Gogol is seen next in "Moonraker", talking to a US official about Hugo Drax's space station.

In "For Your Eyes Only", Gogol wants to buy an ATAC communicator from Aristotle Kristatos. When Bond throws it off a cliff, Gogol is dismayed but keeps his guard from shooting Bond; he rationalizes that the machine's destruction maintains the relatively peaceful status quo of the nations. The assistant of General Gogol, appearing briefly in "For Your Eyes Only", is called Rubelvitch, a wordplay on the name Moneypenny.

In "Octopussy", when General Orlov proposes invading the West, Gogol is the loudest voice opposing the reckless plan, asserting both the danger of provoking a nuclear war and that the USSR wants peace, not war. Gogol's investigations of Orlov's scheme to weaken NATO's defence runs parallel to Bond's, but the fatal shooting of the traitor at the hands of East German border guards prevents him from learning the full details of his plot and warning NATO. He requested that James return the Romanov star stolen by Orlov.

In "A View to A Kill", Gogol tries to stop Max Zorin, an erstwhile KGB agent, from destroying Silicon Valley. When Zorin defies the order to stop his plan, Gogol sends KGB agent Pola Ivanova to see what Zorin is up to. When Pola meets Bond, she tries to take the tape from him and give it to Gogol. Gogol is embarrassed that Pola got the wrong tape. At the end of the film Gogol awards Bond the Order of Lenin, stating that Bond was the first non-Soviet citizen to receive it (being awarded this medal contradicts a statement in the novel "Goldfinger" that stated that people in the British Secret Service could not accept awards from foreign services, no matter how friendly, such as the CIA. However, Bond may not have accepted the award, and the Russians may have insisted he was awarded it anyway, whether he'd accepted the medal or not.)

In "The Living Daylights", Gogol is only seen in the end, as a diplomat in the Foreign Ministry. He attends Kara Milovy's concert with M, offering Milovy a visa which would allow her to leave the Eastern bloc at will.