The Diamond Smugglers was first published in 1957 and is based on two weeks of interviews Fleming undertook with John Collard, a member of the International Diamond Security Organisation (IDSO), headed by Sir Percy Sillitoe, the ex-chief of MI5, who worked exclusively for the diamond company De Beers. The IDSO was formed by Sillitoe to combat the smuggling of diamonds from Africa, where, it was estimated, £10 million worth of gems were being smuggled out of South Africa alone every year. The book expands upon articles Fleming wrote for The Sunday Times in 1957.
Fleming became interested in diamond smuggling after reading an article in The Sunday Times in 1954, concerning the Sierra Leone diamond industry. Philip Brownrigg, an old friend from Eton and a senior exec of De Beers, arranged for Fleming to visit the London Diamond Club to see diamonds being sorted and polished. In 1955 Brownrigg also introduced Fleming to Sir Percy Sillitoe, former head of MI5, who was working for De Beers and investigating the illicit diamond trade through the International Diamond Security Organisation. Fleming met Sillitoe and used much of the research as background material for his Bond novel, Diamonds Are Forever.
Fleming retained an interest in the subject and when Sillitoe suggested to the editor of The Sunday Times, Denis Hamilton, that the paper may want to write a story on the International Diamond Security Organisation, Hamilton offered the story to Fleming. Sillitoe also offered his deputy, retired MI5 officer John Collard, as liaison for Fleming to interview. During World War II, Collard had assisted in the planning of Operation Overlord as part of MI11 and had joined MI5 under Sillitoe at the war’s end. Whilst in MI5 he played a major role in the capture and conviction of the atomic spy Klaus Fuchs, before Sillitoe had approached him in 1954 to work for the International Diamond Security Organisation. Fleming and Collard met in Tangiers on 13 April 1957; Fleming found Collard to be a “reluctant hero, like all Britain’s best secret agents”. The pair spent two weeks discussing the issue of diamond smuggling, with Collard explaining what happened in South Africa and Sierra Leone. Fleming would then dictate an average of 5,000 words a day to a secretary.
When the drafts of the books were shown to De Beers, they objected to a number of areas and threatened an injunction against Fleming and The Sunday Times, which resulted in much material being removed. The Sunday Times serialised the book over six weeks and it mostly received positive reviews. The Sunday Times considered it an “exciting and richly fascinating account” and thought Fleming authored a book that “ringing true as fact, is at the same time as highly entertaining as any fiction.” The Times Literary Supplement obtained the services of the Earl of Cardigan to review the book. He noted that “the book is put together with a skill one would expect from Mr. Fleming”, which leads to something that is “very entertaining reading”.