OSS: The Secret History of America's First Central Intelligence Agency

Recent archival research has partly superseded "OSS," but it remains a valuable survey of America's main undercover service in World War II. As a pioneering history, some facts inevitably have been supplemented and/or corrected, but the overall outline presented here is quite valid. The OSS collected intelligence and executed some useful operations, along with a few blunders (e.g. Allen Dulles's peace feelers to Nazi Germany, which outraged the USSR and briefly imperiled the alliance). But their efforts were largely peripheral to the major ground, air and sea campaigns. The book's main value now may be to suggest topics and raise questions for future research. It also contains a more subtle message in documenting the idealism and (often) progressive sympathies of citizen-soldiers dedicated to fighting Japanese and German tyrannies. Smith's 1972 publication reflected the backlash against the CIA and US militarism during the Vietnam War era. His vision of a clandestine outfit which actually promoted positive change, and respected expertise, offers hope in our current time of troubles. A CIA that routinely violates the Geneva Conventions with torture and kidnapping, and chickenhawk officials who pervert information-gathering in their rush to disaster overseas, are unworthy heirs of OSS veterans and the leaders of their time.

FDR seemed to have a natural interest in spies. Before World War II started he had contacted William 'Wild Bill' Donovan and asked him to set up a foreign intelligence agency along the lines of what the British were doing. He formed just what FDR wanted and it was called the Office of Strategic Services, a non-descript name that could have meant anything. ==The OSS was a crazy agency that grew like crazy, eventually reaching some 10,000 people. All in all, the OSS provided some useful intelligence. They performed some useful operations during the war. They trained some very good people. This book will give you all the details. ==This whole concept was done over the intense opposition of J. Edgar Hoover who fought with every skill he had to prevent what he considered competition with the FBI. ==After FDR died, Truman and Donovan didn't get along all tht well. Truman shut down the OSS, but shortly thereafter realized that the Navy, the Army and the FBI along with all the others didn't play well together so he set up the CIA a few months later. ==Of course 9/11 taught us that none of them play well together now.