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

by Richard Harris Smith

“The best book about America’s first modern secret service.”--Washington Post Book WorldIn the months before World War II, FDR prepared the country for conflict with Germany and Japan by reshuffling various government agencies to create the Office of Strategic Services--America’s first intelligence agency and the direct precursor to the CIA. When he charged William (“Wild Bill”) Donovan, a successful Wall Street lawyer and Wilkie Republican, to head up the office, the die was set for some of the most fantastic and fascinating operations the U.S. government has ever conducted. Author Richard Harris Smith, himself an ex-CIA hand, documents the controversial agency from its conception as a spin-off of the Office of the Coordinator for Information to its demise under Harry Truman and reconfiguration as the CIA. During his tenure, Donovan oversaw a chaotic cast of some ten thousand agents drawn from the most conservative financial scions to the country’s most idealistic New Deal true believers. Together they usurped the roles of government agencies both foreign and domestic, concocted unbelievably complicated conspiracies, and fought the good fight against the Axis powers of Germany and Japan. For example, when OSS operatives stole vital military codebooks from the Japanese embassy in Portugal, the operation was considered a success. But the success turned into a flop as the Japanese discovered what had happened, and hastilychanged a code that had already been decrypted by the U.S. Navy. Colorful personalities and truly priceless anecdotes abound in what mayarguably be called the most authoritative work on the subject.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Espionage, Military Fiction, World War II, 20th Century, Crime

456 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 25, 1972

Reviews

[Marti Martinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll never look at WW2 in the same way. The book is encyclopedic in it's information but the reader is only overwhelmed, not assaulted.

[Ben Savage · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, it's thorough.

Right off the bat, I'm disappointed in this book. I thought it would be a compedium of OSS daring behind the lines, missions shrouded in secrecy, gadgets and real- world heroics. Instead, I felt this was a jumbled commentary that read like a phone book. " First these people tried to work and then these people got offended and then it got confusing and the original people left because they offended someone so they had to work to gain intelligence, but then the politics changed sides and we were back to square one".

Presented as a series of chapters on, basically, the OSSs areas of operation- Western Europe/Germany, the Balkans, India, Burma, Thailand, and China, while bouncing around the globe, I don't really get a sense of the people behind the OSS. Donovan is mentioned only when he has to come in and sort things out, or when he puts an operation into motion. A bewildering array of names is mentioned, only to be referred to by last names. Frustratingly, the 'juiciest' tidbits are often reserved for footnotes. I know of no other book that cycles through the alphabet multiple times in the footnotes. These footnotes are seen as a gossipy follow up, like this OSS man served in this or that diplomatic post or this one did that thing post war... but nothing much IN the war. Julia Child gets a sentence. Tops. Oh. And a foot note.

While I get that due to poor record keeping AND State Secrets AND secrecy clearing, I left reading this book in a foggier appreciation of what they actually did than what they are rumored to do in the post war. The author tries to make a hazy point that what they did was essential... but what did they do, aside from wait and poach turf off the British SOE?( They don't get off easy either, however).

More rational is his stated points - that we both need an irregular agency like the initial OSS for realistic and non-partisian intelligence, and that we excused a lot of things under " The War" that we then turned around and villified and made scapegoats of people. Did the absence of " The War" invalidate those sacrifices made under wartime? Does that carte blanche carry forward into peace time? Do the ends justify the means in one time but string them up in the other? The world will little note.

Finally, the.... I hesitate to use the word 'incompetence' in regards to the British and French Secret Intelligence efforts, but the glaringly pro- colonialism, "we know better than you" partisian politics rear their ugly heads in nearly every chapter. From Britain's efforts to quash a pro democracy uprising in Thailand to Frances petty political struggles and desperate grasp to hold onto Vietnam, all is laid bare in detail. I don't find out anything for like " why did they invent modern special warfare/the Fabrian Skyes Knife?" Or " What sort of irregular warfare did they conduct?" It was just " this group pissed off this group and now the Allies have no intelligence behind lines".

Overall I do agree with the author that we need to encourage more dissent in intelligence gathering and knowing that dissent doesn't mean you won't support the final analysis. But we need more lateral thinkers and dynamic men than ever before.

Screw French colonialism in particular,
Screw the specter of Communism
And Screw partisian infighting.

[Jerimy Stoll · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very dry book. There is plenty of information in here to interest a person who thinks about government conspiracies, and spies, and wars, and politics. What a tangled web this book weaves. I did learn a lot about America's first intelligence agency that wasn't linked to the FBI.

1. Many people in the OSS were non-communist liberals, who were recruited to fight communist liberals.

2. A large portion of the support for this organization came from the robber barons. I know they don't like being called robber barons, but if the shoes fit, wear them and shut the hell up.

3. Many of the agents were Hollywood screenwriters.

4. Wild Bill Donovan was light-handed on discipline.

5. There is no sure way to be sure of politics. There are so many twists and turns a squiggly line would seem straight to a crosseyed, drunk, donkey jockey. Don't ask me where that came from, I don't know.

I would recommend this book to those interested in spycraft, conspiracies, politics, and war.

[Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was okay. It was slow reading as it was written as more of a textbook that a light history. Had no problem with that. But it raised my expectations. That’s where this book goes wrong. The author revels in the OSS (and eventually the CIA) failures and reluctantly covers the successes. The bias is clear early and consistent throughout. That damaged the potential of the book. Instead of a good history of the OSS, it was to biased to be historically useful.

[Brent Paich · Rating 3 out of 5]

this is a great book filled to brim with info, its hard to follow and hard to get through as its that much information, I found myself going back through chapters to actually gain a understanding of what I had read. what I greeted from this book , ww2 and the oss was rife with political turmoil that wreaked havoc through the ranks of the oss.

[Nicolas Hoffmann · Rating 3 out of 5]

How do I put this, if you’re doing research this is the book for you. It is filled with names and dates and facts. However, I wanted a book throat with weird stories of the OSS. This takes the outrageous things they did that makes a sound very mundane.

[Kenzie Barnett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book with an interesting approach to the information. Very informative and important.

[Jim Poling · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fascinating topic made a little bland by the way it was delivered. This book is well researched and has incredible information on such a secret organization considering it was written in the 70s and most oss documents weren’t declassified until the late 2000s. Not a bad read, just not very grabbing writing. You gotta really work to stay with it

[Johnny · Rating 2 out of 5]

Half-way between a populist "glory hunter" account of American involvement behind enemy lines and a serious story of an organisation that literally spent hundreds of millions of US dollars on its secret activities. There was too much of the former in my opinion.

I struggled to take this book seriously partly because it felt like "trumpet-blowing" to the detriment of any balance. A serious academic enterprise sarcastically to British equivalents (and tutors in the dark arts) to sarcastically as "His Majesty's officers" - who in this account were the bane of all OSS officers everywhere. There were problematic relations with the British as with any allies to be sure (North Africa and Yugoslavia mainly) but Germany was being fought from 1939 and not upon American entry two years later and if this author's attitude is reflective then I'm not surprised there existed tensions.

The book also seemed a product of its time (written in the early 1970s) and suffers from not using top sources or official OSS records. It therefore relies on memoirs and letters from OSS members - mostly from high-powered Americans (I lost count of the long and tedious footnotes detailing the post-war life of stock brokers, CEOs and politicians/judges in the United States.) Therefore the book is in danger of being compromised by some serious vested interests.

This somewhat facile history is in direct contrast to the many SOE books (official and unofficial) SOE: The Special Operations Executive, 1940-46 by MRD Foot et al - so we await the real official history of OSS whenever the full archives are made available - if ever. In the meantime there are plenty of memoirs and accounts, for example Donovan's Devils: OSS Commandos Behind Enemy Lines—Europe, World War II following the de-classification of OSS member's files in 2008.

A disappointing read. Not particularly academic and tainted by a detection of petty bias.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good start for anyone wanting a good, basic history of the origins of the American central intelligence establishment in the World War II period with the founding of the OSS and its activities in Europe and Asia. Smith really paints a full picture of the OSS as it really was, full of crazy characters, misfits, communists, monarchists and blueblood aristocrats, all led under the inspiring leadership of Bill Donovan (himself a war hero from the previous world war), who somehow kept together this crazy circus of people together focused on one goal: defeating the Axis. It is chock-full of interesting story detail that tells how American intelligence not only were able to equip Allied armed forces with the information on enemy resources needed to defeat them, but (and especially by war's end) were able to actually take part in the action, and even, through cunning trickery or persuasion, to take large numbers of enemy combat soldiers out of combat sometimes without firing a shot. What is especially interesting is that this book was published in 1971 in the midst of the controversial Vietnam War, a period in which the official records of the OSS were still classified, forcing the author to rely on the memories of OSS veterans, most of whom were still alive at the time. One especial benefit to this book is the stories about OSS personnel and their collaborators in Axis countries who would later go on to great things, people such as Monsignor Giovanni Montini, member of a Vatican espionage ring working for the OSS who would later become Pope Paul VI; Ho Chi Minh, who worked alongside OSS operatives in Vietnam to harass the Japanese; John Birch, commander of an OSS intelligence team in China who was accidentally killed by Mao's guerrillas, making him a symbolic martyr for a generation of anti-communist activists. You also get a good grasp of the truly worldwide scope of this conflict as you read these stories.

[Kristian Strauss · Rating 3 out of 5]

definitely a good read for anyonne intrested in the history of world war the author draws on notable first hand experiance of his teachers in the CIA to help him weave this book tpgether, and although no operations mentioned in the book have anything to do with the worlds current geopolitical climate 40 plus years later it is still an interesting read.

[Carol Bundy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well-written, knowledgeable and thoughtful book on the OSS and the early CIA. I was particularly interested in the section on McCarthy's attack on the CIA, Dulles' response, and the role my father played in this chapter. RHS presents the whole affair in an interesting light.

[Mark Cichonski · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kinda boring and more about politics of OSS than actions

[Mack · Rating 4 out of 5]

I believe this may be the OSS book which mentions Clifton Carter, LBJ's right hand.

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

great history of the precursor to the CIA