Death and Honor

Every once in a great while, there is not much going on that requires me to make an immediate major decision, Brigadier General William J. Donovan, the director of the United States Office of Strategic Services, mused, so it therefore logically follows that when that happens—as now—I am presented with idiotic suggestions, off-the-wall analysis, and problems I really don’t want to—shouldn’t have to—deal with.

There were several such suggestions, analyses, and problems on the desk of the stocky, well-tailored, sixty-year-old Wall Street lawyer who had been chosen by his Columbia Law School classmate and close personal friend, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, to coordinate the flow of “war information.” That meant both intelligence and propaganda.

Donovan had learned—or maybe brought with him from the practice of law—that idiot suggestions, on closer examination, sometimes proved really not to be so idiotic after all. And that off-wall-analysis sometimes contained information that was quite useful. And that problems he was reluctant to deal with were really the ones that deserved his full attention.

Reminding himself of this, he unwound the string holding together an accordion folder. He peered inside, then dumped the contents onto his desk.

He shook his head in disbelief. A thirty-second glance at what was being proposed showed him that this really was an idiotic suggestion: Someone wanted to give OSS agents badges and credentials, as if they were policemen, or agents of the Bureau of Internal Revenue.

Sample credentials had been prepared. Donovan picked up one of them, examined it carefully, and shook his head again.

The original organization—the Office of the Coordinator of Information— had given William J. Donovan the responsibility for coordinating both propaganda and intelligence generated by all the agencies of the federal government. It was created on 11 July 1941 by Executive Order of the President.

It had immediately become apparent that that idea wasn’t going to work.

For one thing, Donovan knew little—and admitted it—about influencing public opinion. More important, the Army’s and Navy’s intelligence organizations didn’t like the idea of anyone else coordinating, reviewing or having anything else to do with their intelligence data. Even more important, neither did J. Edgar Hoover, the powerful director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who had quickly made it clear that he wasn’t going to willingly share FBI files with anyone.

Shortly after war came to the United States, on 7 December 1941, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which was to control all the armed forces, was formed. Donovan, believing that there was a place in the military organization of the United States for a covert intelligence-gathering and sabotage organization serving all the armed forces, struck a deal with the new Joint Chiefs under which the COI—less the propaganda function, which would become the Office of War Information—would be placed under the Joint Chiefs.

The Joint Chiefs—underestimating “Wild Bill” Donovan—believed this would give them control of the intelligence-gathering and sabotage operations of what would be known as the Office of Strategic Services. President Roosevelt issued another Executive Order on 13 June 1942, establishing the OSS and naming Donovan, still a civilian, as director. Very importantly, the OSS would have access to the President’s virtually unlimited “unvouchered funds” provided by Congress to be spent as the President wished, and not subject to public scrutiny. The JCS thought this was a fine idea, too, as it would relieve them of the responsibility of paying for Donovan’s operations, which they considered useful and important mainly because the President said they would be.

Donovan immediately began a relatively massive recruitment of all sorts of people for the OSS. They came from business and academia, as well as from the armed forces. He set up a training camp at the Congressional Country Club and began to dispatch agents around the world.

It took about a month for the JCS and the FBI to realize that Donovan’s OSS was about to give the phrase “loose cannon” a new meaning. Subtle, and then not-so-subtle, suggestions to the President that maybe the OSS wasn’t such a good idea after all and should be sharply reined in—or, better yet, disbanded—fell on deaf ears. Donovan had told President Roosevelt what he intended to try to do, and the President had liked what he heard.