63 years ago

“Wild Bill,” as he was known to many, was the ideal man for the task. Following a storied military career in World War II, he spent years as a special military observer of foreign conflicts for the U.S. government and developed important contacts within the British intelligence service. His agency, soon renamed the Office of Strategic Services, played a vital role in the American war effort.
William Joseph Donovan was born in Buffalo, N.Y., on Jan. 1, 1883. His family’s modest finances required that he work his way through college and law school at Columbia University. Graduating in 1907, he entered private law practice and in 1914 married Ruth Rumsey. By then he was also a captain of a cavalry unit in the New York State National Guard.
In 1916, Donovan’s reputation as a sharp lawyer and a can-do kind of person led the Rockefeller Foundation to send him to Europe to help set up relief programs for war refugees in Poland and later Belgium. The work required stealth and cunning, since war raged across Europe, and as a result Donovan subsequently came into contact with figures in the British intelligence service, the SIS. Among them was William Samuel Stephenson, the legendary spy who later operated under the code name “Intrepid.” These contacts led to Donovan’s first training in the art of espionage and special operations.
The attack of Mexican nationalist Pancho Villa on Columbus, N.M., in 1916 led to the mobilization of Donovan’s cavalry unit and his recall from Europe. He spent six months on the U.S.-Mexican border and developed a reputation as a tough but skilled cavalry officer. Upon his return to New York he was promoted to major and placed at the head of the famous 69th New York Regiment (historically dominated by the Irish), a unit that was subsequently became part of the 165th Infantry in the 42nd “Rainbow Division” of the American Expeditionary Force. Donovan was promoted to major of the First Battalion and set about training his men for duty overseas.
The U.S. entered the war in April 1917 and six months later the 165th departed for France. Donovan’s men knew him as a tough commander who trained relentlessly and demanded absolute discipline. Yet his leadership and physical courage in the field earned their undying respect. As one soldier put it, “Wild Bill is a son of a bitch, but he’s a game one.” During combat he could be found where the action was hottest, defying bullets, shrapnel, and poison gas to keep his men together. After a particularly hard battle in July 1918 in the Ourcq Valley which saw the First Battalion lose 600 men killed or wounded, Donovan was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. Three months later, in October 1918 at the Meuse-Argonne, Donovan again exhibited what one writer later termed “gaudy recklessness” that earned him a bullet in his leg and the coveted Medal of Honor. When the 165th returned in April 1919, Donovan was hailed as one of the war’s most notable heroes, right alongside Sgt. Alvin York and Gen. John J. Pershing.
Donovan’s fame led the U.S. ambassador to Japan to ask him in 1919 to accompany him to Russia as an observer and advisor during the civil war raging in that country. Many more international assignments of this sort would come his way in subsequent years, earning him a reputation as an expert on foreign military and security issues.
When he wasn’t on special assignments for the U.S. government, Donovan worked to build a successful law career. In early 1922, Donovan was named U.S. district attorney for western New York State. Later that year he ran for lieutenant governor as a Republican but lost in a state dominated by the Democratic party. With a Republican administration in Washington, Donovan was soon named an assistant attorney general in the U.S. Justice Department. He served in that capacity for five years, until 1929, when he resigned to go into private law practice in New York City, founding what became the prominent firm of Donovan Leisure Newton & Irvine. He ran an unsuccessful campaign as the GOP nominee for governor in 1932 and then spent the next nine years practicing law and acting as an official military observer of foreign conflicts for the Roosevelt administration.
When World War II began, in September 1939, the U.S. announced that it would remain neutral. Still, there was no mistaking the fact that Roosevelt’s administration believed it vital to U.S. interests that Germany and Japan be defeated. So even as it professed neutrality, the U.S. government took a series of steps to aid the Allies and prepare for war. By 1940, as Nazi Germany rolled across much of Europe, America increased its defense spending and instituted a draft to raise an army of 2 million. In March 1941 Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act to allow Britain to acquire U.S. arms without payment. The hope of many that the U.S. could stay out of the war, ended with the surprise attack by Japan on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
By then “Wild Bill” Donovan had been directing the American intelligence effort for some 17 months.

HIBERNIAN HISTORY WEEK
July 8, 1871: the infamous corruption of Tammany Hall “Boss” William Tweed and his cronies is exposed by the New York Times.
July 10, 1997: the IRA declares its second ceasefire in three years, setting the stage for the peace process to move forward.
July 13, 1863: The New York City draft riots begin as opponents of conscription — many of them Irish — rampage for four days.

HIBERNIAN BIRTHDATES
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July 10, 1867: humorist and social critic Finley Peter Dunne (Mr. Dooley) is born in Chicago.
July 13, 1818: Hugh O’Brien, first Irish mayor of Boston, is born in Maguiresbridge, Co. Fermanagh.