Donovan’s ascension to the head of American intelligence operations during World War II began in 1940 when his friend in the British intelligence service, William Stephenson (aka, “Intrepid”), lobbied President Roosevelt to send him to London on a top-secret fact-finding mission. The two had met during World War I and Donovan impressed Stephenson with his intelligence, courage, and discretion. The latter correctly saw in Donovan the one man who could establish an American intelligence service that would be vital to any future U.S. role in the war (and, as a consequence, to the fate of Britain).
FDR acquiesced and instructed Donovan to bring back a report on the state of British resolve in the face of the Nazi onslaught. Donovan did not disappoint. He met with top British government officials, including King George VI and Prime Minister Winston Churchill, as well as the head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, Col. Stewart Menzies. The latter gave Donovan a detailed briefing on the many activities of his agency, including secret operations, espionage, and propaganda. As the British hoped he would, Donovan returned to the States months later with a detailed proposal for establishing an American intelligence service based closely on the British model. He also urged the administration to help Britain in any way possible. This success, coupled with Stephenson’s strong endorsement and a second trip to England and its principal battlegrounds in Europe and Africa, resulted in FDR naming Donovan to the new office of Coordinator of Information in 1941.
Even before the office was created and Donovan named to head it, it was clear that some of his toughest enemies were in Washington, not on the battlefields of Europe, North Africa, and Asia. The top military brass opposed the idea as a threat to the already existing Army and Navy intelligence units. The State Department likewise saw COI as an infringing upon their intelligence operations. But worst of all was the opposition put up by FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover. He had planned to establish an intelligence agency as a new branch of the FBI and bristled at the idea that another agency and man would get the responsibility (and the glory). He personally visited FDR to talk him out of the idea. When that failed, he commenced a vindictive campaign to discredit Donovan and thwart the COI that lasted the duration of the war.
The COI was renamed the Office of Strategic Services six months after the U.S. entered the war. By then Donovan had hired and trained thousands of workers to carry out several key OSS operations. Many worked in the OSS’s propaganda department, which was headed by playwright Robert E. Sherwood. It specialized in planting favorable rumors and news stories abroad.
Others served in the OSS’s department of Research and Analysis (headed by Harvard historian William Langer) which was charged with developing detailed assessments of the Axis powers military and industrial capabilities. Because of the nature of this work, the roster of the R&A’s 900 employees read like a Who’s Who of American academia, including leading scholars in the fields of history, science, sociology, geography, political science, and psychology. Perhaps the best known contribution of R&A experts was the development of a list of strategically vital targets (i.e., oil refineries) for Allied bombers to strike.
One of the crucial functions of the OSS was espionage and Donovan hired thousands of Americans with extensive experience abroad to carry out all manner of missions. aturally, he drew from a select strata of American society that had such experience, leading to the quip that OSS actually stood for “Oh So Social.” Among Donovan’s better-known recruits were future chef Julia Child and former pro baseball player Moe Berg. Future CIA director Allen Dulles headed up the key post in Bern, Switzerland. Thousands of OSS operatives were sent to North Africa and Europe, often under diplomatic cover, to establish spy networks and gather vital information on the enemy’s plans.
Equally important was OSS’s Special Operations branch. Borrowing from tactics developed by their British equivalent (the Special Operations Executive), Donovan’s commandos slipped into Axis-occupied territory (sometimes into Germany itself) and conducted campaigns of guerilla warfare and sabotage designed to weaken the enemy from within. Most famous of all these efforts was the joint OSS and British SIS “Jedberg” teams that parachuted into France in the spring of 1944. Their efforts at sabotage and intelligence gathering were crucial to the success of the subsequent D-Day invasion.
At its peak of operations in 1945, the OSS employed some 13,000 workers (8,500 men and 4,500 women), of whom about 60 percent served overseas. Most were on active duty in the armed forces, with civilians comprising one-quarter of the total. Remarkably, only 143 of Donovan’s men and women were killed.
Through it all, it was Donovan’s leadership and vision that made the OSS such a success. Although in his 60s, he routinely worked 16 hours a day seven days a week. He also traveled extensively throughout the various theaters of war to meet with his key lieutenants and get firsthand assessments of operations. As Stewart Alsop and Thomas Braden wrote in their 1946 book on America’s covert operations during the war (“Sub Rosa, 1946”), “OSS was a direct reflection of Donovan’s character. He was its sparkplug, the moving force behind it. In a sense it can be said that Donovan was OSS.”
Toward the end of the war, FDR asked Donovan to draw up plans for a permanent national intelligence agency. Donovan complied, but found that FDR’s successor, Harry Truman, disliked the idea. Truman ordered the OSS disbanded on Sept. 20, 1945 and Donovan retired with the rank of major general. Two years later, when the reality of the Cold War prompted Truman to change his mind and create the Central Intelligence Agency, Donovan served as an advisor but was denied the position of director. He worked briefly in the early phases of the Nuremberg war crimes trials and later served as ambassador to Thailand from 1953-1954 before retiring from public life (he was 71).
Donovan died at age 76 at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 8, 1959. When informed of his passing, President Eisenhower spoke for many when he said: “What a man! We have lost the last hero!”
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