OPERATIVES, SPIES, AND SABOTEURS: The Unknown Story of the Men and Women of WWII's OSS

Sea Power, Apr 2004 by Munns, David W

OPERATIVES, SPIES, AND SABOTEURS: The Unknown Story of the Men and Women of WWII's OSS by Patrick K. O'Donnell, New York, N.Y.: Free Press, March 2004. 365 pp. $27 ISBN: 0-7432-3572-X.

The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was a critical component ordered by President Franklin Roosevelt to permeate and cripple Axis powers during World War II. Patrick K. O'Donnell compiles information from more than 300 interviews and recently declassified government files to tell the story of the men and women who served under the OSS and who played an undisputable role in lodging victory for Allied forces in his new book Operatives, Spies, and Saboteurs.

The OSS provided a foundation for modern special operations forces. Assembled by William J. "Wild Bill" Donovan, the OSS was founded to revamp primitive pre-World War II U.S. intelligence forces that paled in comparison to other countries' intelligence services because, as one Navy intelligence officer noted, to Americans, "espionage is by its very nature not to be considered as 'honorable' or 'clean' or 'fair' or 'decent.'" Intelligence before World War II was assembled by four departments: the Office of Naval Intelligence, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the War Department's Military Intelligence Division (G-2) and the Special Intelligence Service, which was established in 1940 to deal with intelligence crises in Latin America. These departments, however, were not sufficient for U.S. intelligence needs during wartime. Principally, the problems were dissemination of information, lack of funding, reliance on attaches (who were instructed to avoid sabotage and espionage during peacetime) and arbitrary chains of command.

In response to these problems, Donovan curried the government to "develop shadow-war capabilities." Immediately, a White House agency, the Coordinator of Information (COI), was formed in 1940, "effectively creating America's first peacetime national intelligence organization," in order to coordinate the four intelligence services. However, the agencies revolted against the COI, according to O'Donnell, making it essentially impotent.

The relationship between the COI and the newly formed Joint Chiefs of Staff when America entered World War II also was tenuous. "In order to solve this perception problem and gain access to military support and greater resources, Donovan proposed bringing COI under the control of the Joint Chiefs," writes O'Donnell, whereupon "the name was changed to the Office of Strategic Services."

OSS developed methods of shadow-warfare and technology seemingly overnight. It spawned a new way of fighting wars by stealthily penetrating enemy lines and truly paved the way for U.S. Special Operations Forces.

O'Donnell explores the chronology of OSS from the agents' perspectives in this book. he writes the untold story of these men and women giving the significance that is deserved of this pre-eminent organization. These agents, never commended with medals or media attention, were the ones who penetrated opposition planning and provided valuable intelligence to the U.S. military that was critical to the ultimate demise of Axis powers.