The Office Of Strategic Services

The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) left a legacy of daring & innovation that has influenced American military & intelligence thinking since World War II. OSS owed its successes to many factors, but most of all to the foresight & drive of William J. Donovan, who built & held together the office's divergent missions & personalities. Today's CIA derives a significant institutional & spiritual legacy from OSS. This concise history describes some of the important components of OSS & highlights some of its significant missions & personalities. Chapters: COI Came First; Who Was OSS?; Research & Analysis; Special Operations; Secret Intelligence; X-2; Weapons & Spy Gear; OSS in Asia; An End & a Beginning; & Suggested Readings. Illus.

The Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of the CIA, was founded in 1942 by William 'Wild Bill' Donovan under the direction of President Roosevelt. Agents were enlisted from both the armed services and civilians to produce operational groups specialising in different foreign areas including Italy, Norway, Yugoslavia and China. In 1944 the number of men and women working in the service totalled nearly 13,500. This intriguing story of the origins and development of the American espionage forces covers all of the different departments involved, with a particular emphasis on the courageous teams operating in the field. The volume is illustrated with many photographs, including images from the film director John Ford who led the OSS Photographic Unit and parachuted into Burma in 1943.

The Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of the CIA, was founded in 1942 by William 'Wild Bill' Donovan under the direction of President Roosevelt. Agents were enlisted from both the armed services and civilians to produce operational groups specialising in different foreign areas including Italy, Norway, Yugoslavia and China. In 1944 the number of men and women working in the service totalled nearly 13,500. This intriguing story of the origins and development of the American espionage forces covers all of the different departments involved, with a particular emphasis on the courageous teams operating in the field. The volume is illustrated with many photographs, including images from the film director John Ford who led the OSS Photographic Unit and parachuted into Burma in 1943.

The proceedings of the first major scholarly conference on the OSS, which was in existence from 1941 through 1945. Includes 24 papers presented by veterans and historians of the OSS. Offers new insights into the activities and importance of the U.S.'s first modern national intelligence agency. Discusses: the U.S. on the brink of war; the operations of the OSS at the headquarters level and in the field throughout Western Europe, the Balkans, and Asia. Also explores the legacy of the OSS. Contributors include: Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., William Colby, Walt W. Rostow, Robin Winks, and Aline, Countess of Romanones.

This book contains advice and ideas for sabotage that could be carried out using simple equipment and methods. It considers methods of destruction and also obstructive techniques.

Søgeord: COI; Hemmelige Agenter; Overvågningsvirksomhed; Secret Intelligence; SACO; AGFRTS; SOE-SO; SI London Teams; Siam; Myitkyina; MO; Pacific Ocean Theaters; Befrielsen af Europa; Betingelsesløs Kapitulation; Overgivelsesbetingelser; German Surrender Negotiations; Befrielsen af København; Algier; OG's; X-2/London; Liaison with Foreign Intelligence Services; Holland; Corsika; Resistance Movements; Resistance Aid

Insightful study from the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence. Provides a detailed history of the Office of Strategic Research from establishment in 1967 to abolition in 1981.

Much has been written about the Office of Strategic Services (OSS)--the forerunner of the CIA--and the exploits of its agents during World War II. Virtually unknown, however, is the work of the extraordinary community of scholars who were handpicked by "Wild Bill" Donovan and William L. Langer and recruited for wartime service in the OSS's Research and Analysis Branch (R&A). Known to insiders as the "Chairborne Division," the faculty of R&A was drawn from a dozen social science disciplines and challenged to apply its academic skills in the struggle against fascism. Its mandate: to collect, analyze, and disseminate intelligence about the enemy. Foreign Intelligence is the first comprehensive history of this extraordinary behind-the-scenes group. The R&A Branch assembled scholars of widely divergent traditions and practices--Americans and recent European émigrés; philosophers, historians, and economists; regionalists and functionalists; Marxists and positivists--all engaged in the heady task of translating the abstractions of academic discourse into practical politics. Drawing on extensive, newly declassified archival sources, Barry M. Katz traces the careers of the key players in R&A, whose assessments helped to shape U.S. policy both during and after the war. He shows how these scholars, who included some of the most influential theorists of our time, laid the foundation of modern intelligence work. Their reports introduced the theories and methods of academic discourse into the workings of government, and when they returned to their universities after the war, their wartime experience forever transformed the world of scholarship. Authoritative, probing, and wholly original, Foreign Intelligence not only sheds new light on this overlooked aspect of the U.S. intelligence record, it also offers a startling perspective on the history of intellectual thought in the twentieth century.