William J Donovan and the Office of Strategic Services

William J. Donovan and the Office of Strategic Services

The stakes were never so high and if things had gone just slightly different, the outcome of the Second World War might have been drastically different had it not been for the clandestine work of William J. "Wild Bill" Donovan and his cadre of intelligentsia in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). This paper provides an overview and assessment of the concepts of vision and strategic leadership as displayed by William J. "Wild Bill" Donovan in the creation and execution of the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS, for the United States of America during the Second World War. The major focus of the paper is an analysis of the life experiences which include family background, education, character and personality, and career path that lead Donovan to become a strategic and visionary leader. In addition, this paper provides a discussion of the creation of the Office of Strategic Services and how it worked during World War II. A summary of the research and salient findings are presented in the conclusion.

Review and Discussion

Background and Overview.

Today, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has received a lot of bad press, but the fact remains that this agency is tasked with a vitally important mission in the post-September 11 world. According to their organizational literature, "The Central Intelligence Agency was created in 1947 with the signing of the National Security Act by President Harry S. Truman. The act also created a Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) to serve as head of the United States intelligence community; act as the principal adviser to the President for intelligence matters related to the national security; and serve as head of the Central Intelligence Agency" (About Us 2). The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 subsequently revised the National Security Act to also provide for a Director of National Intelligence responsible for the assumption of some of the roles formerly fulfilled by the DCI, with a separate Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (About Us 3). The CIA's forerunner was the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS, which was the main American intelligence agency during the Second World War headed by William J. "Wild Bill" Donovan (Langford and Bruce 1), whose life and times are described further below.

The Life and Times of William J. Donovan.

William J. Donovan was born on New Year's Day in 1883, and died seventy-six years later on February 8, 1959 (Troy 23). According to this biographer, Donovan's grandparents, both were Irish Catholics who had immigrated to the United States and settled in Buffalo, New York, in a predominantly Irish neighborhood of the First Ward near the waterfront (Troy 23). "His parents," a relative of the family wrote, "also Irish and Catholic, lived in the grandparents' big, high-stooped brick house at 74 Michigan Street" (William's brother, Rev. Vincent Donovan, quoted by Troy at 23). William was the couple's first child who added the name Joseph at his Confirmation (Troy 23). William also had eight other siblings, but four of them died from spinal meningitis at early ages (Troy 23). The Donovan house on Michigan Street was a gathering spot for Irish immigrants, neighbors, and politics; "in our neck of the woods, " recalled one member of the family, "you were born and died a Republican" (William's brother, Rev. Vincent Donovan, quoted by Troy at 23).

William had some interesting influences during his early life that may help account for his career path in later life. For example, although Donovan's father never finished school ("he played hookey instead and was finally allowed by his father to go to work for the railroads and eventually wound up as a superintendent"), he became convinced that an education was the key to success. As a result, "He started building a library at home before any children were born. When they did come, they 'grew up in the midst of books.' The young William was an omnivorous reader, and he remained one throughout his life -- buying, reading, and collecting books, making notes of them in his diaries or journals, and copying out pertinent facts and quotable lines" (Troy 23). William attended the Christian Brothers' School in his early years, and entertained the idea of becoming a Dominican priest, but elected to pursue a career in law instead (William's younger brother, Vincent, went on to become a Dominican priest, though) (Troy 23). William attended Niagara University, and subsequently changed to Columbia University; there, he worked his way through school throughout the academic year as well as during summers; in spite of these responsibilities, he found time to compete on Columbia's rowing team and earned a spot on the second varsity crew as well as earning his letter as quarterback on the 1904 team (Troy 23). Not surprisingly, perhaps, William was not noted as an exemplary academician but nevertheless, he managed to graduate in 1905 and remained at Columbia to attain his law degree, which he received in 1907 (Troy 23). During this period, one of his classmates was Franklin Delano Roosevelt,.".. The Democratic Hudson Valley squire, who in the 1932 campaign "referred condescendingly to 'my old friend and classmate, Bill Donovan'"; however, William later reported he "always reminded people that Roosevelt never knew me in law school" (Ford 13 quoted in Troy at 23).

During his attendance at Columbia Law School, one of his teachers was Harlan Stone, a future Supreme Court justice (Troy 23). Following his graduation, the young William returned to Buffalo and secured a position with a small firm, Love & Keating (Troy 23). According to this author, "In 1912 he formed a partnership with Bradley Goodyear, and later that year they joined the city's leading law firm which then became O'Brian Hamlin Donovan & Goodyear. In 1914 he took himself a bride, Ruth Rumsey, the daughter of one of the wealthiest and most prominent families in the city, and they would have a son David, still living, and a daughter Patricia whose death in an automobile accident in 1940 was a very great personal loss to her father" (Troy 24)

The other formative episode that took place during this period in Donovan's life was his commission as an officer in the New York National Guard. According to one biographer, "Meanwhile, he had taken up -- and it is not too far fetched to put it this way -- another bride, the military life. He did so in 1911 when he joined with others in Buffalo to organize Troop I of the First New York Cavalry of the National Guard. Even though he had hardly ridden a horse more than three or four times, he was, within six months, captain of the troop" (Troy 24). When World War I erupted in 1914, Donovan devoted as much of his time as possible to his military responsibilities, experiences which were clearly influential in his later life and way of thinking. For instance, according to Troy, "The war provided him with his first overseas service, though not as a soldier; in 1916 he was on the continent, in France, Germany, and Poland as a member of the Polish Commission which had been established under the American War Relief Commission to work with the belligerents in the distribution of food and clothing to the suffering population of Poland. In London he worked with Herbert Hoover, who was then in charge of Belgian relief. This association led to a close friendship, which turned sour, however, in 1929" (Troy 24).

In 1929, Donovan left the Department of Justice where he had been an assistant attorney general for five years under Presidents Harding and Coolidge; his departure was prompted because the new, President Hoover, had, by all accounts, reneged on a commitment to make Donovan attorney general, and Donovan, the future chief of just such a service, was leaving the government in Washington to begin a new career in Manhattan (Troy 23). During his stay in Europe, Donovan witnessed his first battles and their impact on the soldiers involved (Troy 24). He also gained some combat experience when his Troop I was activated to serve on the Mexican border to.".. curb the depredations on American lives and property of the bandit leader Pancho Villa. He hurried home to join his men and serve eight and a half months under Gen. John J. ("Black Jack") Pershing (Troy 24). It was at this point in his career, according his younger brother, Vincent, that he earned the nickname of "Wild Bill." "Reportedly, his men, collapsing after an exhausting ten-mile hike, heard their captain taunt them with 'Look at me, I'm not even panting. If I can take it, why can't you?' The answer, from somewhere in the ranks was: 'We ain't as wild as you, Bill'" (Ford 12). The nickname stuck and "Wild Bill" came to like it: "So it stayed with him, and he liked it" (Troy 24).

When the United States entered the World War, "Wild Bill" Donovan was a major but declined a promotion to colonel in the Twenty-seventh Division in preference to becoming part of New York's "Fighting Irish" of Civil War fame, the Sixty-ninth Regiment of the N.Y. National Guard, which had been conducting a vigorous recruiting campaign (Troy 24). According to this author, "The Sixty-ninth was drafted into the Regular Army and was proud to be selected New York's representative in the newly formed Forty-second Division, the 'Rainbow Division,' where it was redesignated the 165th Regiment" (Troy 24). These events as much as any other were responsible for providing Donovan with both the experience as well as the recognition that would help propel him into future leadership positions. In this regard, Troy reports that, "It remained 'the old Sixty-ninth,' however, and for the better part of his twenty-two months of service Donovan was the commander of its First Battalion. It was in that capacity, a lieutenant colonel, that he saw combat, was several times wounded, and demonstrated such outstanding qualities of leadership and moral courage that he emerged from the war with 'more medals than any other 42nd officer'" (emphasis added) (Troy 24).

Donovan also received the Distinguished Service Cross (1918), the Distinguished Service Medal (1922), and the Medal of Honor (1923). At the end of World War II, Donovan had attained the rank of colonel in command of the 165th. During the unit's ticker-tape parade down Fifth Avenue to a tumultuous welcome home, Donovan was forever after popularly known as "Col. William J. ('Wild Bill') Donovan" (Troy 24). According to this biographer, "He was always "Colonel" Donovan, at least until he became "General" Donovan in World War II; the press always spoke of him as 'Wild Bill' Donovan, and everybody knew of him simply as 'Bill Donovan'" (Troy 24). The agency which endures as the CIA today is the legacy of Donovan, and his contributions are discussion further below.

Creation and Operation of the Office of Strategic Services.

Over the years, historians of the intelligence efforts that took place during World War II have been mixed in their treatment of the intelligence dimension of Anglo-American operations and the contributions of Donovan to the successful outcome of the war during this critical period in world history (Macpherson 6). Indeed, prior to the creation of the OSS, American intelligence had historically been dominated by the American military, and this military orientation to American intelligence was notably perpetuated by the critically important work against first Japanese, and then German, ciphers by the U.S. Army and Navy during the World War II (Macpherson 6). One early assessment of this work accordingly rated it far superior to the 'amateur, comic, unproductive, and self-serving' actions of OSS, a description illustrating the intensity of anti-OSS partisans (Macpherson 6).This intensity is more than matched by pro-OSS historians. Corey Ford's Donovan of OSS is a classic example of the glowingly uncritical vision of OSS founder William J. Donovan that credits him with conceiving the idea of centralized intelligence, and who is implicitly lauded for realizing an innovative American approach to intelligence by creating OSS in his own image. Likewise, Anthony Cave Brown's the Last Hero: Wild Bill Donovan largely concurs with this assessment based on Donovan's papers, while Thomas Troy's Donovan and the CIA is devoted to demonstrating the direct lineage between Donovan's ideas and what eventually became the post-war Central Intelligence Agency (Macpherson 6).

While this "direct lineage" is made clear by the abundant literature concerning Donovan's contributions to the successful outcome of the war, the precise impact of these contributions remains in dispute. What is involved in this assessment is highly subjective, and it is in truth difficult to quantity the impact of nebulous concepts such as the brand of psychological warfare that Donovan used during World War II. This point is made by Donovan himself in his preface to Anisimov's book, the Ultimate Weapon (1953), wherein Donovan writes, "The battle for men's minds gains in intensity. The chief weapon in this phase of the battle is Psychological Warfare. This weapon forged of many elements is aimed at the surrender of the mind, to force the enemy to yield rather than to resist. The Nazis exploited this weapon in World War II, but the Soviets have enlarged and perfected it" (v). Although modern historians enjoy the benefit of historical hindsight, the importance of wearing away the morale and wherewithal of the Axis forces during the last few years of the war cannot be understated either. According to Donovan, "Propaganda' -- for this is what was regarded as political warfare in the last war -- played a certain role in 1939-45. The Soviets, the Axis powers, and the Western Allies all used it as a means of influencing the people in the enemy camp, but it is very difficult to assess what effect it actually had in World War II" (Donovan v). Fortunately for historians and researchers, though, the analysis of the impact of Donovan's contributions has been aided by the fact that the archives of the OSS have been made available by the United States and a number of primary sources from this era exist today. According to Heidekinq, Mauch and Frey, the United States was the first country to open its World War II intelligence records to domestic and foreign researchers, thereby making the OSS a modern secret intelligence agency whose activities and ideologies can be studied in detail (2).

Given the abundance of primary sources available for review, it is not surprising that the Office of Strategic Services has received some mixed reviews over the years. According to Peterson and Dulles (1999), "Some of its daring penetration and paramilitary operations, and its research and analysis function, are highly regarded. But its espionage activities, morale operations, security, nonmilitary political-action endeavors, and liaison with other U.S. government agencies often are accorded modest marks" (18). Moreover, the overall effectiveness of Donovan and the OSS were criticized at the time and subsequently by a number of observers; however, these authors suggest that a great deal of this disparagement is misplaced because the OSS was created virtually overnight during the exigencies of wartime conditions (Peterson and Dulles 18). More significantly, perhaps, is the fact that much of this criticism stems from comparisons of the OSS with modern national intelligence organizations instead of its contemporaries: "The Abwehr was thoroughly penetrated by the Allies," Peterson and Dulles note, and likewise, "Soviet intelligence shares the blame for the unparalleled disaster of June 1941. The British have rightly received great credit for their part in Ultra and for gaining control of German agents in England. But one should not overlook the loss of agents at Venlo, the German control of Allied agents in Holland (operation North Pole), the Cicero fiasco in Turkey, and the presence of Philby and other pro-Soviet traitors in the British intelligence services" (Peterson and Dulles 18). From this perspective, the Dulles operation in Bern, in spite of security breaches and episodes of erroneous data analysis, represents a highlight of the OSS experience that compares favorably with other wartime intelligence entities around the world (Peterson and Dulles 18).

In fact, the OSS was tasked with intelligence gathering duties on a global basis. According to Heidekinq, Mauch and Frey (1996), "Observing oppositional forces in Germany was only one of many tasks undertaken by the OSS, which had been set up in June 1942 to collect and analyze strategic information and to plan and operate special services" (2). These biographers at least are highly favorable of Donovan's contributions to the war effort: "Under the energetic leadership of General William J. Donovan, who had been appointed by President Roosevelt as Coordinator of Information (COI) after Pearl Harbor," they write, "the OSS soon began to operate on a world-wide basis, employing about 13,000 people at its height in late 1944" (Heidekinq et al. 2). Nevertheless, the analysis of the OSS files by these researchers suggests that the military analysts in Washington, D.C. were preoccupied with German resistance issues and assigned high priority to information regarding the morale of the German home front; therefore, the OSS records provide a significant addition to the body of evidence concerning the German resistance, even though not all the reports from the outposts in London, Bern, Stockholm, Madrid and Istanbul are regarded as being truthworthy (Keidekinq et al. 2). Furthermore, the archives of the OSS provide some insights into the thinking that took during this critical period in world history by an agency that was supposed to have been the best informed governmental agency of the day; these documents suggest that there were various opinions concerning the importance of the OSS to the war's outcome among the Roosevelt administration as a whole (Heidekinq et al. 2).

According to Heidekinq and his colleagues, "In the spring of 1942, the office of the Coordinator of Information (COI) and the State Department began to grapple with the problem of devising a coherent and viable psychological warfare strategy directed against Germany. At that time the U.S. administration believed in Winston Churchill's concept of bringing about the downfall of the Nazi regime by 'setting Europe ablaze'" (3). The concept developed by Churchill required massive bombing as well as the support of anti-Nazi forces in the occupied countries. To achieve this dual goal, the British developed a new instrument of subversive warfare known as the Special Operations Executive, or SOE (Heidekinq et al. 3). In reality, the body of research to date clearly shows that Donovan and his colleagues - as well as the national leaders themselves - were "winging it" and were breaking new ground at every step in their efforts to thwart the Axis juggernaut. It is with this consideration in mind - that the war could in fact have gone either way during the early days, that Donovan's effort must be considered today. For example, according to Heidekinq and his associates, "In the United States, as a starting point, war planners listened to Paul Hagen, alias Karl Frank, a socialist immigrant from Austria, who offered to establish contacts with resistance groups in Germany and made proposals for a collaboration with the German 'underground.' This strategy was aimed at separating the Nazi rulers from the German people. From very early on, COI and OSS pinned their hopes on the working classes as 'natural enemies' of National Socialism and Fascism" (3). Military tacticians have long advocated "winning the hearts and minds of the enemy" to erode its ability to effectively wage war, so this approach was reasonable it would seem and the divide and conquer approach to this effort was clear: "It was expected that the large numbers of foreign workers and prisoners of war forced to toil in German factories would strengthen the opposition potential of the German labor force" (Heidekinq et al. 3).

Because resources are by definition scarce, it is also reasonable to assume that Donovan and his cohorts would seek out allies wherever they might be found during this period in history. This point is made by Heidekinq and his colleagues and the importance of Donovan's contributions to the effectiveness of the OSS operations can be gauged in this light: "The OSS believed that the labor movement would become the most important ally in the common struggle against the Axis powers. This belief was confirmed by a group of left-wing German immigrants whom Donovan had drafted from the New School of Social Research in New York for the Research and Analysis Branch (R&a) of his new organization. Led by Franz Neumann, Herbert Marcuse and Max Horkheimer, they explained the rise of National Socialism in terms of a historic contradiction between the progressive working classes and the authoritarian German ruling elites, who had enlisted the Nazis to consolidate their threatened position" (Heidekinq et al. 3). This analysis of the situation "on the ground" on the German home front provided the framework in which the OSS prosecuted its efforts and guided its vision of how best to achieve victory over the Axis by using what was available to its best purpose. According to Heidekinq and his colleagues, Donovan's analysis.".. combined the Marxist doctrine of class struggle with the egalitarian idealism of the New Deal [and] not only fixed the ideological point-of-view of many R&a members but had a considerable impact on the outlook of the OSS and the administration in general. One of the first practical consequences was the establishment of an OSS Labor Section, headed by Arthur J. Goldberg, with branch offices in London and Bern as points of contact with the German 'underground'" (3).

The issue of the exact timing and content of any substantive propaganda initiative against Germany was still up in the air, though, when Allen W. Dulles assumed control of the OSS outpost in Bern in November 1942 (Heidekinq et al. 3). Using this neutral base of operations to its best advantage, Dulles quickly contact representatives of the resistance German resistance to formulate the best approach to achieving the above-stated goals; however, differentiating between "good" and "bad" Germans was problematic, particularly because.".. even a high-ranking SS official tried to sound out his views on a possible peace initiative. In February 1943, in the aftermath of the German defeat in Stalingrad, Dulles reported on the effort of German groups to eliminate Hitler. Having been told by the prominent Swiss psychologist C.G. Jung that Hitler would rather commit suicide than surrender his power to internal or external enemies" (Heidekinq et al. 3). At this point, Dulles believed that the elimination of Hitler was absolutely essential to achieving victory over Nazi Germany; however, his assessment of the situation in Germany indicated that there was no viable organized opposition available for this purpose and he believed the superior approach for getting rid of Hitler would be to "create the impression that we desire that he remain. In the meantime the psychological warfare options of the OSS had become severely limited by a shift in British propaganda and by Churchill and Roosevelt's agreement on the 'unconditional surrender' formula at the Casablanca conference in January 1943" (emphasis added) (Heidekinq et al. 3). In spite of these constraints, the OSS formulated a comprehensive political warfare campaign in May 1943 based on the assumption that "fear is the predominant element making for the fighting and productive strength of the German people" (Heidekinq et al. 4).