Thread by @karolcummins

🐙Genesis of the OSS

The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was a wartime intelligence agency of the United States during World War II, and a predecessor to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USG/J…

The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS)[3] to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for all branches of the US Armed Forces.

Other OSS functions included the use of propaganda, subversion, & post-war planning.

ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USG/J…

The organization was developed with British assistance.

Until some months after Pearl Harbor, the bulk of OSS intelligence came from the UK.

British Security Co-ordination (BSC) trained the first OSS agents in Canada.

ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USG/J…

📌The British immediately made available their short-wave broadcasting capabilities to Europe, Africa, and the Far East and provided equipment for agents until American production was established.

The Secret History of British Intelligence in the Americas, 1940-1945, p27-28

📌On July 11, 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt appointed William J. Donovan to head a new civilian office attached to the White House, the Coordinator of Information (COI).

archives.gov/research/milit…

A Look Back … Gen. William J. Donovan Heads Office of Strategic Services

#WildBillDonovan

cia.gov/news-informati…

Spymaster General

The adventures of Wild Bill Donovan and the “Oh So Social” O.S.S.

#WildBillDonovan

vanityfair.com/culture/2011/0…

📌On June 13, 1942, the COI became the Office of Strategic Services.

The OSS gathered intel info about practically every country, but was not allowed to conduct operations in the Pacific Theater, which Gen Douglas MacArthur claimed as his own. #TurfWars

archives.gov/research/milit…

📌J. Edgar Hoover of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Nelson Rockefeller, the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, insisted that the OSS should not operate in the Western hemisphere.  #TurfWar

archives.gov/research/milit…

🔑For these reasons, the records of OSS COVERT ACTIONS are almost entirely confined to Europe, Asia, & N Africa.

The OSS established more than 40 overseas offices during World War II, extending from Casablanca to Shanghai, and from Stockholm to Pretoria.

archives.gov/research/milit…

📌What Was OSS?

cia.gov/library/public…

📌Full text of "The Secret War The Office of Strategic Services in World War II"

archive.org/details/bub_gb…

📌OSS National Archive:

archives.gov/research/milit…

📌Prior to the establishment of the OSS, the Army and Navy both had intelligence branches, and even private companies like General Electric* had intelligence collection capabilities.

theatlantic.com/science/archiv…

German Companies WWII & OSS

https://twitter.com/karolcummins/status/1237512948999831553?s=21

🐙Ian Fleming of James Bond & SPECTRE* fame was part of a team which traveled to the US to meet with “Wild Bill Donovan” and helped write the blueprint for the new Office of the Coordinator of Information, which turned into the OSS (pre CIA).

cia.gov/news-informati…

“Octopussy” oh my! This begs the question, did Fleming’s James Bond series serve as a tool of disinformation?

🐙SPECTRE (an acronym of Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion), stylised simply as “Spectre“

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPECTRE

📌The surprising place where WWII agents learnt to fight Nazis

bbc.com/future/article…

Vera Atkins, a British spymaster believed to be Ian Fleming’s inspiration for Miss Moneypenny in the James Bond series.

Atkins, who recruited agents for Winston Churchill’s newly created Special Operations Executive (SOE).

history.com/news/female-al…

📌The genteel US Ivy Leaguers who ruled the federal government tended to view intelligence activity as immoral, even dirty.

As President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s secretary of war, Henry Stimson, once said, “Gentlemen don’t read each other’s mail.”

theatlantic.com/science/archiv…

📌This squeamishness put the United States at a disadvantage compared with Great Britain, Germany, and Russia, all of which had sophisticated intelligence bureaus and gleefully spied on adversaries and allies alike.

theatlantic.com/science/archiv…

📌Pearl Harbor finally forced the U.S. government to admit its shortcomings and establish the Office of Strategic Services.

📌Most people know it today as the precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency, but OSS’s mandate was broader than that.

theatlantic.com/science/archiv…

🔑In addition to espionage, it carried out (overt & covert) paramilitary operations overseas and helped pave the way for the U.S. military’s Special Forces.

🔑In many cases, the espionage and the extralegal activities went hand in hand.🐙

theatlantic.com/science/archiv…

📌OSS was primarily shaped by two men: its director, William “Wild Bill” Donovan, and its chief scientist, Stanley Lovell (Flemings/James Bond’s Q)

📌OSS Declassified Archive

archives.gov/files/iwg/decl…

ONI History William Donovan

archives.gov/research/milit…

📌Donovan clearly had the vision and drive to see OSS succeed.

However, Wild Bill lacked pretty much every other skill necessary to run a government agency—he had “abysmal” if not “atrocious” administrative skills.

theatlantic.com/science/archiv…

“Nowhere were Donovan’s flaws more evident than in his hiring practices.

Needing to throw together an agency quickly, he turned to his circle of friends in New York and hired “blue bloods” by the dozen.”

theatlantic.com/science/archiv…

📌The OSS roster was lousy with Mellons, Du Ponts, Morgans, and Vanderbilts. (American Oligarchs of the day).🐙

Columnists joked that the agency’s initials actually stood for “Oh So Social.”

theatlantic.com/science/archiv…

More than a few heirs and heiresses suffered “dramatic mental crackups” in the field.

Even more than aristocrats, Donovan loved misfits, & he staffed OSS w/ a bizarre array of talent.

🔑There were mafia contract killers & theology professors. #OpusDei?

theatlantic.com/science/archiv…

🔑There were bartenders, anthropologists, and pro wrestlers. There were orthodontists, ornithologists, & felons on leave from federal penitentiaries.

Observers sometimes referred to OSS as “St. Elizabeths,” after the well-known D.C., lunatic asylum.

theatlantic.com/science/archiv…

📌Donald Barr, William Barr’s father served with the Office of Strategic Services in Washington and Europe.

🔑Fun fact: Bill Barr covered up the IranContra/INSLAW/PROMIS/PassPortGate scandals— more on that later. Bill served in the CIA 1973. - 1977.

nytimes.com/2004/02/10/nyr…

📌One top official there admitted that “OSS may indeed have employed quite a few psychopathic characters.”

📌Donovan once said, “I’d put Stalin on the OSS payroll if I thought it would help defeat Hitler.”

No one knew whether he was kidding.

theatlantic.com/science/archiv…

📌Donovan did hire some brilliant misfits as well, including the chief scientist, Stanley Lovell. When Donovan first interviewed Lovell, he asked him to become the OSS equivalent of Professor Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes’s nemesis.

theatlantic.com/science/archiv…

📌But it’s more accurate to think of Lovell as Q from the James Bond franchise:

📌Do take a moment to read this article - it’s a hilarious portrait about how the “Wild Bill” moniker was well earned.

theatlantic.com/science/archiv…

Dr Stanley P Lovell

The Legend of Q

thelegendofq.co.uk/stanley-lovell…

OSS Weapons & SpyGear

cia.gov/library/public…

📌OSS Archived Docs

cia.gov/library/public…

✅OSS Chief Allen Dulles

https://twitter.com/karolcummins/status/1239609075685457921?s=21

@threadreaderapp unroll please and thank you.

#OSS
#WildBillDonovan
#SPECTRE
#Dulles
#Octopus🐙
#Casolero