Over the course of the war it grew both in size and professionalism. SI officers were responsible for recruiting foreign agents, while X-2 was counterespionage, tasked with combating enemy spies overseas.
The Branch recruited from many disciplines, but especially favored historians, economists, political scientists, geographers, psychologists, anthropologists, and diplomats. Professors all over America welcomed the chance to serve the war effort with their academic skills. Some SI officers viewed SO colleagues as trigger happy hooligans, with the subtle ways of a drunken rhinoceros.
Some SO officers viewed SI, especially those operating under diplomatic cover, as nothing more than ineffective diplomats or ivory tower eggheads. SI tended to recruit from academia and the law. At its peak OSS staff numbered about 13, people, 35 percent of whom were women. About 7,, both men and women, served overseas. OSS officers were given military status and rank with most assigned to the Army, however many were also assigned to the Navy and Marines.
Hoping for greater coordination of intelligence activities, as well as a more strategic approach to intelligence gathering and operations; on July 11, , President Franklin Roosevelt appointed William J. The COI was charged with collecting and analyzing information which may have had bearing upon national security, correlating such information and data, and making this information available to the President, authorized departments, and authorized officials of the government.
The OSS gathered intelligence information about practically every country in existence, but was not allowed to conduct operations in the Pacific Theater, which General Douglas MacArthur claimed as his own. After the OSS was terminated on September 20, , by Executive Order; most records were eventually transferred to two agencies of the Federal government. Approximately 1, cubic feet of Research and Analysis Branch records ended up at the Department of State, while more than 6, cubic feet of operational records were transferred to what was to become the Central Intelligence Agency CIA.
Her husband, Paul, was also an OSS officer. Senate unanimously voted in favor of the legislation, and representatives have signed on as co-sponsors, the measure has stalled in the House, due to a rule stating that a congressional medal bill needs a waiver by the House Leadership Executive Committee.
But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you. Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. Recommended for you. Needing to throw together an agency quickly, he turned to his circle of friends in New York and hired blue bloods by the dozen. But holidays on the Riviera were a far cry from war. Even more than aristocrats, however, Donovan loved misfits, and he staffed OSS with a bizarre array of talent.
There were mafia contract killers and theology professors. There were bartenders, anthropologists, and pro wrestlers. There were orthodontists, ornithologists, and felons on leave from federal penitentiaries. Donovan did hire some brilliant misfits as well, including the chief scientist, Stanley Lovell. He and his labmates developed bombs that looked like mollusks to attach to ships.
They crafted shoes and buttons and batteries with secret cavities to conceal documents. They invented pencils and cigarettes that shot bullets.
They devised an explosive powder called Aunt Jemima with the consistency of flour that could be mixed with water and even baked into biscuits and nibbled on without any danger; only when ignited with a fuse did Aunt Jemima detonate.
Read: The tools of espionage are going mainstream.
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