06 - The OSS - America's WW2 Intelligence Service

In this episode I talk to Douglas Waller about the Office of Strategic Services, the OSS.

The US entered the Second World War with no foreign intelligence service. Roosevelt selected William Donovan, WW1 Medal of Honor recipient, to create an agency based on the British MI6 and SOE.

A task he did with gusto.

Douglas is a veteran journalist and has work for Time Magazine and Newsweek. For twenty years as a Washington correspondent he has covered the Pentagon, Congress, the State Department, the White House and the CIA.

He has written two books looking at the American Office of Strategic Services, the OSS, which was America’s Intelligence service during WWII. His first book on the subject “Wild” Bill Donovan: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage is a biography of William Donovan who ran the organisation up until it was disbanded in 1945.

His new book Disciples: The World War II Missions of the CIA Directors Who Fought for Wild Bill Donovan takes a closer look at the activities of the OSS, through the careers of four future CIA directors who were active during the war.