Office of Strategic Services

Office of Strategic Services (OSS), U.S. agency created (1942) during World War II under the jurisdiction of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the purpose of obtaining information about enemy nations and of sabotaging their war potential and morale. Headed by William J. Donovan , the OSS comprised personnel from all the branches of the armed forces as well as civilians. Although the "cloak and dagger" section gained the most publicity after the war, some of the most valuable work was done by the research and analysis section. Behind enemy lines, the OSS acted as a liaison with the underground in Nazi-occupied countries. The OSS was disbanded in 1945. Later many of its functions were assumed by the Central Intelligence Agency .

Bibliography: See S. Alsop and T. Bradon, Sub Rosa: The O.S.S. and American Espionage (1946, repr. 1964); R. H. Smith, OSS (1972).

Office of Strategic Services OSS an agency created during World War II when William J. Donovan, its first head, convinced President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941 to form the office of the Coordinator of Information (COI) for collecting and analyzing data as well as other activities, special operations, in particular. In 1942, it was officially designated the Office of Strategic Services. It is generally acknowledged that the Central Intelligence Agency originated with the OSS.

Office of Strategic Services (OSS), one of several American intelligence agencies during World War II, is inextricably linked with William “Wild Bill” Donovan, a Republican but also an associate of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.In 1940, as one of Roosevelt's contacts with Winston Churchill, Donovan established close ties with British intelligence. He wished to become coordinator of American intelligence as a whole, but instead, in 1942, FDR appointed him director of the newly established OSS, which was placed under the Joint Chiefs of Staff and ordered to analyze strategic intelligence, conduct covert action, and run agents in Asia and Europe. The OSS's three‐year history was marked by political controversy, a search for missions and successes to justify its existence, and some real achievement. The OSS's exploits have been romanticized. Some of its undertakings were extravagant failures, and it often functioned as a junior partner to British intelligence. Still, it proved a competent espionage service, with particular successes in running agents in Germany, and in providing tactical intelligence to U.S. field commanders in Europe. American academics figured prominently in the OSS's analytical branches, where they pioneered new techniques of strategic analysis. Nonetheless, the OSS was less significant to the war effort than the signals intelligence services of the army and the navy, and in September 1945, President Harry S. Truman disbanded it. Contrary to OSS mythology, Truman did so not out of a naïve opposition to intelligence—he preserved the code‐breaking agencies of the army and the navy, and retained some other intelligence organizations—but because he distrusted Donovan and regarded the OSS as being penetrated by the British. Many leading figures of the early Central Intelligence Agency were OSS veterans. The OSS tradition, with its focus on action, bureaucratic and operational buccaneering, covert operations, and links with the academic community, influenced the CIA, and the two agencies' functions in the American intelligence community were similar.

Bibliography

Thomas F. Troy , Donovan and the CIA, 1981.
Bradley Smith , The Shadow Warriors: OSS and the Origins of the CIA, 1983.
Thomas F. Troy , Wild Bill and Intrepid: Donovan, Stephenson, and the Origin of the CIA, 1996.

John Ferris