The Office of Strategic Services(OSS)

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Office of Strategic Services (OSS)

The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the approximate US counterpartof the British Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, and Special OperationsExecutive (SOE), with which it co-operated throughout World War Two and

its immediate aftermath. The OSS was created by Presidential MilitaryOrder on 13 Jun 1942 and it functioned as the principal US intelligenceorganisation in all operational theatres. Its primary function was to obtaininformation about enemy nations and to sabotage their war potential andmorale. From 1940-1942, the US had no central intelligence agencyresponsible for the collection, analysis, and dissemination of informationbearing on national security, these services having been dispersedamongst the armed services and regional desks in the US StateDepartment. In Jul 1941 Maj Gen William Joseph Donovan was appointedby US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to the civilian post of Co-ordinator of Information (COI) and was instructed to consolidate a regular

channel of global strategic information. Under Donovan's leadership, theCOI claimed the functions of information gathering, propaganda,espionage, subversion, and post-war planning. The overt propagandafunctions of the COI were eventually severed and the COI was re-organisedas the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in 1942. The OSS was instructedby the President to collect and analyse such strategic information as mightbe required to plan and operate special military services in theatres ofoperation directed by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). The headquartersof the OSS were in Washington, but is also maintained overseas outpostswhich engaged in information gathering and liaison operations with Alliedintelligence services, most notably Special Operations Executive (SOE).

Chief among the overseas units was the London Outpost, established atthe end of 1941 to facilitate co-operation between the Allied intelligenceservices, and to serve as a base of operations for Allied intelligence,espionage and operational activities in Europe. The Special Operations(SO) Branch, OSS, London, was charged with conducting sabotageoperations, support and supply of resistance groups, and guerrilla warfarein enemy-occupied territories. The 'London Group' of SOE was its Britishcounterpart. On 10 Jan 1944, the SO Branch and the London Group wereintegrated into Special Forces Headquarters, under which they werecharged with carrying on their operations. Thus, from Jan-Sep 1944, 93Jedburgh teams, consisting of one British SOE soldier, one American OSSsoldier, and one officer native to the country in which the team wouldoperate, were parachuted into occupied Western Europe to supplyresistance movements and co-ordinate operations. The purpose of theSecret Intelligence (SI) Branch, OSS, London, was to collect and analysestrategic intelligence as was required by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. TheOSS was terminated by Executive Order 9620 on 20 Sep 1945, its functionslater assumed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
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RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS

American academics and experts in the Office of Strategic Servicesvirtually invented the discipline of non-departmental strategic intelligenceanalysisone of Americas few unique contributions to the craft ofintelligence. Inspired by General Donovans vision of a service that couldcollate data from open sources and all departments of the government,analysts in OSSs Research and Analysis Branch (R&A) comprised aformidable intelligence resource. Although the Branch suffered its share of


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internal bickering and sometimes had trouble finding customers for itsreports, R&As experts made allies for OSS even in rival agencies. EvenOSSs harshest critics softened their tone when speaking of R&A and itscontributions, and when OSS was dissolved at the end of the war, R&A wasthe one component that everyone agreed needed to be saved.

Headed by Harvard historian William Langer, R&A assembled roughly 900scholars. Staffing R&A was not a problem. The Branch recruited from manydisciplines, but especially favored historians, economists, politicalscientists, geographers, psychologists, anthropologists, and diplomats.Professors all over America welcomed the chance to serve the war effortwith their academic skills. R&As roster reads like a Whos Who of twogenerations of scholars: Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Walt W. Rostow, EdwardShils, Herbert Marcuse, H. Stuart Hughes, Gordon Craig, Crane Brinton,John King Fairbank, Sherman Kent, Ralph Bunche, and a host ofdistinguished colleagues and students joined the Branch. R&A veterans

included seven future presidents of the American Historical Association,five of the American Economic Association, and two Nobel Laureates.

R&A made one of its biggestcontributions in its support to the Alliedbombing campaign in Europe. Analysesby the Enemy Objectives Unit (EOU), ateam of R&A economists posted to theUS Embassy in London, sent Alliedbombers toward German fighter aircraftfactories in 1943 and early 1944. After

the Luftwaffes interceptor force wasweakened, Allied bombers could strikeGerman oil production, which EOUidentified as the choke-point in the Naziwar effort. The idea was not original withOSS, but R&As well-documentedsupport gave it credibility and helpedconvince Allied commanders to try it.When American bombers began hittingsynthetic fuel plants, ULTRA interceptsquickly confirmed that the strikes hadnearly panicked the German high

command. Although the fighting in Normandy that summer delayed the fullforce of the "oil offensive," in the autumn of 1944 Allied bombers returnedto the synthetic fuel plants. The resulting scarcity of aviation fuel all butgrounded Hitlers Luftwaffe and, by the end of the year, diesel and gasolineproduction had also plummeted, immobilizing thousands of German tanksand trucks.

Bombs from 8th Air Force B-17ssmash the FW-190 fighter plant atMarienburg, East Prussia, on 9October1943. R&As Enemy ObjectivesUnitworked with British and Polishintelligence to locate the factory.
http://www.cia.gov/csi/books/oss/b-17planephotoa.jpg


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R&As contribution notwithstanding, the coordination of intelligenceremained a problem in Washington throughout the war. The Pearl Harbordisaster underscored the problems with inter-service cooperation andcould serve as a metaphor for the fragmentation of the American wartimeintelligence establishment. The Army and Navy signals intelligence

organizations barely cooperated, jealously guarding their reports and theiraccess to President Roosevelt. They also prevented R&A analysts (with theexception of a few in the Enemy Objectives Unit) from reading signalsintelligence at all. Outside of the Oval Office, no one collated and analyzedthe totality of the intelligence data collected by the US Government. Thislack of government-wide coordination limited the success of R&A andprompted efforts to reform the intelligence establishment as soon as thewar was won.

Creation of the Office of Strategic Services

When the United States entered the war in 1941, the government needed topreserve unity of public opinion and strengthen ties among the Allied BigFour. Roosevelt wanted to focus on the military aspect of the war, not thepolitical. FDR promised to bind the Allies together through militaryassistance, such as Lend-Lease and the creation of a Second Front.Roosevelts campaign centered around minimizing the political dimensionsof the war. In order to defuse political controversy, FDR had to develop amethod for making operational decisions that appeared to be apolitical.This was accomplished by reserving all decision-making powers related to

the conduct of the war to himself and his top military officers, the JointChiefs of Staff. This staff was comprised of four members, including theChief of Staff of the Army, the Chief of Naval Operations, the CommandingGeneral of the Army Air Forces, and the Chief of Staff to the President. Asthe war continued, decisions moved out of the hands of the Cabinet andinto those of the Joint Chiefs. In order to be successful in conductingmilitary operations, the various military branches needed to coordinate andthis was accomplished through the Joint Chiefs of Staff. All actions wereguided by the principle of military necessity, thus minimizing the loss ofAmerican men and materials. The supreme Anglo-American militaryagency, the Combined Chiefs of Staff, consisted of the British Chiefs ofStaff Committee as well as the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff.

To avoid repeating the same mistakes of the First World War, Rooseveltadopted a policy of unconditional surrender in November 1942. Intelligencegathering was essential to bringing about a quicker victory. The British hadestablished an intelligence agency, the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS),prior to the United States creation of the OSS. Two new agencies were alsocreated as part of Britains counterintelligence efforts: the Political Warfare


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Executive (PWE) in charge of propaganda, and the Special OperationsExecutive (SOE) in charge of carrying out sabotage and assisting guerillawarfare. The United States aimed at combining the tasks of Britains threeagencies into one organization. After the United States entered the war, theCoordinator of Information was expanded and renamed the Office of

Strategic Services, which modeled the three British agencies andcombined them into one organization under the direction of the JointChiefs of Staff.

During the war the OSS was not central to the decision making process.The British intelligence agency had more experience and successes in thepast so they took the lead in most operations. Eisenhower even utilized theBritish intelligence agency, as he felt that the United States had a hugedeficiency in the intelligence field. The Combined Chiefs of Staff not onlymade the important decisions, but it also widened the gap between theSoviet Union and the West, as it excluded the Soviets from the partnership.

While the Soviets only worked with the Western powers at the summitlevel, the British and Americans continuously worked together in thispartnership making daily political decisions. The Anglo-American decision-making system functioned independently of the Soviets, as they played norole in the planning and execution of Operation Sunrise. This operationwas initiated by the Germans and responded to by the Western powers.

Counterintelligence in the Officeof Strategic Services

Introduction

The Office of Coordinator of Information (COI) was established on 11 July1941. It was announced to the public as an agency for the collection andanalysis of information and data. Actually, through COI and its successor,the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the United States was beginning itsfirst organized venture into the fields of espionage, propaganda,subversion and related activities under the aegis of a centralizedintelligence agency.

In themselves, these various functions were not new. Every war in

American history has produced different examples of the use of spies,saboteurs, and propagandists. Every major power, except the UnitedStates, has used espionage, for example, in peace as well as in war, forcenturies. The significance of

COI/OSS was in the concept of the relationship between these variedactivities and their combined effect as one of the most potent weapons inmodern warfare.


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The concept evolved from two missions performed for President Rooseveltin 1940 and 1941 by the man who guided COI/OSS throughout its existenceWilliam Joseph Donovan.

The establishment of the COI met particularly vigorous opposition from the

Army and Navy on the ground that the new agency might usurp some oftheir functions. Therefore, it was decided to establish COI as a part of theExecutive Office of the President. The new order was not designated aseither a military or an executive order; it referred to Roosevelt's position asPresident, as well as commander in chief, and expressly reserved theduties of his military and naval advisors. It deleted the previous referenceto the Army in appointing Donovan as Coordinator.

COI was renamed OSS in June 1942 with its directior reporting to the JointChiefs of Staff. The British asked FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to appoint aBureau officer to run a new counterintelligence (CI) organization to handle

foreign CI, which Donovan had agreed to house within OSS. When Hooverrejected this request, the British asked Donovan to set up a CI section. On1 March 1943, Donovan created the CI section, known as X-2, and placedJames R. Murphy in charge. Murphy and X-2 were given access to ULTRA,Magic and ICE. ICE was the OSS cryptonym for the British MI6 cryptonymISOS, the decoded and translated German Abwehr (Military Intelligence)message traffic.

This chapter provides the written correspondence by Donovan, PresidentRoosevelt, and others on the creation of COI/OSS, its eventual dissolutionafter the war, and reports on X-2.

The Coordinator of Information

The White HouseJuly 11, 1941

By virtue of the authority vested in me as President of the United Statesand as Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, it isordered as follows:

1. There is hereby established the position of Coordinator of Information,with authority to collect and analyze all information and data, which maybear upon national security, to correlate such information and dataavailable to the President and to such departments and officials of theGovernment as the President may determine; and to carry out, whenrequested by the President, such supplementary activities as may facilitate


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the securing of information important for national security not nowavailable to the Government.

2. The several departments and agencies of the Government shall makeavailable to the Coordinator of Information all and any such information

and data relating to national security as the Coordinator, with the approvalof the President, may from time to time request.

3. The Coordinator of Information may appoint such committees consistingof appropriate representatives of the various departments and agencies ofthe Government, as he may deem necessary to assist him in theperformance of his functions.

4. Nothing in the duties and responsibilities of the Coordinator ofInformation shall in any way interfere with or impair the duties andresponsibilities of the regular military and naval advisers of the President

as Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy.

5. Within the limits of such funds as may be allocated to the Coordinator ofInformation by the President, the Coordinator may employ necessarypersonnel and make provision for the necessary supplies, facilities, andservices.

6. William J. Donovan is hereby designated as Coordinator of Information.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

The Office of Strategic Services(OSS)

Documents

Transcript of The Office of Strategic Services(OSS)