Wild Bill Donovan, created the OSS, which became the CIA. Wild Bill seeded the CIA with many Nazi’s who were all to happy to serve a new master. Excerpts from a large article at Vanity Fair
The Central Intelligence Agency regards Donovan as its founding father. When Donovan died, on February 8, 1959, the C.I.A. cabled its station chiefs around the world: “The man more responsible than any other for the existence of the Central Intelligence Agency has passed away.” Today, Donovan’s statue stands in the lobby of the C.I.A.’s headquarters, in Langley, Virginia, and some old agency hands still celebrate Donovan’s bravado and élan—“an attitude,” says the C.I.A.’s chief historian, David Robarge, “of do it, try it, derring-do.” Robarge, like many of his contemporaries in the U.S. intelligence community, is at once awed by Donovan and wary of his legacy. Presidents have been tempted from time to time to use the C.I.A. as a secret and “deniable” weapon. The lure of covert action “creates an expectation,” says Robarge, choosing his words carefully, “that cannot always be fulfilled.”
Liberal democracies need secret intelligence services to protect against their enemies, (that’s a weird statement- why should you take that at face value?) even more so when the enemy is a shadowy web of suicidal terrorists. Donovan and his spiritual heirs relished the fight. There are in the intelligence community today latter-day Donovans who want to take big risks, and damn the consequences. But there are also highly risk-averse bureaucrats who have seen the C.I.A. burned by “flaps” (the old C.I.A. term for blown operations) and by “blowback” from operations that in the long run have done more harm than good (the C.I.A.-backed coups in Iran and Guatemala in 1953 and 1954 are the classic examples). Old-fashioned espionage—known as human intelligence, or humint—can seem glamorous in the movies. In real life, it often produces meager results. Donovan’s legacy has been the willingness of the intelligence community to take chances by staging coups and mounting other daring covert operations. Its history has been one more of failure than success.
The Room
Donovan was drawn to Europe. In 1939, he met Spain’s Generalissimo Francisco Franco on the front lines of the Spanish Civil War, where he observed Nazi Germany’s weapons and warplanes getting a tryout in the Fascist cause. He visited Mussolini in Italy and journeyed through various nations along the periphery of Hitler’s Germany. Ostensibly traveling for business and pleasure, he was in fact gathering intelligence for a secretive private organization known as the Room, a group of international businessmen and lawyers who traded tips on the increasingly ominous developments on the European continent.
At the time, the U.S. government had no formal spy agency. In 1929, the Secretary of State, Henry L. Stimson, had abolished the highly effective Black Chamber, a code-breaking organization left over from World War I. “Gentlemen do not read each other’s mail,” Stimson famously declared. Colonel Stimson was an honorable-schoolboy type, and his intentions were noble, the product of peacetime idealism and a certain American innocence. British gentlemen were not burdened by such scruples. Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service dated back to the reign of Queen Elizabeth, in the 16th century. In 1939, with Britain facing a gathering storm and the task of safeguarding an empire, the foreign-intelligence service, known as M.I.6, began looking for ways to lure the Americans to the cause. They spotted a potentially useful ally in Donovan.
The British enlisted the help of a debonair Canadian businessman named William Stephenson. A self-made millionaire and former lightweight-boxing champion, Stephenson had been, like Donovan, a much-decorated World War I hero. He actively courted Donovan’s friendship. The strapping Donovan and diminutive Stephenson eventually became so close that they were known as “Big Bill” and “Little Bill.”
Intrepid (read this book some time ago)
Stephenson was, secretly, a spy for M.I.6, who went by the code name “Intrepid.” At some point Stephenson revealed his double life to Donovan—and implored him to join the fight against the Axis. On July 14, 1940, Donovan flew to London to meet Colonel Stewart Menzies, the chief of M.I.6, known to his fellow spies simply as “C.” Donovan met “C” at M.I.6 headquarters in an old Victorian manse on London’s Broadway, where the porters wore brass buttons engraved with the motto on the royal coat of arms, “Honi soit qui mal y pense” (“Evil be to him who evil thinks”). British intelligence should “bare their breast” to Donovan, Stephenson had cabled Menzies. Donovan was shown the inner workings of the British war effort and invited to dine with King George VI.
Returning to Washington as the Battle of Britain raged and the fate of England seemed to hang in the balance, Donovan reported to Roosevelt that he believed
Britain would survivethe German blitz but needed America’s help. That is what F.D.R. wanted to hear, and the president soon put Donovan to work as a lawyer trying to find ways around congressional strictures against selling armaments to Britain. By December, Donovan was back in London, where he met with Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who recognized a kindred spirit. Together the two former cavalrymen recited heroic poetry (“And oh! the thundering press of knights,” they declaimed together, “When as their war-cries swell, / May tole from heaven an angel bright, / And rouse a fiend from hell”). New Year’s 1941 found Donovan aboard a Royal Air Force plane, skirting German fighters over France en route to Gibraltar, and dining on a picnic provided by Lord Mountbatten: three bottles of Moselle, a flask of hot turtle soup, fresh lobster, cold pheasant, and Stilton cheese, served by an orderly in a white jacket and white gloves.After touring the Mediterranean and the Balkans, where he witnessed British commandos waging a desperate secret war, Donovan came home determined that America should join the fight with the same sort of cloak-and-dagger tools. “Hopeless to do anything with Bill,” Ruth wrote forlornly in her diary. “He has the British Empire for breakfast.” Working with a British naval commander named Ian Fleming (Yes, he was a spy) —later the author of the James Bond saga—Donovan drafted a blueprint for a secret American intelligence service based on the British model. F.D.R. agreed to the idea, appointing Donovan to run an organization called Coordinator of Information, an intentionally innocuous-sounding name. “Little Bill” Stephenson cabled “C” back at M.I.6 headquarters in London: “Donovan accuses me of having intrigued and driven him into the appointment. You can imagine how relieved I am after months of battle and jockeying for position in Washington that our man is in a position of such importance to our efforts.”
Interesting piece- read entirely at the link