The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was created on June 13, 1942 by President Franklin Roosevelt after he decided that he needed a new and different form of espionage group modeled after a British Intelligence agency. The primary reason for the OSS was to gather enemy information, carry out sabotage operations, distribute propaganda to attack the enemies and plan out special operations for different agencies.
Willam J. Donovan was the head of OSS appointed by President Roosevelt, who soon began to recruit everyone he thought was necessary for the job including, consulting, British spy-master Lan Fleming, author of the popular series James Bond. Donovan was born on January 1, 1883 and was a very successful man outside of all of his military duty. He was a lawyer and intelligence officer outside of the battlefield but also was a Colonel during WWI and reached Major General during WWII.
Donovan was also named the Coordinator Of Information (COI) and received multiple medals for all of his service including: Distinguished Service Medal, three Oak Leaf Cluster Medals, a Medal of Honor (MOH) and three Purple Hearts. Donovan died on February 8, 1959 and is now a part of the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame. The OSS was formed from the COI but half of it’s members stayed to work with the government for the Foreign Information Service (FIS).
When the OSS first began, many people didn’t like the group because they thought it to be taking over and it was actually banned from all Japanese intercepts and was only allowed to certain German intercepts under FBI terms. The Counterintelligence unit (X-2) was only allowed to operate in the Eastern Hemisphere where the FBI was operated in the Western Hemisphere. However, the British Intelligence services were very helpful to the OSS, understanding what they were going through, British Intelligence helped with OSS training, information and experience.
The Term Paper on Dramatic Changes in the U.S. Intelligence Community
Intelligence services of any country play a vital role in its security as well as in support of its national interests. The U. S. Intelligence Community (IC) today is a federation of about 16 separate governmental agencies (United States Intelligence Community, 2009) that monitor information worldwide and domestically in pursuance of America’s national interests. The IC has undergone fundamental ...
The OSS was separated into three different branches, The Research and Analysis Branch, The Moral Operations Branch and The Labor Division. The Research and Analysis Branch was responsible for employing academics for plan strategies for future invasions. The Moral Operations Branch was responsible for producing all of the propaganda used to attack enemies and The Labor Division was responsible for discouraging activity within trade unions. There were also three, main functional branches which were made of the Special Operations (SO), the Secret Intelligence (SI) and the Counterintelligence (X-2).
Weapons and spy gear were a big part of the OSS and all of their success. Donovan created in-house capability to fabricate tools and weapons but by the end of the war there were multiple labs which created mass-productions of weapons and spy gear for all of the OSS to use. There was a Research and Development Branch which was the main-inventing station for all weapons and gadgets. Stanley P. Lovell was in charge of the Research and Development Branch. The OSS is now the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and has the most responsibilities that the OSS did during WWII.
The functions of the OSS were split between the Department of State and the Department of War. The State Department received the Research and Analysis Branch of OSS which was renamed the Interim Research and Intelligence Service and the War Department took over the Secret Intelligence (SI) and Counter-espionage (X-2) Branches. The OSS was dissolved September 20, 1945 by President Truman. Over the years, the OSS conducted successful espionage and sabotage operations in Europe and Asia along with employing almost 13,000 men and women.
