OSS Spy Network Papers Released To National Archives
D. Spencer Hines
Grist for the mill...
--
DSH
Lux et Veritas et Libertas
Vires et Honor
U.S. spy network papers released
by: RANDY HERSCHAFT Associated Press
8/14/2008
The personnel files of the WWII-era OSS ring are being made public.
WASHINGTON - Famed chef Julia Child shared a secret with Supreme Court
Justice Arthur Goldberg and Chicago White Sox catcher Moe Berg at a time
when the Nazis threatened the world.
They served in an international spy ring managed by the Office of Strategic
Services, an early version of the CIA created in World War II by President
Franklin Roosevelt.
The secret comes out Thursday, all of the names and previously classified
files identifying nearly 24,000 spies who formed the first centralized
intelligence effort by the United States. The National Archives, which this
week released a list of the names found in the records, will make available
for the first time all 750,000 pages identifying the vast spy network of
military and civilian operatives.
They were soldiers, actors, historians, lawyers, athletes, professors,
reporters. But for several years during World War II, they were known simply
as the OSS. They studied military plans, created propaganda, infiltrated
enemy ranks and stirred resistance among foreign troops.
Among the more than 35,000 OSS personnel files are applications,
commendations and handwritten notes identifying young recruits who, like
Child, Goldberg and Berg, earned greater acclaim in other fields - Arthur
Schlesinger Jr., a historian and special assistant to President Kennedy;
Sterling Hayden, a film and television actor whose work included a role in
"The Godfather"; and Thomas Braden, an author whose "Eight Is Enough" book
inspired the 1970s television series.
Other notables identified in the files include John Hemingway, son of author
Ernest Hemingway; Quentin and Kermit Roosevelt, sons of President Theodore
Roosevelt, and Miles Copeland, father of Stewart Copeland, drummer for the
band The Police.
The release of the OSS personnel files uncloaks one of the last secrets from
the short-lived wartime intelligence agency, which for the most part later
was folded into the CIA after President Truman disbanded it in 1945.
"I think it's terrific," said Elizabeth McIntosh, 93, a former OSS agent now
living in Woodbridge, Va. "They've finally, after all these years, they've
gotten the names out. All of these people had been told never to mention
they were with the OSS."
The CIA had resisted releasing OSS records for decades. But former CIA
Director William Casey, himself an OSS veteran, cleared the way for transfer
of millions of OSS documents to the National Archives when he took over the
agency in 1981. The personnel files are the latest to be made public.
Information about OSS involvement was so guarded that relatives often
couldn't confirm a family member's work with the group.
Walter Mess, who handled covert OSS operations in Poland and North Africa,
said he kept quiet for more than 50 years, only recently telling his wife of
62 years about his OSS activity.
"I was told to keep my mouth shut," said Mess, now 93 and living in Falls
Church, Va.
Raymond O'Hara
"D. Spencer Hines" <pan...@excelsior.com> wrote in message
news:OGopk.803$AB3....@eagle.america.net...
> Informative...
>
> Grist for the mill...
> --
> DSH
> Lux et Veritas et Libertas
> Vires et Honor
>
> U.S. spy network papers released
>
> by: RANDY HERSCHAFT Associated Press
> 8/14/2008
>
> The personnel files of the WWII-era OSS ring are being made public.
>
> WASHINGTON - Famed chef Julia Child shared a secret with Supreme Court
> Justice Arthur Goldberg and Chicago White Sox catcher Moe Berg at a time
> when the Nazis threatened the world.
childs and moe greenberg were already well know to be OSS workers.
childs work as an interpeter came out 20 years ago and there is a book on
moe berg.
file under old news.
a425couple
> Informative...
>
> U.S. spy network papers released
> by: RANDY HERSCHAFT Associated Press 8/14/2008 The personnel files of
> the WWII-era OSS ring are being made public.
Yes, lets hope all the followup gets very informative.
I've been interested in quite some time, on more
information about the about 63 MAGs / MAAGs
we formed post WWII. Seems often very unclear.
As is much on 'early years' in Vietnam.
A quote from Peter Harclerode in "Fighting Dirty,
inside story of covert operations from Ho Chi Minh
to Osama Bin Laden" 2001 is:
"It was not until 1973 that the US government admitted that the US troops,
predominantly members of the US Special Forces, had been killed on
operations in Laos and Cambodia since 1965. The official figure given was
81 but the actual total of American SOG personnel lost on operations was
over 300. Fifty-seven of them were recorded as MIA and only one of those
returned; the fate of the remainder remains unknown to this day."