Gen. William "Wild Bill" Donovan

Government Service

I also came to realize there was world outside the law office. Maybe this is when I formulated my attitude that became familiar to my OSS staff, "Sure, let's give it a try!" I wanted to give a lot in this world a try, especially in the service of my country.

I had various government assignments, such as assistant attorney general, and I served on various federal commissions and delegations. I even ran (unsuccessfully) for governor and lieutenant governor of New York. I founded a Wall Street law firm, Donovan, Leisure, Newton, Lumbard, and Irvine.

Still, there was more I needed to give a try! The door for intelligence work opened for me when I undertook my first secret mission while on my honeymoon in Japan in 1919. The United States Government asked me to take a two-month trip to Siberia to report on the anti-Bolshevik movement in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution. Well, it wasn't your usual honeymoon, but Mrs. Donovan was very understanding. The mission was successful and opened doors to many more missions for the government. I was heading down the intelligence path and I was loving it. I made numerous trips to Europe to see what was happening as the world moved toward war. I observed such events as Italy's battle against Ethiopia, the Spanish Civil War, and military matters in Czechoslovakia, the Balkans, and Italy. My trips brought me to the attention of President Franklin Roosevelt, who asked me to visit England to see if they could survive a German attack.

During one of my visits, I met with Col. Stewart Menzies, head of the British Secret Intelligence Service, and I also became acquainted with his American counterpart, William S. Stephenson. After some talks with both these men, I realized the country needed a centralized means of collecting foreign intelligence. I got President Roosevelt to create a job for me called Coordinator of Information.

The OSS Makes Its Mark

Little did I know, six months down the road we would lose thousands of men and women in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. My new office was too new to be of much use when it happened. We were working to get other government agencies to cooperate with us so we could be most effective. When the war began, my new office, now the Office of Strategic Services, was transferred to work with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. We were on our way!

I know a lot of people didn't have faith; they laughed at us, the ragtag crew. What did we know about intelligence gathering? Well, people do tend to laugh at innovators, the ones with new ideas and new ways of doing things. I gathered together a wide variety of people: historians, economists, lawyers, bankers, baseball players, actors, businessmen--people from all walks of life. I told them, "let's give it a try!" Very few had any experience as professional soldiers, intelligence officers, or even diplomats, but I had faith in each of them. We were trying something new--pushing it to the max, as you say--and I'm glad to say we did it!

We had so many successes during the war, so many brave people. I managed to persuade the government to make the OSS a permanent office, but I wasn't successful at first. Eventually President Harry Truman realized it was necessary to have an agency dedicated to collecting and giving unbiased foreign intelligence to our leaders to help them make wise decisions for our country.

Looking to the Future and the CIA

President Truman remembered Pearl Harbor, and the uncertainties of the postwar world were worrying him. I told him a central intelligence agency must be based on five things:

  1. Be able to obtain intelligence by overt and covert means.
  2. Provide intelligence guidance and determine intelligence objectives.
  3. Coordinate all the intelligence services.
  4. Have no police or law enforcement functions at home or abroad.
  5. Be an independent civilian agency.

Well, Harry listened to me, and in September 1947 he signed the National Security Act, which established the Central Intelligence Agency. The rest they say is history!

As for me, well after the war, I retired as a major general from active duty, served as an aide to the US chief prosecutor at the Nuremburg war crimes trials, returned to my private law practice for awhile, was Ambassador to Thailand, and I still was called upon for advice by the intelligence community. You didn't think I would just sit down and retire in a rocking chair, did you? After all, there still was a lot left to try!


Sources:

O'Toole, G.J.A. Encyclopedia of American Intelligence and Espionage. New York and Oxford: Facts on File, 1988.

Factbook on Intelligence. Central Intelligence Agency, 1997.

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