ORIGINS OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY - ARTHUR B. DARLING

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 43
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 6, 2005
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: January 1, 1964
• Content Type: STUDY

SECRET (When Filled In)
ORGANIZATIONS
,)I jl
'DCI COI CIG
A ppinpriations
DATE
Oi'eta KnaK 1946-1950
Latin America JCS NIA ORE History Estimates ations Dean Acheson
China State FBI Psy warfare Espionage J.Edgar Hoover
Navy War Liaison (foreign) SecretaiyB rnes CLASS.. Conf
ICAPS Intell coordination Pxes.H.S.Tunan NO.:
IDENTIFICATION OF DOCUMENT (author, form, addressee. title & length)
A. B. Darling,""Origins of Central Intelligence," 5 Chapters,
115 pp. (Edited version as published in Studies in Intelligence LOCATION:
HS/HC-38
ABSTRACT
This folder contains five chapters on the origins of Central Intelli-
gence written by A.B. Darling. Chapters included are Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 55-
94, "Origins of Central Intelligence"; Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 1-19, "The Birth
of.Central intelligence"; Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 55-74, "Central Intelligence
under Souers"; Vol. 12, No. 3, pp. 79-94, "With Vandenberg as DCI."
[Note in file reflects a further Chapter titled, "Soft Sell and
Stick" to be published in Winter 1969 edition of the Studies.]
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
FORM 2523 OBSOLETE PREY IOU$
4.69 EDITIONS
UK
HISTORICAL STAFF SOURCE INDEX SECRET
 Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
1-or,-
y e )Ic u)
0 c( fD/`G-le- t~~ )e / /Ofl
ka,
"i vJD S prod c`F ---d tL
o r enn
;.c.111J,
{-5 r.4*(& -.~eci f/rt F 1) ~`.
T V ~1 5 p~a~e ct
JA A
aC Gt1c'.GP/ / 6 d
TO:
ROOM N
REMARKS:
ROOM NO.
BUIL G EXTENSION
F FEB NO .2 `F 1 1 REPLACES FORM 36-8 (47)
WHICH MAY BE USED.
Approved 11or telease 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
 Approved For Re
Studies in Intelligence Vol. 8 No. 3
ease 2005112/23 krC A-RDP83-01:034ROO0200160001 u11-r 1964
Conceptual exploration and inter-
departmental maneuvering under
pressure of war that laid the foun-
dation for a centralizing agency.
ORIGINS OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE 1
Arthur B. Darling
The processes of intelligence and their attendant propa-
ganda, sabotage, and guerrilla tactics received tremendous
stimulus during the second World War. Fifth-column activi-
ties had become famous in the Spanish civil strife prior to the
Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia and Poland. An interdepart-
mental committee of the Army, Navy, and Federal Bureau of
Investigation in July 1939 sought to control spies, saboteurs,
and subversive persons. The overthrow of France in June
1940 and the expulsion of Britain's troops from the continent
at Dunkirk convinced leading Americans that this country
must prepare in every way for the eventuality of war. Ger-
man agents under Nazi direction were already at work in
Latin America as their predecessors had been for the Kaiser.
The specter of an invasion even of North America possessed
some minds. The British fleet had long supported the Monroe
Doctrine against foreign encroachment upon Anglo-American
dominance in the western hemisphere. If Britain fell, there
would be no British fleet.
Arrangements were made to supply the British fleet with
destroyers in return for air and naval bases. Congress revived
the Selective Service of 1917 in September. Ambassador Ken-
nedy was making statements that Britain could not stand up
to the German attack. The President sent William J. Dono-
van in July to find out. Donovan was to study too Germany's
fifth-column practices. He returned by August 4 to report
orally to Secretary Knox and the President upon those prac-
tices, Britain's organization for secret intelligence, and what
Donovan liked to call "unorthodox warfare." The German ac-
I With slight adaptations and the omission of documentation, this
article reproduces Chapter I of a history of the Central Intelligence
Agency to 1950 completed by the author in 1953.
HS/HC-3 8
This document has been
approved for release through
the BISTORICAL REVIEW PROMMAM of
the central intelligence Agency.
Vats __ 9/
Approved For Release 2005/12/23: CIA-RDP83-01034R
 fW.~
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 f CIl4-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
Central Intelligence
tivities were spread before the American public in a series of
newspaper articles signed by Edgar A. Mowrer and Colonel
Donovan. British advices and plans entered from time to time
into the development of an American system of intelligence
and clandestine operations.
Donovan belived that Britain would stand. He was abroad
again before Christmas to make a strategic survey of Ameri-
can economic and political interests in the Mediterranean and
the Near East. Many Americans found it hard to discover
those interests, though the Navy had once fought Barbary cor-
sairs on the coasts of Africa and put the Marines ashore in
Tripoli, and there still were American missionaries, hospitals,
and colleges in the Near East. Donovan saw them, and a good
deal more as he worked with a British officer against the pro-
Nazi regent, Prince Paul, in Yugoslavia. The Germans sensed
enough of his purposes to keep him from conferring with the
French commander, General Weygand.
Strategic Information
By March 18 Colonel Donovan was home to report upon the
dangers to shipping, the importance of northwest Africa to
the United States, the use of psychological and political war-
fare, and upon a central intelligence committee which he saw
taking form in London under the exigencies of war. At Roose-
velt's direction he talked with Secretaries Stimson and Knox
and Attorney General Jackson about his concept of an intelli-
gence agency with the accompanying forces of propaganda
and subversion. They recommended it to the President. The
result was Donovan's proposal on June 10, 1941, that there
should be a "service of strategic information." Strategy with-
out information, he said, was helpless. Information collected
for no strategic purpose was futile.
With this memorandum, his first written statement on the
subject, Donovan began the foundations for what has become
the Central Intelligence Agency. Whether or not he was aware
of it at the time, he indicated, too, the difficulties that would
perplex the administrators of this common service for the de-
partments of the Government.
He suggested that a Coordinator of Strategic Information
should have an advisory panel consisting of the Director of
the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the heads of the intelli-
gence services of the Army and the Navy, and corresponding
56
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RPP83-01034R000200160001-2
 roved For Release 2005112/23: CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
Central Intelligence
officials from other departments concerned. He would draw
the personnel of his central agency from the Army and the
Navy as well as from civilian sources. He would make sure
that the agency should not displace or encroach upon the de-
partments, although it might collect information independ-
ently. It was to analyze and interpret information of many
kinds for use by the departments. Above all, it was "to con-
stitute a means by which the President, as Commander in
Chief, and his Strategic Board would have available accurate
and complete enemy intelligence reports upon which military
operational decisions could be based."
Donovan would place under the direction of the Coordina-
tor of Strategic Information that psychological warfare which
he had observed the Germans using so effectively upon "the
moral and spiritual defenses of a nation." He did not include
in his memorandum the physical subversion and guerrilla
warfare which he had also in mind. They had been discussed
with the cabinet officers; they were implicit in the plan. True
to the military character of his whole conception, he proposed
that the Coordinator of Strategic Information should be re-
sponsible directly to the President.
This led at once to disagreement with the armed services
which has complicated relationships ever since between them
and the central intelligence service. President Roosevelt's mil-
itary order of June 25, 1941, as Commander in Chief, created
the office of Coordinator of Strategic Information and gave him
military authority. It aroused so much opposition that it had
to be rewritten. Another order on July 11, 1941, established
the office of Coordinator of Information, omitting the word
"Strategic." It carefully protected the regular military and
naval advisers of the President from interference or impair-
ment of functions by this new aide to the Chief Executive.
Many in the armed services were far from pleased. It still
was in effect a military order. Colonel William J. Donovan
was of course to be the Coordinator of Information. Senator
Taft caught up their feeling, though in an overstatement of
the facts: Donovan could "boss the intelligence services of the
Army and Navy in the name of the President and have more
influence with the President on military and naval strategy
than the General Staffs."
Criticism from another quarter was more in keeping with
the facts. After a conference on June 18 with Donovan and
CGO*l9 tITI h 57
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
 Approved For Release 2005/12/23OIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
G(JTrrrv R-'rlDE11Time ~_
--~.er Central Intelligence
Benjamin Cohen, counsel for the National Power Policy Com-
mittee, regarding Donovan's ideas on a "service of strategic
information," President Roosevelt sent Cohen to consult with
the Assistant Director of the Bureau of the Budget. Donovan
too explained his plans for the future of the organization.
From the beginning officials in the Bureau had the impres-
sion that he was ambitious to make the powers of his new
agency "all-inclusive." He was interested in domestic morale
and economic defense, in research upon Latin America, in the
negotiations for peace at the end of the European war, in post-
war economic planning, and apparently anything and every-
thing else that pertained to the strategic intelligence neces-
sary to the formulation of national policy.
It is not surprising that members of the Bureau of the
Budget thought Donovan eager to compete with "many of the
old line agencies and most of the defense agencies." It was
rather soon for all of the, possibilities which his avid imagina
tion conceived. It was altogether too soon to draw the lines
and establish the interstices between rival institutions of the
government so that they worked harmoniously to the com-
mon end. The criticism was fair at the moment. It did not,
however, show due appreciation of the fact that, regardless of
his personal ambitions, Donovan was pioneering in the public
interest beyond the experiences and assumptions of the mo-
ment. He believed that it was his duty as well as opportunity
to put all elements of intelligence in one central organization.
This, he declared in 1953, was an American contribution in
the history of intelligence.
From COI to OSS
The office of the Coordinator of Information developed so
rapidly under Donovan's direction that many elements of a
central intelligence service were in operation by the time of
the Japanese attack upon Pearl Harbor in December. To
broadcast radio messages, issue pamphlets, and spread the
propaganda of truth regarding American principles, his For-
eign Information Service had begun to take shape even before
the President's order of July 11. With its listening outposts,
it was also soon obtaining information for the production of
intelligence. A Research and Analysis Branch, well estab-
lished in August, began to collect and evaluate the basic ma-
terials for intelligence reports. By October a Visual Presen-
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
 Approved For Release'2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
Central Intelligence
of Churchill, Donovan placed a branch office in London.
change of information of great value. Now, with the consent
tation Branch was at work upon the techniques of delivering
such reports and related data to the departments and services
concerned.
An Oral Intelligence Unit was created to interview persons
recently arrived from abroad. Foreign nationals within this
country came under study to discover what they might reveal
concerning the conditions and opinions in the countries of
their origin. The collection of information by undercover
agents outside the western hemisphere had begun upon agree-
ment with the Army and the Navy in October that their clan-
destine intelligence services should be consolidated under the
Coordinator of Information.
There was agreement also with the British. During the first
World War an intimate relationship had existed between the
two governments on the diplomatic level, resulting in the ex-
There was even planning for the eventuality of war before
it came with the disaster at Pearl Harbor. A section in Dono-
van's office named "Special Activities-K and L Funds" was
established on October 10, 1941, to take charge of espionage,
sabotage, subversive activities, and guerrilla units. There had
been no formal authorization for these. The President's
order of July 11 merely provided for "such supplementary ac-
tivities as may facilitate the securing of information impor-
tant for national security not now available to the Govern-
ment." But the intent was clear. Donovan sent an officer
to study British practices in close association with the British
Special Operations Executive. It was only a short step into
guerrilla warfare after the declaration of war. He submitted
to President Roosevelt on December 22, 1941, the plan long in
mind for an American force like the British Commandos, "im-
bued with the maximum of the offensive and imaginative
spirit," an excellent weapon of physical subversion to accom-
pany the black propaganda of psychological warfare.
The burst of war which he anticipated had two effects upon
Colonel Donovan. He pressed the organization of his office to
completion so that he might leave for a combat command, and
he urged that the Coordinator of Information be placed under
6,81,41 11915+4:11646~ 59
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034F000200160001-2
 Approved For Release 2005/12/23`: CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
GOWF'rl?EM " Central' intelligence
the direction of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. These held their
first meeting on February 9, 1942, as they prepared to work
with their British counterparts in the Combined Chiefs of
Staff.
Donovan sent a. proposal through Secretary Knox to the
President that there be attached to the Navy an independent
force of land, sea, and air raiders, five thousand men, which
Donovan himself would command; and he suggested a succes-
sor as Coordinator of Information. Donovan was not per-
mitted to take command of American commandos. He had
instead to develop within his office the forces of physical sub-
version and guerrilla warfare. But the Office of Strategic
Services which succeeded the Coordinator of Information was
placed as he had wished under the direction of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff by military order of the President on June 13, 1942.
Meanwhile the Coordinator of Information had come under
pressures that were generated by diverse temperaments quite
as much as by differences of opinion concerning methods in
war. Over Donovan's protests the Foreign Information Serv-
ice was removed from his jurisdiction and joined with other
information services in the new Office of War Information.
Donovan believed that the effectiveness of psychological war-
fare would be impaired if the control of propaganda directed
abroad were taken from the Coordinator of Information. It
is to be noted too that with the Foreign Information Service
went the listening outposts which were sources of information
for the production of intelligence reports by the Coordinator.
But this caused little hardship, as the Foreign Broadcast Mon-
itoring Service of the Federal Communications Commission
provided complete summaries of its auditing and the Office
of Strategic Services soon enlarged its own system of collect-
ing secret intelligence overseas.
Psywar Setup
There was a prolonged dispute over psychological warfare.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff had created a Joint Psychological
Warfare Committee in March but reorganized it on June 21,
1942, to make Donovan the chairman, as Director of the Office
of Strategic Services. The committee was composed of rep-
resentatives from the Army and the Navy and supported by
an advisory committee drawn from the Department of State,
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
 Approved For Release 2005/12/23 ::CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
Central Intelligence
the Board of Economic Warfare, the Coordinator of Inter-
American Affairs, and the Office of War Information.
For the next six months plans and proposals, suggestions
and exceptions, basic estimates, reports, and dissents were
tossed back and forth between the Joint Psychological War-
fare Committee and its subcommittees on the one hand and
the Office of Strategic Services and its subordinate groups on
the other without ever reaching the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
However stated or argued, specifically or in general terms, the
real matter at issue would seem to an outsider to have been
whether the OSS was to be an agent directly responsible to
the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the conception and conduct of
psychological warfare. If it reported to the Joint Psychologi-
cal Warfare Committee, OSS would run the risk of having its
projects stopped there by the overwhelming majority repre-
senting the Army and the Navy. The armed services did not
like any sort of independent paramilitary command. As Don-
ovan recalled in 1953, it was a critical moment in the whole
endeavor to establish an American system of central intelli-
gence.
The issue came to conclusion in December 1942. The Joint
Chiefs of Staff sent General McNarney and Admiral Horne to
inquire into the Office of Strategic Services. They visited it
separately. Donovan talked with them, showed them papers,
and asked them to spend a day watching it in operation.
There followed a directive from the Joint Chiefs on December
22 abolishing the Joint Psychological Warfare Committee and
designating OSS the "agency" of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
charged with the military program of psychological warfare.
Donovan received a note from General Marshall saying that
he could not let the holiday season pass without expressing
gratitude for his cooperation in the trying times of the past
year. Marshall regretted that Donovan, after voluntarily
coming under the jurisdiction of the Joint Chiefs, had not
enjoyed smoother sailing. Marshall hoped that the new direc-
tive would eliminate most of the difficulties.
The Office of Strategic Services gained most of the points
for which it had contended. To supervise the military pro-
gram of psychological warfare and integrate it with military
and naval operations, there was established within OSS a new
Planning Group composed of one member from the Department
of State, two from the Army, two from the Navy, and four in-
61
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
 Approved For Release 2005/12/23': CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
~'wir I1A1 = Central intelligence
eluding the chairman from OSS. An advisory committee was
to have representation from the Board of Economic Warfare,
Office of War Information, Coordinator of Inter-American
Affairs, Treasury, and other agencies from time to time as
their interests were concerned. After approval by the OSS
Director, the plans and projects of the Planning Group were
to be submitted through the Joint Staff Planners to the
Joint Chiefs of Staff for final approval.
The operations of propaganda, and of economic warfare
within the military program for psychological warfare, were
reserved to the Office of War Information and to the Board of
Economic Warfare respectively. The Joint Intelligence Com-
mittee of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was to prepare such special
information and intelligence studies as the Joint Chiefs re-
quired.
Elmer Davis, head of the Office of War Information, was un-
willing to share in this cooperative effort in psychological
warfare. He declined representation on the Advisory Commit-
tee of the OSS Planning Group. Admiral Leahy had written
for the Joint Chiefs of Staff that the Planning Group would
be confined to recommendations to them; they would be the
ones to decide upon the propaganda they wished Mr. Davis to
execute. But he saw it differently. There was no purpose to
be served in giving advice to another group upon matters
which one was already under obligation to the President to
formulate and execute. The President, he said, could "hardly
be overruled by lesser authority." His representative would
be a visitor to the OSS group, not a member.
Intelligence Interchange
The intelligence needs of the Office of Strategic Services were
restricted by the directive of December 22, 1942, to those
"necessary for the planning and execution of the military pro-
gram for psychological warfare, and for the preparation of
assigned portions of intelligence digests and such other data
and visual presentation as may be requested." Moreover,
OSS intelligence collection was confined to the special opera-
tions of sabotage, espionage, and counterespionage in enemy-
occupied or controlled territory, guerrilla warfare, under-
ground groups, and contacts with foreign nationals in the
United States.
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
 Approved For Release. 2005/12/23: CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
Central Intelligence
These restrictions upon the OSS intelligence service were
not permitted to hamper its work for long, on paper. They
were removed from the text of the directive by the Joint
Chiefs of Staff on April 4, 1943. And by the final revision of
the directive on October 27, 1943, OSS's function of collecting
information for the production of intelligence was fully re-
stored. But collecting is not the same as receiving dissemi-
nation from others, and having the right to receive information
is different from actually getting particular items. General
Vandenberg and Admiral Hillenkoetter were to find this true
again and again as Directors of Central Intelligence.
It had been agreed by both Army and Navy in October 1941,
before the attack upon Pearl Harbor, that the "undercover
intelligence of the two services" should be consolidated under
the Coordinator of Information. As General Miles expressed
it, the work was "much more effective if under one head
rather than three..." A civilian agency, such as the Co-
ordinator of Information, had distinct advantages, he said, over
any military or naval agency in the administration of such
a service. At the same time the Army and Navy set up their
Joint Army and Navy Intelligence Committee to forestall the
Coordinator of Information. Ludwell L. Montague became its
secretary on October 14.
Following the agreement with the Army and Navy, Dono-
van planned at once to put a wireless station and agents in
North Africa. But the understanding had contained the
reservation that in the event of war the Army and the Navy
should have full power to operate undercover intelligence
services of their own. After Pearl Harbor, the best that could
be obtained in the directives of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was
a statement that the military and naval intelligence services
and the Office of Strategic Services would "provide for the
complete and free interchange of information, evaluated as
to creditability of source, required for the execution of their
respective missions."
In practice this meant to the intelligence officers of the
Army and the Navy no obligation whatever upon them to turn
over to Donovan's OSS information about operations which
they thought should not be revealed. It is to be said on their
behalf that they had some reasons to fear that the civilians in
his agency were not disciplined in military security; the OSS
deserved part of its reputation for being a sieve. (When Gen-
63
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
 Approved For Release 2005/12/23 CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
`~ON1ID'-" "' Central Intelligence
eral Donovan read this statement in February 1953, he
blurted: "How could you say such a thing! That makes me
sore." The military men, he. said, were the "leaky boys.") It
is also to be said that intelligence reports worth submitting
to the policy-makers cannot be had if strategic information
is withheld from those who have the task of making the
reports.
According to one who remarked that he ought to know be-
cause he was one of them, men in the armed services looked
with suspicion upon the expert economists, geographers, his-
torians, and scientists whom Donovan gathered about him;
they "lowered their horns" against those experts, said Gen-
eral Magruder, and they kept their horns down. We might
add that there was milling and bawling and pawing the dust,
but no stampede.
A case in point was the refusal of the Navy to release its
radio intercepts to the Office of Strategic Services. Donovan
protested on October 22, 1942, that such action would impair
his ability to discharge his mission. When he had agreed to
refrain from cryptographic work, he had understood that the
proceeds from decoding by the armed forces would be made
available to the OSS. Otherwise it could not carry out the
duties specifically assigned to it by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
His undercover representatives in. foreign countries were en-
titled to the protection and help which would come from the
interceptions of enemy messages. The Research and Analysis
Branch needed the information for its strategic studies. The
Office of Strategic Services could not function completely with-
out such important materials.
Donovan's protest got a cool reception in the Joint Intelli-
gence Committee of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The chairman,
General George V. Strong, was unwilling to accept even the
obvious provisions in the directive of December 22, 1942, argu-
ing at first that it confined the Office of Strategic Services to
the planning and execution of psychological warfare. When
Donovan's deputy, General Magruder, showed that OSS had
much wider functions in the field of intelligence, General
Strong abandoned the argument but remained obviously re-
luctant to yield. The Navy representative then read a letter
from Admiral King stating that he would not agree to any in-
crease in the dissemination of intercept material. The at-
titude of the Committee as a whole was unsympathetic. So
64 ~^n-.icinc~iT~
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
 Approved For Release 2005712/23 :; CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-23
Central Intelligence re (W
General Magruder, having in mind "the longer range point
of view of being able to reconstruct harmonious relations with
the armed forces," did not press the legal point that the Office
of Strategic Services was entitled to such information.
The issue was seemingly closed on January 19, 1943, by the
Joint Chiefs of Staff. They ruled that release of information
was within the province of the representatives of the Army
and Navy in the OSS Planning Group. This of course reduced
the question to specific instances and left power with the
Army and Navy still to withhold any particular piece of in-
formation. They are reluctant to this moment in 1953 to
give a central civilian agency intelligence which exposes their
capabilities in war. The result has been interference with the
flow of raw materials essential to the realistic estimates which
should go to the makers of diplomatic policy and military
strategy.
Integration Efforts
Early in 1943 the Joint Chiefs of Staff created the Joint
Intelligence Collection Agencies of the Army, Navy, and Air
Forces. The joint agencies were not to engage in initial pro-
curement; they were only to assemble material in the field
offices and forward it to Washington. In theory this coopera-
tion should have been helpful to the OSS Secret Intelligence
Branch; in fact it laid its secret agents open to exposure in
the field and delayed their material in reaching the Branch in
Washington. Such interference gave Donovan's supporters
opportunity to argue that the armed services had established
the joint collection agencies to thwart OSS and keep it from
ar#333i?Ilisiraz,?s;3fi being the central agency in the national intelligence system.
The situation did seem to prove that instead of three or four
collecting agencies, there should be a single and exclusive col-
lector in the field of secret intelligence and counterespionage
abroad.
The Office of Strategic Services came under another cross
fire. After the experience at Pearl Harbor General Marshall
and Admiral King were convinced that something had to be
done about combining the intelligence services of the Army
and Navy, regardless of any arrangement with the OSS. Their
agreement apparently led in the spring of 1943 to a proposal
that the Joint Intelligence Committee should be reorganized.
It should have a civilian member besides the representatives of
65
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
 Approved For Re ease 2005/12/2CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
Central Intelligence
the Army, Navy, Air Forces, and OSS to form a better estimat-
ing board for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This civilian, by reason
of exceptional performance, might even become the chairman
of the Joint Intelligence Committee. There was resemblance
here to the British estimating committee, in which the civilian
representing the Foreign Office sat as chairman with the mili-
tary experts.
Each member of the reorganized Joint Intelligence Commit-
tee should have access to all of the intelligence in the service
which he represented, and presumably he would purvey it to
the Committee under restrictions which remained to be es-
tablished. The proposers of the plan seemed confident that
such ranking officers could be trusted to decide whether they
could release any item of information to the Committee with-
out jeopardy to their respective services and at the same time
supply the Committee with the proper materials for its esti-
mates.
More important in the plan, and perhaps the telltale, was
the suggestion that the OSS Research and Analysis Branch
should be linked with similar functions in the Office of Naval
Intelligence and the Military Intelligence Service. The idea
was that the Research and Analysis Branch would thus be-
come a central agency. Files and personnel transferred from
the Army and Navy would be integrated with similar OSS files
and persons so that there would be a single activity engaged
in making strategic surveys.
The Research and Analysis Branch, thus augmented with
officers and other experts from the armed services, would be
directly under the Joint Intelligence Committee. The pre-
sumption was that the transferred officers would no longer be
directly responsible to the Army or the Navy but belong to
the central agency. The fact remained, however, that in the
Joint Intelligence Committee itself the OSS would have only
one representative while the Army, Navy, and Air Forces to-
gether would have three. Even if the civilian in the chair
agreed with the OSS representative, they would still be in the
minority on the Committee.
General Magruder broadly favored the plan. He reported to
Donovan in September that on the whole it recommended
steps "very close to our own desires." But he believed that the
Secret Intelligence and Counterespionage branches should
also be elevated to the "strategic level" along with Research
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
 Approved For Release'2005112/23 : IA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2 ,_,T, ,
Central Intelligence
6~0i i**wU
and Analysis. They belonged in the organization of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff if it were to be the "authoritative body of the
future superior strategic. intelligence service." The three
were, after all, the essentials in any central intelligence
service.
On the other hand, he did not want to mix the intelligence
experts of the Army, Navy, and Air Force with the civilians or
"scholar experts" in Research and Analysis. Each group
should retain "its own sense of responsibility"; the results of
their separate efforts should be brought together. Otherwise,
he said, their efforts would be wasted, and the chiefs of the
groups would not demand the best personnel. In hindsight,
military men and civilians since then seem to have worked
together in the same group on problems of intelligence more
effectively than General Magruder anticipated.
General Donovan did not take to the plan so readily as
Magruder. Possibly it looked to Donovan, as it well could,
more like an immediate attempt to deprive him of a major
service within the OSS and narrow his activities still further
in the field of intelligence. The plan did not materialize.
In the words of a contemporary observer, the Army, Navy,
and Department of State were always glad to use the OSS Re-
search and Analysis Branch as a servant. They were not will-
ing to accept it as an equal partner in~ final judgments. By
depriving it of the "sensitive information" which they had
within their control, they were able to keep it from being
what it was supposed to be, the competent research agency in
the political-economic-social field of national intelligence.
Functional Development
Notwithstanding serious blocks to the production of stra-
tegic reports and interference with its activities in other
ways, the Office of Strategic Services established institutions
and practices that are requisite to a national system of intelli-
gence. It accumulated the wealth of experience for its suc-
cessors to enjoy. Among its legacies to the Central Intelli-
gence Agency were the methods and means of procuring both
overt and secret intelligence, the devices of counterespionage,
the procedures of research and analysis, and a considerable
number of skilled persons.
The foreign groups in the United States, a mosaic of na-
tionalities, were certain to be useful as sources of intelligence.
67
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
 Approved For. Release 2005/12/23`: CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
E$P Central Intelligence
33463# ilili;?
It was important to exploit those who had come from nations
under the Nazis and the Communists. It was wise to keep
them under surveillance also for subversive activities. The
Foreign Nationalities Branch, established to scan the foreign
language press and to deal with political refugees and leaders
of foreign groups, at first met opposition from the Depart-
ments of Justice and State. The Federal Bureau of Investiga-
tion was afraid that the Branch would interfere with its work.
Members of the State Department were suspicious that the
Branch might usurp functions of policy-making. But the
Foreign Nationalities Branch demonstrated its value so effec-
tively to the Joint Chiefs of Staff that it was fixed as part of
the intelligence system. It obtained a large amount of sig-
nificant information concerning Czechoslovakia, Greece, and
Poland.
The Secret Intelligence Branch grew from a small organiza-
tion with a few overseas units which supplied the armed serv-
ices with fifty reports in May 1942 to a system of penetration
by land, sea, and air, producing five thousand reports a month
at its peak. Its area desks were increased and regrouped to
direct operations more effectively in neutral countries and to
gain access into adjacent hostile or occupied territories. A
Reporting Board controlled the dissemination of intelligence.
The Branch developed a section to enlist the support of labor
in all countries not only for intelligence but for sabotage and
subversion. A "ship observer unit" obtained the especially
valuable intelligence to be had from seamen, their organiza-
tions, ship operators, and other maritime sources. A techni-
cal section provided information on roads, bridges, aqueducts,
weapons, and similar matters of engineering. It maintained
daily contact with the "Manhattan Project" in atomic energy.
The counterpart of Secret Intelligence, known as "X-2," de-
veloped a counterespionage network which spread from Lon-
don to Shanghai through Europe, Africa, the Near East, India,
Burma, and China, with each headquarters reporting directly
to Washington. By October 1945 a registry of enemies and sub-
versive persons had been developed in Washington that ran to
some 400,000 names. This with the records of the Federal Bu-
reau of Investigation constituted the backbone of security in-
telligence. Moreover, working agreements with the British,
French, and others were ready for the future.
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
 Approved For Release 2005/12/23 .CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2 it~l lCi.~T~A 1
Central Intelligence
The British were willing to let Americans into their organi-
zation to learn about Hitler's agents but were not so disposed
to have the American intelligence services entering regions
where Britain had primary interests. In some instances the
reluctance amounted to downright refusal. This appears to
have been the case for some time in northern France, the Low
Countries, and Southeast Asia. It is to be said, though, that
the situation in the Far East was complicated further by
Chiang Kai-shek and Douglas MacArthur.
Before long, geographical understandings were established
upon the principle that the OSS would take a leading position
in the work of intelligence as the American military forces
penetrated certain areas. This was particularly true in West-
ern Europe as the invasion gained momentum. In other re-
gions the British intelligence services continued to dominate
and in some instances made it practically impossible for Ameri-
can intelligence officers to go about their business. In Istan-
bul and doubtless other places like it, for very good reasons of
security or rather the lack of it, the British did not care to
become involved with American intelligence.
In spite of all this, there was cooperation to a great degree
both in London and in New York. The British supplied OSS
with information on occasion when the U.S. Army and Navy
either could or would not do so. To be appreciated as well, the
British allowed American officers to observe the interrelation-
ships of their services and the working of their intelligence
system as a basis for improving the American system. The
study which William H. Jackson made of the British organi-
zation in 1945 and then with Kingman Douglass in 1946 in-
fluenced the development of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Other Accomplishments
However valuable in themselves, the first reports of the Re-
search and Analysis Branch, under the Coordinator of Infor-
mation, were neither well related to one another nor focused
properly upon the needs of the Army and Navy. For this
condition the services were in part responsible until they gave
better explanation of what they wanted. In 1942 strategic
surveys became the major enterprise of the Branch. This
basic intelligence laid bare at the demand of war the hard
economic and geographical facts within the conflict of nations.
The R&A strategic surveys were the predecessors of the Joint
69
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
 Approved For Release 2005/12/23CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
`"`b
'F Central Intelligence
Army-Navy Intelligence Studies, which in turn were super-
seded by the program of National Intelligence Surveys.
The Research and Analysis Branch also provided intelli-
gence on contemporary events. Information came from out-
posts of the Branch in such advantageous places for observa-
tion as London, Algiers, Cairo, Stockholm, New Delhi, Chung-
king, Bucharest, Istanbul, Rome, Lisbon, and Athens. This
current intelligence had usefulness distinct from the informa-
tion which came from Secret Intelligence and from the De-
partment of State. Collection by R&A was not hampered by
the secrecy of the one nor by the diplomatic protocol of the
other.
Reporting by photography as well as words was fully ap-
preciated in the Office of Strategic Services and passed on to its
successors in the national intelligence system. There was a
War Room with maps, charts, projectors. There was a Daily
Intelligence Summary and a Political Intelligence Weekly.
Called by whatever name, things indispensable stay much the
same.
There is always a need for supporting services like the re-
cruitment and training of personnel, legal advice, accounting,
procurement, and maintenance of equipment. The Office of
Strategic Services had such supporting services. Improve-
ment and expansion came with experience, but little change
in the essential functions. The methods of communication
were the best in existence at that time. The OSS used three
kinds of cover for its agents and operations-governmental,
commercial, and professional. The choice today among these
types of concealment is determined as then by the peculiari-
ties of the particular situation.
The covert activities of the Office of Strategic Services have
been examined in its War Report and are not to be appraised
project by project in this study. The Special Operations
Branch, in charge of sabotage and physical subversion, was
uppermost in the purposes of General Donovan; accordingly
it grew from small beginnings in 1941 until it had become a
valuable auxiliary to military operations in the theatres of
war where it was allowed to participate. Because no arrange-
ments satisfactory to both MacArthur and Donovan could be
made, OSS did not operate in the western Pacific, though it
had a role in China.
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
 Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
Central Intelligence
Opinions of OSS varied from praise to blame in accordance
with the predilections and interests of the observers. Agree-
ment appears to have been general outside the Office itself,
however, that its Special Operations Branch should be liqui-
dated at the close of the war, along with its paramilitary enter-
prises such as guerrilla Operations Groups and the Maritime
Unit, whose frogmen have attracted so much attention. This
was even more true of the Morale Operations Branch engaged
in black propaganda, although a movement began shortly
afterward to apply the lessons learned in this art of war. On
March 5, 1946, Secretary of War Patterson wrote to Secretary
Forrestal of the Navy urging that a body of experts institute
some kind of system to develop weapons for the psychological
warfare of the future.
01000
4 IN
Looking Ahead
Long before the troops of the Allies invaded Germany or the
atomic bombs had fallen on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, thoughts
were upon profiting in times of peace from wartime experi-
ence with the intelligence services. Brigadier General John
Magruder, before his association with OSS and while head of
Lend Lease in China, had observed in practical operation the
need for joint intelligence among the services. Because of his
official position he obtained information more easily than the
military attache and others. He therefore suggested that all
should cooperate in gathering and verifying intelligence, and
he proposed to General Stilwell that the practice be extended
to Washington among the armed services at the highest level.
General Stilwell did not believe that it would succeed in
Washington. When Magruder returned to the United States
in the summer of 1942, however, he conferred enthusiastically
with General Donovan and put his coordination proposal on
paper. Donovan assured him that the Office of Strategic Serv-
ices was designed for just such a purpose and invited him to
join the organization as its Deputy Director for Intelligence.
The plan which Magruder proposed in August 1942 stressed
the imperative need for coordinating all of the agencies con-
cerned with intelligence. The collecting services of the de-
partments obtained valuable information, he said, but not a
single one was competent to furnish the complete information
necessary to "national decisions." There were no "sure and
continuous" connections between the intelligence agencies
- ON EM " - 71
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
 Approved For Release 2005/12/23? CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
GOWF1DEEr"'rr - Central - Intelligence
and those who were responsible for making the decisions and
plans. He found all of the intelligence services so "compart-
mented" that the only escape from the situation was to es-
tablish a "superior joint intelligence agency." No vital deci-
sions could be made for the conduct of the war without "com-
plete and digested intelligence."
Looking back upon this memorandum, we may well admire
the perception with which the author wrote of difficulties that
still persist in 1953. General Magruder did not then visualize
the intricate system for coordinating departmental intelli-
gence with strategic studies made independently by experts
in research and analysis. But he did appreciate the necessity
for synthesis of the information from all services for strategic
planning and decisions by those who had to make both diplo-
matic and military policies. Since the Joint Intelligence Com-
mittee of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was then at work on prob-
lems of intelligence for the Army and Navy, he thought of it
rather than of some other central agency for his purposes.
But he observed that the Joint Intelligence Committee would
have to be reorganized and its functions augmented or it could
not operate effectively as the body of advice, coordination, and
recommendation to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Magruder proposed in August 1942 that in place of the work-
ing staff of the Joint Intelligence Committee there should be
established a Joint Intelligence Bureau. This Bureau should
act as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Under its di-
rector and deputy director there should be research divisions
in the several fields of intelligence-political, economic, mili-
tary, and others. The product of their effort should be sys-
tematically administered by an initiating and reviewing com-
mittee. This key committee should make assignments to the
working groups, should requisition material from the various
departments concerned, and should approve the studies and
estimates of the Bureau before they went through the direc-
tor's office to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The committee of initiation and review within the Bureau
was to be composed of representatives from the intelligence
services of the departments. But it was clear that Magruder
intended that they should not be merely visitors from their
respective departments; they were to be members of the Bu-
reau. Although representing separate interests, they were to
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
 Approved For Release-.2005/1.2/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
Central Intelligence
be gathered into one body with functions expressly delegated
in accordance with the federal principle.
Congress itself, with sovereign powers expressly delegated in
the Constitution, is the best example of the principle. Though
representative of the states, component parts of the Union,
Congress exercises powers that are superior to and exclusive
of powers retained by the states; the product of its action is
national. The concept that the federal principle was applica-
ble within an agency of the government seems to have been
ahead of its time in the fall of 1942. There were, of course,
military men in the Office of Strategic Services, but the idea
that they represented the services from which they had come
at the same time that they worked as members of a central
intelligence agency was then highly theoretical.
General Magruder clung to his ideas and strengthened
them in dealing with those who obstructed the actual work-
ing of the Secret Intelligence Branch and the Research and
Analysis Branch of the OSS. He wrote on July 30, 1943, to the
Executive Secretary of the Joint Chiefs of Staff a series of
observations upon the U.S.. intelligence service which explicitly
cited the obstructions: the Secret Intelligence Branch had
reached an impressive stage of development in spite of the
fact that it was handicapped by outright resistance in some
quarters and by limitations imposed by well-intentioned offi-
cials who lacked familiarity with its objectives and failed to
appreciate its value as a national asset.
The Research and Analysis Branch, he said, could be the
very core of an agency which could not be duplicated in any
other intelligence organization restricting itself to the needs
of a particular department. The Branch was uniquely de-
signed to serve a particular need. Its group of highly quali-
fied specialists should be the "servitors" of the Joint Chiefs
and have functions befitting their ability to produce. In-
stead, they were being denied access to information by other
agencies in spite of what were believed to be both the terms
and the spirit of the directive from the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Magruder wished now in the fall of 1943 to see the Secret
Intelligence Branch and the Counterespionage Branch taken
up to "the strategic level" and incorporated with the Research
and Analysis Branch in a superior intelligence agency under
the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
73
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
 Approved For Release 2005/12/23': CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
Central Intelligence
The Donovan Plan
General Donovan looked beyond the immediate exigencies
of war even more than his deputy, General Magruder. At the
request of General Walter B. Smith, recently Secretary of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff and now Chief of Staff of the Allied Forces
in North Africa, Donovan wrote on September 17, 1943, to
give his ideas in detail on the creation of a strategic intelli-
gence organization as an integral and permanent part of the
military establishment. Donovan had worked with Smith to
put the Office of Strategic Services under the Joint Chiefs of
Staff. Though produced in war and quite naturally reflecting
that fact, Donovan's paper revealed that his thinking ran far
ahead into times of peace.
His was a long-range view of requirements. There must be
independence from other nations' intelligence for reasons of
security, verification of information, and control. Friends to-
day might not be so cordial tomorrow. Secret means had to
be maintained for collecting political, economic, sociological,
and psychological data. There should be counterintelligence
as a matter of course to protect these primary services. He
stressed the use of the radio and the need for independent
communications and passport privileges. A separate budget
and unvouchered funds were essential.
Donovan advocated a civilian director supported largely by
civilian personnel. He explained the importance of research
and analysis by experts in critical appraisal, by skilled tech-
nicians and specialists on particular regions. And, as was to
be expected of him, General Donovan associated these require-
ments for an intelligence service closely with physical subver-
sion and warfare upon morale. They were all indispensable
parts of a national intelligence system.
It may be only coincidence, but it is a striking coincidence,
that General Smith later became Director of Central Intelli-
gence and adhered to much these principles in administering
the affairs of the Central Intelligence Agency.
As General Smith had asked, Donovan consulted other of-
ficers experienced in intelligence, particularly Colonel Dudley
W. Clarke, a friend in the British Army who had much to do
with the Commandos. Taking up Clarke's suggestion of the
"ideal control" for a strategic intelligence organization, Dono-
van proposed that it should be included with the Army, Navy,
and Air Force as the "fourth arm" under the jurisdiction of
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
 Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : ~,CI -RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
Central Intelligence
the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The chief of the intelligence organi-
zation, or "Strategic Services," would be a member of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff. All, of course, were under the President
as Commander in Chief.
General Donovan did not then let a question interfere which
later wrecked his plan in the committees of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff. Whether the chief of "Strategic Services" should be re-
sponsible directly to the President or to the Secretary of a
department, he said in his letter to General Smith, did not af-
fect the issue, but he did not wish to have the strategic intelli-
gence organization placed under the control of one depart-
ment. It was to serve and support not only the armed forces
but the diplomatic, economic, and propaganda services; that
is to say the Department of State, the Foreign Economic Ad-
ministration, and the Office of War Information of those days.
Here Donovan acknowledged "distracting political conse-
quences" in placing "Strategic Services" directly under the
control of the President. If it should be decided to have a
Department of Defense in which all the "Fighting Services"
would be placed, then the strategic intelligence organization
should be included on a parity with the others. If no such
legislation were enacted, "Strategic Services" could continue
under the Joint Chiefs of Staff with a civilian head appointed
by the President.
What led General Donovan to endeavor later to bring the
Office of Strategic Services back directly under the President
is hard to discover in the documentary evidence. His enemies
were certain that he was intent upon building the proverbial
empire. The hypothesis is too simple. One difficulty with it is
that he was instantly removable from office at the President's
whim as even political appointees were not. Donovan will be
found fairly reasonable in discussing with the Joint Strategic
Survey Committee of the Joint Chiefs of Staff the possibility,
though he did not favor the idea, of placing the Director of
Central Intelligence under a board consisting of the Secre-
taries of State, War, and the Navy. His opinion seems con-
sistently to have been that the responsibility should be in-
dividual; it should not be "diffused through intermediate eche-
lons." If he had to compromise he preferred to have the Di-
rector under the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He thoroughly under-
stood the principle of chain of command.
75
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
 Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
Central Intelligence
Peacetime OSS
Drawing further upon his staff, General Magruder and oth-
ers, for ideas and suggestions, Donovan stated his views again
in October 1944, when public thoughts, though still in the
midst of war, were upon the solemn endeavor at Dumbarton
Oaks to establish a United Nations which might settle inter-
national disputes by some means other than war. It was the
time of greatest cooperation between the Soviet Union and
the United States. It was before the Russian armies had
driven the Germans from Poland. It was also before British
and American troops had broken the last great German ef-
fort on the western front in the deathly fog and gloom of the
Battle of the Bulge, before they had swept over the Rhine
deep into Germany to meet the Russians on the Elbe, sus-
picious friends becoming foes. It was before the uncertain
agreements at Yalta and the rising quarrels over Poland, the
Balkan States, and Red China. It was before the United
States had the atomic bomb to drop upon Japan and compli-
cate further its negotiations with the Soviet Union.
The essentials to any central intelligence service, he
wrote, were plain and clear. There must be an uninterrupted
flow of intelligence in peace as in war so that national policy,
military and political, could be based upon knowledge. This
was to be obtained by both overt and clandestine means
abroad; there should be no clandestine operation within the
United States. Moreover, the central agency should have no
police power, nor should it be identified with any law-enforcing
body either at home or abroad. This statement should be
kept always in mind by those who are wont to accuse "Wild
~*0`.flr?ax Bill" Donovan of wishing to set up an American Gestapo.
The outstanding purpose of the central intelligence service
which Donovan proposed was to collect, analyze, and deliver
intelligence "on the policy or strategy level" to the policy-
makers of the government as directed by the President. This
intelligence was to serve the Army and the Navy as well as
the Department of State or any other branch of the govern-
ment. He would not interfere with the operational intelli-
gence of the departments. But he did intend to make the
principle of individual responsibility for national intelligence
starkly clear.
A director, appointed by the President and under his orders,
was to administer this central service and determine its policy
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
 Approved' For R lease 2005112/23 :(CI -RDP83-01034R000200160001-2 i
Central Intelligence
with the advice and assistance of a board of representatives
from the Department of State, the Army, and the Navy.
Donovan did not say "with the advice and consent" of those
representatives; he said "advice and assistance." Here was a
source of much argument, heated argument, and great diffi-
culty from that time on.
Charged with the duty of collecting information and pro-
ducing intelligence for the national defense, the central
agency should have its own means of communication and of
control over all secret activities, espionage and counterespio-
nage, cryptanalysis, and subversive operations. It would have
to use both vouchered and unvouchered funds. It would need
as a matter of course a staff of specialists professionally
trained in analysis, expert in languages, informed about par-
ticular regions, possessed of the many skills necessary to the
working of so complicated an organization.
All of these essentials to a central intelligence service, Gen-
eral Donovan believed, he had in the Office of Strategic Services.
There was no need to create a new agency. There would be
only the task of adjusting the OSS to peacetime conditions and
establishing it within the Executive Office of the President.
The way to accomplish this now in the fall of 1944 would be
an executive order replacing that of June 13, 1942, which had
put the OSS under the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
There were conferences about the plan with the President's
advisers in the White House. There were discussions with
members of the committees of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to
whom the proposal would be eventually referred. There were
negotiations with representatives of the Foreign Economic Ad-
ministration, the Bureau of the Budget, and the Department
of State. For Donovan was well aware that there were many
in the armed services and elsewhere who did not share his
views and who had ideas of their own about the kind of in-
telligence service the country should have.
The Department of State in particular, as having the major
interest in foreign policy, had begun to make provision for an
intelligence service within its organization. Donovan had
among his papers such a program dated September 30, 1944;
he knew that members of the State Department were con-
ferring with persons in the War Department, the Navy De-
partment, and the Bureau of the Budget. And then there
was the Federal Bureau of Investigation at work in Latin
77
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
 Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
Central Infelligence
America as well as the continental United States, guarding
its prerogatives and patrolling its jurisdiction. It was ap-
parent that he must have his plan well in hand and properly
explained in advance of its presentation to the Joint Chiefs of
Staff.
At this juncture, shortly after receiving from Donovan a
preliminary draft, Roosevelt referred to him a different kind
of proposal that had been submitted. The President did not
give the name of its author, but Donovan knew that it came
from John F. Carter, commentator and author known as "Jay
Franklin." His plan had interest for opinions and purposes
other than General Donovan's. It afforded Donovan an op-
portunity to speak his mind forcefully as usual and place
credit where it was due.
Carter felt that "the British Intelligence" had already
"penetrated" the Office of Strategic Services, whose usefulness
after the war therefore would be impaired. The British would
pursue their own ends; these might not be "synonymous"
with American purposes. Carter offered to establish a less -ex-
pensive and adequately camouflaged central office
e would leave the evaluation 5' f reports to the State
Department. Carter had formerly worked in the Depart-
ment.
Donovan dismissed the suggestion. The author's thinking
on intelligence, he said, was in the "horse and buggy stage."
As for British penetration of the Office of Strategic Services, it
'#*4*0?#maiwas in fact cooperation from which OSS had greatly profited.
He might have added that his organization was dependent
upon British sources for much of its information. He de-
clared that it had maintained its integrity. In point. of fact,
he said, the President would be interested to know that "both
our Allies and our enemies know less about our inner work-
ings than we do about theirs."
No more was heard from Carter, unless he was one of those
who were advocating the expansion of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation into an intelligence service overseas. By Novem-
ber 7 word came from the White House to discourage that
movement. The Bureau was to have no intelligence functions
outside of the United States. But talk of it continued. At-
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
 Approved For Release:2005/12/23 : I4-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2 E ;
Central Intelligence
torney General Biddle favored it in the spring of 1945. His
successor, Tom Clark, proposed a similar measure in the fall
of 1945. It was some time before the question was settled
and the Bureau's agents finally withdrawn from Latin
America.
Invitation to Battle
Donovan's final draft of his plan for a "Permanent World-
Wide Intelligence Service" went to the President on November
18, 1944. In it he stressed two requirements. Control of the
system should return from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the
President. There should be a central authority reporting di-
rectly to the President with responsibility for setting objec-
tives and coordinating the material necessary in planning and
executing "national policy and strategy." Though they were
in the midst of war, he said, before they were aware of it they
would be in the "tumult of rehabilitation." An orderly sys-
tem of intelligence would contribute to informed decisions.
They had in the government at the time the trained and spe-
cialized personnel needed for the task. This talent should not
be dispersed.
In the draft of a directive which he inclosed, Donovan pro-
posed that the board to "advise and assist" the director of
this central intelligence service should consist of the Secre-
taries of State, War, and Navy and other members whom the
President might subsequently appoint. This designation of
the secretaries themselves is not to be overlooked. Donovan
had no thought here of making the departmental chiefs of in-
telligence advisors to the director, unless of course they
might happen to be named severally by the secretaries to sit
in their places as deputies. We shall find later that the op-
ponents of Donovan's plan advocated the use of the depart-
mental chiefs of intelligence as an advisory board. We shall
also find that General Donovan adhered to his idea that such
a board of advice should be at the high level of the secretaries
or their representatives.
The proposed executive order for the transfer of the Office
of Strategic Services and the directive to accompany it, as
finally drafted near the end of November 1944, contained the
expected provision for national intelligence, carefully dis-
tinguishing it from the operational intelligence of the Depart-
ments. The directive laid plans for subversive operations
GGNFlDEHTtAk- 79
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
 Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
^Q, ~ Central Intelligence
abroad and for liaison with the intelligence agencies of foreign
governments. It prohibited the use of any police power either
at home or abroad. In addition, it called for the dissolution of
all joint intelligence committees and agencies then operat-
ing under the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War and Navy De-
partments. Their functions, personnel, and facilities were to
be given over to the Office of Strategic Services. In time of
war or unlimited national emergency, its operations were to
be coordinated with military plans and subject to the ap-
proval of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; theatre commanders were
to have control in their areas. Under other conditions, there
were to be no geographical restrictions upon the operations of
the Office of Strategic Services. These last provisions were cer-
tainly not designed to win friends in the Army, the Navy, or
even the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Donovan's plan
looked like an invitation to ordeal by battle before the Joint
Chiefs of Staff. So it proved.
A memorandum from Magruder on November 22, 1944, had
specifically urged that the executive order be precise and de-
tailed. Otherwise, he said, the matter would not be "tied up";
the services would "worm out of generalities." The Joint In-
telligence Committee of the Joint Chiefs of Staff would fit
into the plan, once the authority for it was obtained. It
could of course remain responsible to the Joint Chiefs of Staff
for correlating and evaluating military intelligence as such,
though eliminated as a body having to do with the estimates
for "national policy and strategy" which the Office of Stra-
tegic Services should provide.
General Donovan was ready by November 27 for the hear-
ing before the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He wrote to General
Marshall, Admiral King, and General Arnold of the Army,
Navy, and Army Air Forces, to Lieutenant General Embick,
chairman of the Joint Strategic Survey Committee of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, to Vice Admiral Horne, deputy of Ad-
miral King as Chief of Naval Operations, to Secretary Stimson
and Assistant Secretary McCloy of the War Department, to
Secretary Forrestal and Assistant Secretary Bard of the
Navy, and to Mr. James C. Dunn, the State Department's Of-
ficer of Foreign Affairs. To all of these ranking officers, heads
of departments and their assistants, Donovan explained his
plan for turning the OSS into a permanent central intelligence
system and enclosed a copy of his final memorandum for the
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
 Approved For Release 2005/12/235; CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
Central Intelligence
President of November 18, 1944. He reiterated again and
again in these letters that he did not propose to interfere
with the operational intelligence services of the departments
nor seek any police functions for the central agency. It was
to be a coordinating agency. As he closed this phase of the
endeavor, General Donovan declared that it "might be well to
capitalize on our errors of the past two years and put it into
effect at once."
But this was not to happen. The FBI and the armed serv-
ices accepted the invitation to combat vociferously and at
length. Shouts of "Gestapo" echoed through the committees
and Congress into the press and back again from far corners
of the world. The Department of State proceeded with its
own plan, aided and encouraged by the Bureau of the Budget
and the Department of Justice. Another full year passed be-
fore a central intelligence service began to operate in times of
peace, and then the Office of Strategic Services was no longer
in existence.
Conceptual Controversy
The scene of action shifted to the committees of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff in December 1944 as General Donovan went
abroad on a tour of inspection. Members of the Joint Intelli-
gence Staff, working committee of the Joint Intelligence Com-
mittee, for some time had been dissatisfied with the system
of collecting and appraising intelligence. They were dis-
cussing issues and problems among themselves in the hope
that they might discover common ground for the Army and
Navy, Department of State, Foreign Economic Administra-
tar t `` ? ? 'ix f F? 3 l tion, and Office of Strategic Services. The Donovan plan dis-
turbed their thinking; it contained a provision agreeable to
none of them. This, of course, was the idea that the Director
of Central Intelligence should be immediately responsible to
the President and subject only to advice from the depart-
ments. In the end, the Joint Intelligence Staff had reason to
thank General Donovan. His thoughts were so great a shock
to departmental minds that the members of the Staff got for
their own suggestions an audience they otherwise might never
have received from their superiors in the Joint Intelligence
Committee.
A large part of the resistance to the Donovan plan in the
meetings of the committees of the Joint Chiefs of Staff grew
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
 Approved For Release 2005/12/2$:IA-RDP83-010348000200160001-2 j..
EAA~FFBEN'I U'LL Central Intelligence
out of malice toward General Donovan himself. Some re-
marks were kept from the record, but enough of the bitter-
ness came through to convince any reader that Donovan's
proposal would not be accepted because it was his. There was,
fortunately, also a body of criticism based upon honest and
constructive disapproval. There was agreement too with
many of his major principles.
Two separate proposals called for brevity's sake the "serv-
ices plan" and the "civilian plan" emerged from the contro-
versy. Both were influenced by the Donovan plan but re-
jected his provision that the head of the central intelligence
agency should report directly to the President. They seri-
ously modified, though they did not entirely remove, his con-
cept of individual responsibility. As so well expressed during
the argument in the prolonged meeting of the Joint Intelli-
gence Committee on December 22, 1944, the issue lay between
"the principle of coordination and the principle of chain of
command."
The services plan placed authority jointly with the Secre-
taries of State, War, and the Navy, but did not elaborate upon
their conduct as a board. The thought may simply have been
that no one of them would be allowed by the others to have
control; all three therefore should operate by unanimous con-
sent. They could watch one another as each looked out for
his own interests. The idea that this group should function
as a whole, however, was inherent in the authority descending
to the secretaries from the President. Authority is single; it
is not divided when shared by several persons. The secretaries
were individually responsible to the President. But he could
assign tasks to them individually or collectively at his own
pleasure. As indicated in the debate of the Joint Intelligence
Committee, the assumption was logical that the three secre-
taries would function as a whole.
The real intent of the services plan seems nevertheless to
have lain in the word "federal" as it was applied to the "In-
telligence Directorate" designed to operate under the secre-
taries. This Directorate was to have a civilian head from the
Department of State and deputies from the War and Navy
Departments. It should have powers of inspection, coordina-
tion, and planning. It should have no administrative or op-
erating functions; apparently these were to remain with the
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
 Approved For Release. 2005/12/23 CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
Central Intelligence
respective departments. A "single national intelligence serv-
ice," according to this plan, was "undesirable."
Separate from the Directorate, however, there would be a
joint intelligence service to conduct operations of "common
concern" to the three departments and, it may be supposed,
any other agency or department which had interests involved
from time to time. Stress upon matters of common con-
cern in this manner accentuated the desire to keep other in-
terests of the departments distinctly their own concern.
Those who favored this plan, mostly representatives of the
armed services, wished to have the Joint Intelligence Commit-
tee of the Joint Chiefs of Staff continue to provide intelligence
estimates, or synthesis of departmental intelligence, on a
"strategic level." From their point of view, the fact that the
Department of State, the Foreign Economic Administration,
and the Office of Strategic Services all had representation in
the Joint Intelligence Committee made it possible and fairly
easy to develop the committee into a national estimating
board.
The "civilian plan" accepted Donovan's principles and meth-
ods for the most part. The proposed central intelligence
agency for coordination and secret collection should operate
with an independent budget. All departments, though main-
taining their own operational intelligence, should make avail-
able to the central agency whatever materials the director
might request. The central agency should have no police
functions. In time of war it should come directly under the
Joint Chiefs of Staff.
But the advocates of this plan did not make the director im-
mediately responsible to the President. Though appointed by
the President, he would be subject to the "direction and con-
trol" of the Secretaries of State, War, and the Navy sitting
as a board of authority. In time of war a representative of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff would also be a member of this board.
A further exception to Donovan's plan appeared in the state-
ment that the collection of intelligence, except by clandestine
methods, should be the function of the existing agencies and
not of the central service. Nor would the civilian plan allow
the agency to engage in subversive operations abroad; these
were not considered an appropriate function of the proposed
intelligence service. We should note also that the civilian
G904rtDE +T - 83
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
 Approved For Release 2005/12/2
/%P%-IrI rl
Central intelligence
plan did not give to the central agency the power of inspec-
tion which the services plan had provided for its Directorate.
Before he went abroad on December 26, General Donovan
sent to President Roosevelt a memorandum upon these two
proposals from the Joint Intelligence Staff. The plan of the
military members, he said, evaded early action. Worse than
that, it approached the problem of national intelligence from
the departmental point of view, providing a minimum of cen-
tralization. He was surprised at the lack of understanding
among responsible officers in the field of intelligence. They
did not seem to comprehend, he said, the importance of a cen-
tral service in which military and civilian experts would work
together to synthesize all available information and to make
estimates before the event of political or military develop-
ments. The plan of the civilians was another matter. It
closely followed his own ideas. Its end in view was a complete
system for producing estimates which should aid in the con-
struction of national policy.
Donovan reported to the President that he had appeared at
its request before the Joint Strategic Survey Committee,
which advised the Joint Chiefs of Staff on political matters.
He had done so with apparent willingness to entertain the
idea in the plan of the civilians that there should be a board
between the President and the director of the proposed cen-
tral intelligence service. But there is no mistaking that he
was unwilling at that time to make such a concession unless
it were clearly understood that the director would be free to
administer the affairs of the agency. He might be a general
manager, with the secretaries over him as a board of direc-
tors. Put in colloquial language perhaps more accurately con-
veying the thought, this meant that the general manager
might be hired and fired by the secretaries, but so long as he
was in charge he was not to be bossed by them. Donovan
was determined to get an agency in which there would be real
centralization and coordination of the intelligence services
under a single administrator ultimately responsible to the
President.
The Joint Strategic Survey Committee reported in Janu-
ary along much the same line which Donovan had given to
the President, but conveying the impression that he had been
more willing to concede to the "advice and control" of the sec-
84 / 49PENTI A 1
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
IA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2 i
 - r-.
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIARDP83-01034R000200160001-2
Central Intelligence EEoi
retaries as proposed in the plan of the civilians. The Com-
mittee spoke of a diagram subsequently furnished by Dono-
van's office to comprehend the possibility of an "Intelligence
Directing Board" over the Director.
The difference in interpretation did not lay General Dono-
van's statement open to question. It put different emphasis
upon the possibilities of the future. The position which he
took now anticipated the practical situation of the Director of
Central Intelligence under the National Security Council. Al-
though by the 1947 Act of Congress the Council had authority
over the Director and the Agency, the Director had frequent
access to the President. His responsibility to the President in
actual working conditions was often immediate and direct.
President Truman used the Agency as his personal informa-
tion service.
Convergence and Crash
Pressure from above seems to have come upon the repre-
sentatives of the armed services in the Joint Intelligence Com-
mittee. The long meeting of December 22, 1944, had ended in
agreement that the Joint Intelligence Staff should go over the
plans and perfect them. No hope was expressed that they
ever could be consolidated into one. The idea appears never-
theless to have lurked in the atmosphere; and when the rep-
resentative of the Army suggested that his subordinate on the
Joint Intelligence Staff should help the authors of the "civil-
ian plan" to perfect their inadequate proposals, results came
fast.
Within a week there was a single plan which had the merits
of General Donovan's original concepts coupled with specific
provision that the Secretaries of State, War, and the Navy
with the Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief (Admiral
Leahy) should constitute a National Intelligence Authority.
Later the fourth member was changed to be simply a repre-
sentative of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Unmistakably intended to function as a whole, the National
Intelligence Authority would be charged with responsibility
for all federal intelligence activities related to the national se-
curity. Under it there was to be established a Central Intelli-
gence Agency headed by a Director who should be appointed
by the President on the recommendation of the Authority.
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
 Approved For Release 2005/12/2 IA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
Central intelligence
As a body of advisers to the Director, there was to be set
up a board consisting of the heads of the intelligence services
of the Army, Navy, Department of State, and other agencies
concerned with the national security. This advisory board
would be subordinated to the National Intelligence Authority
by the directive which established it. Its members, of course,
were severally responsible to their secretaries. There was no
indication in the plan that the advisory board was to dictate
to the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. It was
to be only a means for conveying advice from the intelligence
officers of the departments.
Thus the members of the Joint Intelligence Staff, with a
good deal of independent thinking and inspiration as well as
external pressure, arrived at the principles for a national sys-
tem of intelligence which took account of conflicting interests
and yet centralized controls under an authority receiving its
power from the Chief Executive of the United States.
The Joint Strategic Survey Committee reported to the
Joint Chiefs of Staff on January 18, 1945, that the plan of the
Joint Intelligence Staff, now the proposal of the Joint Intelli-
gence Committee, was superior to General Donovan's plan.
His would "overcentralize" the intelligence service. It would
subject the departmental intelligence agencies to central con-
trol without making that control responsible either to the
head of a single department or to the heads of all of the de-
partments as a body. The plan of the Joint Intelligence Com-
mittee, on the other hand, would hold the Central Intelli-
gence Agency within bounds set by the secretaries in the Na-
tional Intelligence Authority.
The Joint Strategic Survey Committee accepted the provi-
sion in the new plan that the Central Intelligence Agency
should have the power to inspect the operations of the depart-
mental intelligence agencies in connection with its planning
function. But to make certain that the use of this power
should not jeopardize military operations the JSSC amended
the plan so that the Authority and the Agency under it
should be responsible for protecting "intelligence sources and
methods" which had direct and important bearing upon
"military operations." Military men evidently did not at that
time object to inspection if it were accompanied by a duty to
protect military operations. Restriction came later upon the
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
 Approved For Release. 2005/12/23 .CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2 1f fi ,~, ,,TI A
Central Intelligence
right of inspection. In addition, it was separated from the
responsibility of the Director of Central Intelligence to guard
sources and methods of intelligence from unauthorized ex-
posure.
Essential features of the Central Intelligence Agency were
clearly in view during the month of January 1945 before the
conference at Yalta, the surrender of Germany, and the col-
lapse of Japan. The national system of intelligence, however,
was not to come into operation in time of war, when a people is
more easily governed, it is said, than in time of peace. Dono-
van's plan was released to the public by someone who has yet
to confess. Circumstantial evidence narrowed suspicion to
two or three who might have violated the secrecy of the docu-
ments. Motive for doing so could easily be found in hatred.
Donovan and his Office of Strategic Services had bitter enemies.
But no useful purpose is served in speculations here.
On February 9, 1945, the Chicago Tribune and the Washing-
ton Times Herald simultaneously produced Donovan's memo-
randum to the President and proposal. There were headlines
and editorials on a "super-spy system," "bigger and better spy-
ing," and "police state." There were interviews with Con-
gressmen who obliged with accusations of "super-Gestapo"
and the like. Then the plan of the Joint Intelligence Commit-
tee got into the same newspapers. This rather successfully
destroyed the insinuations that Donovan and Roosevelt were
establishing a personal regime. But the exposure seemed to
dismay the President and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or possibly
they were glad of an excuse to set the whole question aside.
Reports from the Yalta Conference sent "super-spy" off the
front pages immediately. The American public was much
more interested in news of the troops driving into Germany.
Had the Joint Chiefs of Staff wished to settle the issue at that
time, they might have completed their study in secret session
without much attention from the public and put aside the re-
sulting plan for establishment later. Instead, they recalled'
their papers on Donovan's proposal and the plan of the Joint
Intelligence Committee. They made some effort to discover
who had released the papers. Donovan persisted in trying to
find out, and he continued to urge acceptance of his plan for a
central intelligence system. Others who seemed really to care
were few.
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
 Approved For Release 2,QR~? CII4-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
art' Central Intelligence
Revival and Relapse
On April 5, shortly before his death, President Roosevelt sent
a . brief note asking Donovan 'to call together the chiefs of in-
telligence and security units in the various executive agencies
so that a consensus might be obtained regarding a central
intelligence service. It must have seemed like going back to
the beginning and starting again, but General Donovan was
nothing if not persistent. He sent letters the very next day
to the secretaries and heads of agencies as suggested, with a
statement of his principles, a copy of the President's note,
and another copy of his memorandum for the President of
November 18, 1944.
To judge from the replies, these familiar proposals were a
new idea to some of the officials who received them. The ob-
jectives were not "sufficiently clear" to permit the Secretary
of the Treasury on April 12 to express a, "firm opinion"; but
Henry Morgenthau was certain that the burdens upon the
President were already too heavy for him to be directly re-
sponsible for the proposed central intelligence agency. Roose-
velt died that day. Postmaster General Walker advised Dono-
van that "it must be clear that any government intelligence
service outside the Post Office Department must operate
through the Post Office Department and recognize the abso-
lute jurisdiction of this Department." This must have been
a new notion to General Donovan.
Secretary Wickard was content with the existing arrange-
ments between the Department of Agriculture and the De-
partment of State. He saw no reason for a separate office to
coordinate intelligence on foreign conditions and develop-
ments. Additional coordination of such intelligence he be-
lieved could be and in fact was being secured through the Bu-
reau of the Budget. Another original view: Donovan had re-
ceived much from the Bureau of the Budget on financial mat-
ters, plans, programs, but nothing worth the name of foreign
intelligence.
Attorney General Biddle replied with terse comment reflect-
ing the interests of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He
was satisfied with existing arrangements for the exchange of
intelligence among the Bureau, the Office of Naval Intelligence,
and the Military Intelligence Service of the Army. He did
not wish any change in the "middle of the war," nor did he
believe that Congress would grant an appropriation for such a
88
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
 Approved For Release.2005/12/23 : CIA RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
Central Intelligence --#_-- DEt4TIAL
purpose.. The intelligence service "should be organized quietly
and not in the manner suggested." He favored the idea of a
policy committee consisting of representatives from the agen-
cies chiefly concerned-State, War, Navy, Justice, and the Of-
fice of Strategic Services. The Attorney General's reply could
have left no doubt where he stood. It may have recalled Car-
ter's proposal to President Roosevelt in the preceding fall, the
one General Donovan had placed in the "horse and buggy
stage."
Secretary Ickes replied that the central intelligence service
would be a handicap to his Department of the Interior if it
were to foreclose in any manner the ability of the Depart-
ment's bureaus to secure intelligence from any source, do-
mestic or foreign, which concerned matters under his jurisdic-
tion. To Ickes, General Donovan replied that he need have no
concern: one of the principle objectives of the agency would be
to coordinate intelligence for the very purpose of facilitating
and increasing the flow of material to the departments.
For the Department of Labor, Secretary Perkins replied
that she could not support the proposal to create an "Intelli-
gence Officer reporting directly to the President." She favored
keeping the State Department above any other agency in co-
ordinating foreign intelligence except the "narrowly defined
military subjects." She favored improved arrangements
among the Secretaries of State, War, and the Navy, so that
there would be no gaps and no need for coordination by some
officer reporting directly to the President.
The reply of Stimson, Secretary of War, on May 1, 1945, was
the most significant. General Donovan's plan had received
xis#aa~;ll?131g#?~~~3>3'i?if3~l~ careful consideration in the War Department. It was in en-
tire agreement with his objective. It differed with regard to
methods. From Stimson's point of view, responsibility should
not be separated from the authority to discharge that re-
sponsibility. Security against foreign aggression was the pri-
mary concern of the Secretary of State, Secretary of War, and
Secretary of the Navy. All responsibility, therefore, should re-
main with them. Donovan's intelligence service, moreover,
would subject the operations of departmental intelligence to
control outside the respective departments. This was not ad-
visable. Secretary Stimson agreed that coordination must be
attained, but he did not think that "the coordinating author-
ity should engage in operations." The inevitable tendency,
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
 Approved For Release 2005/12/23: CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
CON1IDEl Central Intelligence
he declared, would be to expand its operating functions at the
expense of the agencies which had the responsibilities for op-
erations in intelligence.
Secretary Stimson's position was clear. The methods of co-
ordination and what combined operations were necessary
should be determined by the heads of the departments con-
trolling the operating agencies. This coordination was one of
the matters to be considered in the general problem of a single
Department of Defense. In short, Secretary Stimson did not
wish an independent agency with a separate budget. In any
event, he said, the Departments of State, War, Justice, and
the Navy had examined together the proposed central intelli-
gence service; they were in substantial agreement that it
should not be considered before the end of hostilities against
Germany and Japan. This statement gave further evidence
that the armed services had been more pleased than dismayed
in February when the Donovan plan got into the news.
General Magruder advised Donovan that the letter from
Stimson left two courses of action. Either he could try to de-
velop political pressures upon President Truman that were
stronger than the influence of the four Departments, or he
might compromise his cherished idea of independence from
them in order to obtain immediate action. Magruder knew
that he was recommending to Donovan a pet abomination in
suggesting compromise, but he felt that it would win over
many high-ranking officials in the Army, Navy, and the De-
partment of State. It would eliminate the Federal Bureau of
Investigation from consideration. It would make the situa-
tion less difficult for the President. If it won his support, "he
could restore large powers to the director" later in executive
orders.
General Donovan, however, would keep trying. He had
found some encouragement in the interest of the State De-
partment after the latest version of the so-called compromise
plan had come from the Joint Strategic Survey Committee of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He had been pleased, too, that Ad-
miral Horne had requested a copy of the Joint Intelligence
Committee's final paper, presumably for study and report to
Admiral King. Donovan had cabled from London that he
would like to have his deputies at home pursue these oppor-
tunities. They should keep in mind as they discussed the
matter that so far as he was concerned the ultimate interests
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
 r
Approved For. RA, lease. 2005112/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
Central Intelliaence flDENTIAi -
of the country required that the responsibility should be
vested in the President and not "diffused through intermedi-
ate echelons."
Donovan replied to Secretary Stimson on May 16. The
secretaries were to provide for security against aggression. It
was their primary concern. But that did not give them the
right, said Donovan, to exercise exclusive control over the pro-
posed central intelligence agency. That was the responsibility
of the President, who was Commander in Chief in peace as
well as in war; the "authority of decision" resided in him. Pol-
icy was necessarily dependent upon intelligence. To make
that decision, the President was entitled to an intelligence
service free from domination by one or any group of the de-
partments. Secretary Stimson's reply, however, had been
made on behalf of the Administration. Nothing further was
to be done after General Eisenhower took the surrender of the
Germans on May 7 until plans had been carried out for the
overwhelming defeat of Japan. The atomic bomb was tested
at Alamogordo on July 16.
Liquidation for OSS
After the surrender of Germany the House Appropriations
Committee inquired whether General MacArthur and Admiral
Nimitz wished to use the Office of Strategic Services in the
Pacific war. For the Joint Chiefs of Staff, without personal
comment, Admiral Leahy replied on May 25 and 27, 1945, by
quoting from messages of Admiral Nimitz and Generals Mac-
Arthur, Sultan, and Wedemeyer in the Far East and also from
Generals McNarney and Eisenhower concerning Europe.
General Sultan, in the India-Burma Theater, said that OSS
had furnished most effective assistance but was no longer
needed. Its present functions would be "more economically
and efficiently" accomplished within the War and Navy De-
partments "through normal command channels." Admiral
Nimitz answered that use of OSS in the Pacific had been very
limited. In his "considered opinion," better results could be
obtained if its tasks were "reassigned to the War and Navy De-
partments."
General MacArthur's view on the matter was as definite,
and characteristic: "No statement," he said, "has emanated
from this headquarters nor so far as known from this area in
comment on OSS. Any items that may have appeared in the
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
 Approved For R
lease 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
C "'C'"` `4 '"'- Central Intelligence
press along this line must be regarded as speculative conjec-
ture. The OSS has not up to the present time operated within
this area, I know little of its. methods, have no control of its
agencies, and consequently have no plans for its future em-
ployment." Donovan considered this a "very fair statement"
from MacArthur's own point of view.
General Eisenhower wrote that the future of OSS in the Eu-
ropean Theater would be subject to certain contingencies. It
would be confined of course to the functions of an intelligence-
gathering and counterespionage organization. Complete con-
trol of its activities by each theater commander would be es-
sential to efficient and smooth operations. But its value in
the European Theater would "continue to be very high."
General McNarney reported that OSS had done an "out-
standing job" in Italy. So long as conditions there, in Austria,
and in the Balkans remained unstable, it was essential to con-
tinue its secret intelligence work in that theater. Its staff in
the Mediterranean area could be reduced, but he specifically
recommended that trained OSS personnel be re-deployed to the
Pacific.
General Wedemeyer declared that OSS's potential value in
the China Theater was high. It was training twenty com-
mando groups and intelligence teams there. These and others
already trained were to be charged with "responsible missions
in direct support of contemplated future plans." According
to Donovan's memory, they might have accomplished much
to appraise the situation in Manchuria before the atomic bomb
was used in Japan.
The opinions of such commanders as Nimitz and MacArthur,
however, were likely to have more influence in this country
than Wedemeyer's plans for the China Theater. After the
atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there was little
point to arguing the need for OSS activity in China. If the
mood of the American people prevailed, there was going to be
no theater of war in China.
It may be harder to govern in time of peace than in time
of war. It is more difficult still to control a people turning
from war to peace. Public relaxation in America with the
news from Tokyo Bay took on the aspects of an orgy; the
treatment of gasoline rationing that summer's evening, Au-
gust 14, 1945, was but one response of a people cherishing the
belief that government draws its just powers from the con-
92
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
 Approved For Release" 2005/12/23 :'CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2 (=
Kok
Central Intelligence
sent of the governed. More ominous was the rush to disband
America's forces. The fleet went into mothballs for a possi-
bility which later became-fast in Korean waters. But there
were too many instances where demobilization meant disin-
tegration. Personnel disappeared beyond recall. The ruin of
much valuable organization was complete.
The Bureau of the Budget, obliged by the nature of its office
to peer into the costs of future events, quickly sensed the
change in the American mood following Japan's surrender.
Replacing the notice which he had sent on July 17 in regard
to expenditures for war, Director Smith of the Bureau advised
General Donovan on August 25, 1945, that the "overriding
consideration" now in estimating budgets for 1947 would be
to retain full employment and to resume the social and eco-
nomic progress which had been interrupted by the war. To
this end, there would be no expansion of present "peace-time
activities" unless it were to contribute to the "reconversion
process and the expansion of industry and trade."
The Office of Strategic Services was a wartime enterprise
with no "peacetime activities" established in the past. In
short, although Mr. Smith did not say so, it looked as though
General Donovan were going to have a very hard time main-
taining his independent agency, whatever happened to its in-
dispensable functions. The Bureau of the Budget itself had
been studying for months the problems of an intelligence sys-
tem and had a plan of its own to propose.
Donovan strove to keep his organization intact. He wrote
on September 4 to Samuel Rosenman in the White House that
it was absurd to allocate different segments of its function
to different departments. The Office of Strategic Services had
been established "as an entity, every function supporting and
supplementing the other." It was time "to grow up" and
realize that the new responsibilities of the American people
required "an adequate intelligence system."
The expectation of the American people, however, was
clearly that expenditure for war would be stopped with the
fighting, and the "boys brought home." Apparently the mood
of the Negro spiritual was rather general that there would
be "no war, no more." There would be no place now in
American policy for sabotage, psychological warfare, and guer-
rilla tactics. Whatever services were necessary in peacetime
for the collection of information and the coordination of in-
93
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
 Approved For R lease 2005/12/2 A-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
-FFI$E Central Intelligence
04,40 6WW*0
telligence might be had within the established Departments
of State, War, and the Navy, as so many of the Cabinet offi-
cers had written to Donovan in the spring. The Office of Stra-
tegic Services should be closed.
Responsible observers took stock as the OSS went out of
existence. For the first time in the history of the United
States, there had been established an organized network of
espionage and counterespionage operating in Europe, North
Africa, the Near and Middle East, and the Far East. American
scholars had been mobilized to supplement current informa-
tion with comprehensive surveys and to blend them into in-
telligence reports for the policymakers of the Government.
OSS had demonstrated the usefulness of a central body to
process materials from every source of information. Its ex-
periences indicated that a single authority ought to have
charge of collecting secret information outside of the United
States. Cooperation with the agencies of other governments
left much still to be desired, but the value of the endeavor had
been shown. The Office of Strategic Services had closely as-
sociated secret intelligence with covert operations, economic
intrusion, and other subversive practices. The latter perhaps
could have been kept separate and administered in a "Depart-
ment of Dirty Tricks." The immovable fact was that the two
were complementary. Each seemed to work better when as-
sociated with the other. But the problem of their articula-
tion was not yet solved.
President Truman praised General Donovan on September
20, 1945, for exceptional leadership in a wartime activity.
More than this, he could say that General Donovan retired to
~ifa private life with the reward of knowing that the intelligence
services of the government for times of peace were being
erected upon the foundations which he had laid in the Office
of Strategic Services. It went out of existence as a wartime
expedient commended for many accomplishments. It was en-
titled to the greater praise of close study by those who had
charge of creating and administering the organization which
succeeded it.
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
 25X1 Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2
Next 1 Page(s) In Document Exempt
Approved For Release 2005/12/23 : CIA-RDP83-01034R000200160001-2