DONOVAN, MARCUSE, SCHLESINGER, JULIA CHILD & CO

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01350R000200220010-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 15, 2007
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: September 24, 1972
• Content Type: NSPR

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Approved FRll i se 2007/02/16: CIA-RDP88-01350R000
WASHINGTON POS.'.i} BOOK WORLD
24SEP1972
novan., ivicilrcuse,
approach of the political scientist,- has'
provided an excellent overview- of thej
role of OSS during the 'two-front war.,
difi!p against Nazi Germany and imperial. Ja-t
". - .. FCtll, riG L,tiJ VVUVCll I.Ud'"LLGl I,11G arid.Whitney Shepardson moved out into
r Material from dozens of existing , mom {
lac S+_er et Ia~toTy o f finer aca s 1 the universities, the foundations, the
oirs, books and articles about OSS, all . banks and corporations, where many of
first Central Intelligence Agency carefully footnoted, but in addition, he them could be relied upon to carry water
> has performed prodigious original re- ? ?
By R. Harris Smith for the Agency when asked. Some of
search, interviewing or corresponding
California 470 pp. $10.95 with some 150 former members of .OSS these names showed up on the boards of
' foundations and other CIA conduits two
many of whom, apparently, could hardly decades later, for they had not forgotten
stop talking. the old ties that bind. Tracing the names,
By RAVID WISE The chapter on the?OSS's dealings with the- half-submerged links between the
Ho Chi Minh is especially illuminating. intelligence community and what. IR,ich-`~
As is well known, an OSS medic saved and Rovere has called the American Es-1
117-RAT T COULD Clark L 'IIacG~,regor, Her-` Ho's life in 1945 and as the war drew, -tab}ishment,`is whatmakes Smith's book
bert Marcuse, Arthur Schlesinger _,Jr., to a close, OSS officers maneuvered to so fascinating and valuable:.
Julia Child, Benjamin_Welles, Pope Paul aid the Viet Minh against waning French ? In a final -chapter;:.Smith -accurately
VI, S. Millon Ripley, Sterling Hayden,. colonial power in -Indochina. It.was not J -points out that there were,.and are, many,
and David Bruce possibly have in corn- to be, for Washington would not allow it;. liberals in--the CIA, but his effort, to
mon? Or, for that matter, John Gardner, but at least briefly. the United..$tates portray the Agency as the Virginia chap-.i
,-i
Frank Schoonmaker; the wine connois~ was ? supporting, in. Vietnam, -what Dean ter of the ADA is not entirely convincing
sear, SEC chairman William Casey, Rusk liked to call `.`the other side." And particularly since Smith himself. argues
Douglass Cater, Henry Ringling North, of. Smith-notes that Peter Dewey;. a young that over the years, "The Agency's covert
the circus family, Merian Cooper, direc- OSS" colonel, was the. first American to , power was consistently 'exercised" on be-
for of the film King Kong, John Oakes,. die in Vietnam; the date was September' half of political repression and dictator
editor of The New York Times editorial 26 1945., ship." And Smith notes that a dynamic
page, and Arthur Goldberg? "Wild Pill" Donovan's OSS; created 'wartime . secret service may lead, ' in
Answer: all formerly toiled for the Of- with Franklin D. Roosevelt's backing,.,, peacetime, "_to irreparable disaster,"
fc~ of Stra`egic Services better known
as the OSS the World War II cloak-and- brought together?tvhat surely must have.
been the most diverse group of spies
da er agency that, for better or worse,: ever to- gather. under one.cloak for a
became the forerunner of today's Central common purpose. Upper-class. WASPS,
Intelligence Agency. the adenoidal scions of America's great
To get right to the point,. In OSS, R. banking and industrial families,. mingled
Harris Smith, who served briefly as a with Communists and crooks, labor lead
research analyst for CIA and then fled-.
to become a political scientist in Califor-
nia, has written the best book about Professors---in a bouillabaisse that might
America's first modern secret service.. have been whipped up by Mrs. Child
Others have told of their own exploits in herself.
General William J.' Donovan's colorful. And it is the names-the astonishing
chaotic spy agency; Corey Ford has pro- .:-list of names-that"form the strength of,?-~
vided an interesting portrait of Donovan Smith's work, even more than the indi 1
himself, and Allen Dulles, in The Secret vidual episodes of OSS derring-do \or
Surrender, detailed the story of his suc-- ! failure. With. the aid of 'a special system
cessful negotiations leading to the sur.- of footnotes, Smith not only reveals doz-
render of the German army in Italy. But-- ens of names but tells us.-where they
R. Harris Smith has put it all together,. are now.
and added a great deal more. Some of the OSS operators had found
No. matter that he calls. the CIA .`.the their life's calling, Smith makes it clear
most misunderstood bureaucracy of the that and the present; top were echelons. former of. the OSS CIA, past
and, It
American government," for perhaps scattered through the pages, they are.
Smith wishes to keep his friends who
named-Allen Dulles and Richard Helms,
still toil invisibly across the river in I who became directors of CIA, Thomas
Langley, Virginia. No matter that the Karamessines Larry Houston, Tracy
"full story of OSS cannot be written) Barnes, Lyman Kirkpatrick Jr., JohnlI
unless and until CIA unlocks the war- Bross, Alfred Ulmer Jr., and William
tune files of OSS, which it still has squir- Colby, all of whom became station chiefs
reled away out there. or top officials of the intelligence agency.
For all of that, Smith, combining the Others with wonderful reversible-names,
style of a journalist with the schotarly4 like DeWitt Poole Preston Goodfe11
Approved For Release 2007/02/16: CIA-RDP88-013508000200220010-9