STUDIES IN INTELLIGENCE [Vol. 18 No. 2, Summer 1974 & Vol. 18 No. 1-S, Spring 1974]

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78T03194A000400010009-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 176
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 8, 2004
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: January 1, 1974
• Content Type: IS

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'c'TUDI'rT~S
IN
1NTE.LL1,GENCJ,.
VOL. 18 No. 2 SUMMER 1974
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
ARCHWAL RECORD
PLEASE RETU
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AGENCY ARCHIVES,
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SECRET
SECURITY PRECAUTIONS
Materials in the Studies are in general to be reserved to US per-
sonnel holding appropriate clearances. The existence of this journal is
to be treated as information privy to the US official community. All
copies of each issue beginning Summer 1964 are numbered serially and
subject to recall.
All opinions expressed in the Studies are those of the
authors. They do not necessarily represent the official
views of the Central Intelligence Agency or any other
component of the intelligence community.
Warning Notice
Sensitive Intelligence Sources and Methods Involved
NATIONAL SECURITY INFORMATION
Unauthorized Disclosure Subject to Criminal Sanctions
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NO FOREIGN DISSEM
CONTENTS
Page
CIA and the Congress ................................ John M. Maury 1
Legislative liaison from the Agency viewpoint. (CONFIDENTIAL)
Oversight or Overlook: Congress and the U.S. Intelligence Agencies . . . 15
Lucien N.:Nedzi
From the Congressional viewpoint. (CONFIDENTIAL)
The SAM Upgrade Blues ............................ Dr. Sayre Stevens 21
How do you prove it's impossible? (SECRET)
National Security Medal for Lawrence R. Houston ....................... 37
An award for the `father of intelligence law.' (UNCLASSIFIED)
Confessions of a Former USIB Committee Chairman .. David S. Brandwein 43
Interagency gamesmanship. (SECRET)
Intelligence in Recent Public Literature ............................... 51
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To be a politician is but to feign ignorance
of what you know well, pretend knowledge of
what you are totally ignorant, decline to
listen to what you hear, attempt what is beyond
your capacity, hide what ought to be exposed,
appear profound when you are dull-witted, and
to justify ignoble means by claiming admirable
ends. Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais,
Marriage of Figaro (1778)
CIA AND THE CONGRESS
John M. Maury
Beaumarchais' appraisal of politicians is widely shared these days, and
perhaps nowhere more than among members of Executive Agencies who have
come to look upon Congressmen and their endless investigations and criticisms
as irreconcilable enemies of the bureaucratic establishment. In the case of agencies
involved in sensitive questions of national security, the problem is intensified by
concern among the bureaucrats that Congress will, perhaps inadvertently, lack
proper discretion in the handling of highly classified material to which it demands
access. On the other hand, the Congress instinctively suspects that whenever an
Executive Agency pleads national security as an excuse for withholding informa-
tion, the purpose is merely to cover up mischief or inefficiency.
In the case of an agency involved in foreign intelligence, the problem is fur-
ther complicated by traditional American squeamishness about the morality of
spying in peacetime-reading other people's mail, or subverting other people's
loyalties. And sometimes our own poor judgment or clumsy tradecraft have con-
tributed to Congressional suspicions that many of our activities are counter-
productive or create unnecessary irritants in the nation's foreign relations.
Our problem then is whether an organization like CIA can operate in Ameri-
can society without being so open as to be professionally ineffective, or so secret
as to be politically unacceptable.
In the early days of the Agency this problem rarely arose. The Agency was
created at a time when the nation was haunted by the disastrous lack of warning
of the Pearl Harbor attack, when we were becoming dimly aware of the nature
and scope of the post-war Soviet threat and implications of the Cold War, and
when, for the first time in our history, we found ourselves with no staunch and
strong ally standing between us and a possible major adversary. All of this,
coupled with our worldwide security commitments-military, economic, and
political-made it obvious that if we were to bear our newly acquired respon-
sibilities in the world and defend our national interests, we would need a far
more sophisticated set of eyes and ears abroad than anything we had enjoyed
in the past.
In the view of the general public, and of the Congress which in the main
reflected the public attitude, a national intelligence service in those days was
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CONFIDENTIAL CIA and Congress
more or less a part and parcel of our overall defense establishment. Therefore,
as our defense budget went sailing through Congress under the impact of the
extension of Soviet power into Eastern Europe, Soviet probes into Iran and Greece,
the Berlin blockade, and eventually the Korean War, the relatively modest CIA
budget in effect got a free ride, buried as it was in the Defense and other budgets.
When Directors appeared before the Congress, which they did only rarely, the
main concern of the members was often to make sure we had what we needed
to do our job.
All of this now seems long ago. In recent years the intelligence community,
and particularly CIA, have, along with the Defense and State Departments,
borne the brunt of Congressional suspicion and frustration resulting from un-
popular and burdensome foreign involvements. In the old days we lived in a
black and white world. We knew we were the good guys, and we knew who
the bad guys were. And it was widely recognized that we needed a good intelli-
gence service to take care of ourselves. It was also widely assumed that, in addi-
tion to intelligence, we needed a covert arm to fight Communist subversion and
give the Communists some of their own medicine in the area of political and
psychological warfare. In the early Fifties there was much talk about how some-
thing called the "international Communist conspiracy" had been the main in-
strument for spreading Soviet influence throughout Eastern Europe and paving
the way for Communist takeovers in other parts of the world. Accordingly, it
was suggested by eminent Washington statesmen that we. should fight fire with
fire and develop a subversive capability of our own which would roll back the
Iron Curtain to pre-war Soviet frontiers, and perhaps stimulate nationalist up-
risings among the peoples of the Baltic States, Byelorussia, and the Ukraine.
The late Chip Bohlen has noted the fallacy in this thesis by pointing out that the
Kremlin has not gained effective control of a foot of territory since 1917 with-
out the use of threat of superior force, and that covert action, while a useful
supplement to overt military and diplomatic measures, can never be a sub-
stitute for them. In the early days of the Agency, however, a general failure to
appreciate this point led to a certain amount of excessive and romantic zeal, and
a corresponding amount of concern and suspicion among those who feared that
ill-considered political action ventures might get out of hand.
More recently the pendulum has swung the other way. We no longer see the
world as black and white, but in numerous shades of gray. It is no longer clear
that we are good guys or that any others in particular are especially bad guys.
We have learned that neither military might, economic aid, earnest diplomacy,
nor political or psychological gimmicks can make the world behave as we would
like it to behave. In the resulting popular disillusionment, scapegoats must be
found. Americans have been brought up to believe that they are not supposed to
suffer setbacks, and if they do there must be a scoundrel amongst them, or perhaps
several scoundrels. In Joe McCarthy's day, the chief scoundrels included General
Marshall, a few hapless Foreign Service officers, and an Army dentist. More
recently, the scoundrels have been the people that got us into the "illegal" war in
Indochina, or who have somehow been vaguely associated with one or another
aspect of the Watergate affair. But whatever the immediate popular frustration
may be, whether directed at the generals in the Pentagon, or the diplomats in
the State Department, or the architects of the Watergate in the administration,
chances are someone will find a way to implicate CIA. We are an easy target,
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CIA and Congress CONFIDENTIAL
first, because nearly everyone is prepared to believe wild stories about "spy
agencies"; second, because the media can't tolerate an organization that refuses
to share with them all of its secrets; and, third, because we cannot refute the
allegations against us without revealing sensitive details about our organization,
our activities, and especially our "sources and methods" which the Director is
enjoined by law to protect.
Therefore, the Agency still operates under something of a cloud of suspicion.
Unless we can publicly prove our innocence of the charges leveled against us,
doubts persist. But it now is clear that we are here to stay. We are no longer
viewed by the public and politicians as an intriguing Cold War innovation which
would soon go the way of other committees, boards, administrative organizations,
and so forth, that temporarily prospered in times of crises, but eventually were
gobbled up or pushed aside by the entrenched bureaucracies of the old-line
departments. In the past several years, CIA has indeed acquired a clear identity
on the national scene. For better or worse, we are in the news almost daily. In the
public eye we are no longer obscure, and indeed hardly mysterious, although
we do apparently remain somewhat sinister. But in any event we are very much
a part of the national establishment and, as such, we must sink or swim in the
same political currents as the other elements of the Executive Branch.
I see no reason why we should shrink from this prospect. Both Dick Helms
and Bill Colby have made the point before Congressional committees that we
are in every sense a part of the American scene, and as such must be guided by
American traditions, mores, and morals. And in spite of the doubts and suspicions
about some of our real or alleged activities which have been voiced on the Hill,
the fact is that to date we have fared quite well at the hands of the Congress.
Indeed, it is difficult to recall a case in which the Congress has passed legislation
seriously opposed by the Agency, or failed to pass legislation which the Agency
judged necessary for its effective discharge of responsibilities. The reason, I
think, is that all of our Directors have subscribed to the view that the Congress
was entitled to know as much about the Agency and its activities as it thought
necessary to carry out its responsibilities. The extent of the information which
Congress felt it needed, and the procedures through which it has obtained this
information, have varied over the years with changing world conditions and
domestic political attitudes. But I know of no case where a Director has attempted
to mislead or withhold information from a Congressional committee on any matter
within the Agency's competence and within the committee's jurisdiction.
In talking to various Agency groups about our Congressional relations in
recent years, I have found that even many old hands are startled, and often
disturbed, to learn of the extent of our current involvements with the Congress.
Few seem to know that over the past several years we've received an average
of over a thousand written communications annually from individual members or
committees. Perhaps half of these are routine letters endorsing an applicant for
employment. Probably the bulk of the remainder are also more or less routine,
involving letters from constituents inquiring about why Congress does not exer-
cise tighter oversight over the Agency, why our budget cannot be made public,
whether some of the press stories about assassination and derring-do are accurate,
and so forth. But a week rarely passes that we don't have a couple of real lulus-
perhaps a request from the Foreign Relations Committee for copies of certain
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CONFIDENTIAL CIA and Congress
National Estimates; a demand for a detailed reply to allegations by Jack Ander-
son implying Agency involvement in the narcotics traffic; queries about whether
some Foreign Service officer mentioned in the press was actually an Agency
employee; questionnaires covering any and all relations we might have with
various universities and educational institutions or foundations; and sometimes
rather moving appeals for Agency assistance in locating missing persons who may
have fallen victim to foul play abroad, or interceding with local authorities to
arrange the release of American citizens incarcerated for one or another offense
in foreign countries.
Many requests from individual members of the Congress are quite straight-
forward intelligence requests-they simply want. to be brought up to date on a
problem in which the Agency has some competence. It may concern the political
situation in a certain foreign country, or how certain Soviet weapons performed
during the recent Mid-East fighting, or the prospects for the spring wheat crop
in Eastern Europe. Their questions may arise as a result of something that's come
up before their respective committees, or it may be connected with a forth-
coming trip which they are planning to make to certain foreign areas. On the
average, Agency officers give perhaps a hundred individual briefings a year in
response to such specific requests.
Our most important business on the Hill, however, is conducted with the
several committees. In recent years the Director or Deputy Director has averaged
some 30 to 35 committee appearances annually. Most of these have been before
the Agency Oversight Committees-or rather Subcommittees-of the Appro-
priations and Armed Services Committees of the House and Senate. However, in-
creasingly the Director is being called on to give world round-up intelligence
briefings to the full Armed Services Committees of each House and to the De-
fense Subcommittees of the Appropriations Committees of each House, all of
which are considerably larger than the Intelligence Subcommittee alone.
The Agency also makes several appearances each year before other com-
mittees, such as Foreign Relations in the Senate, Foreign Affairs in the House,
and the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy. In the case of Foreign Relations and
Foreign Affairs, there are usually a couple of general world round-up briefings
each year before the full Committee and, in addition, there are often more
specialized briefings, sometimes for only subcommittees. For example, in the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Muskie might request a special
briefing on Soviet weapons developments for his subcommittee on arms control,
or in the House, Representative Fascell may want a briefing on developments in
Latin America for his Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs.
In addition to committee briefings, the Agency is frequently called upon to
brief individual members on various intelligence and related subjects. During
calendar year 1973, for example, we responded to 175 such requests.
Now a few words about the ground rules for dealing with these committees,
subcommittees, and individuals. For some years, and in fact ever since we be-
came involved in routine Congressional briefings of the kind I've described,
it has been Agency policy to respond to the request of any Congressional com-
mittee on any matter within the Agency's competence and within the commit-
tee's jurisdiction. So far as the Agency's Subcommittees of the Appropriations and
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CIA and Congress CONFIDE IAL
Armed Services Committees of the two Houses are concerned, no holds are barred.
These small subcommittees are generally made up of the senior members of the
full committees and have free access to any information they wish, not only of
an intelligence nature, but about the inner workings of the Agency, including
specific operations, budgets, personnel strength and so forth. Also, one or two key
staff members of these subcommittees have all of the clearances necessary for
similar access. The members themselves are not formally cleared, their access to
various categories of classified information being based on their membership on
the committee rather than formal clearance procedures by the Executive Branch.
Thus there are no problems with regard to what material to provide to our
Oversight Subcommittees. The problems arise in dealing with other committees,
especially where things that we consider internal Agency matters impinge on
problems which the committees feel legitimately concern them. For example, the
Foreign Relations Committee, in its overview of the State Department and the
Foreign Service, may feel that it should know what embassy slots abroad are
occupied by Agency officers. The Inter-American Affairs Subcommittee of the
House Foreign Affairs Committee may call for an Agency explanation of allega-
tions of Agency involvement with certain multi-national corporations. Or Senator
Fulbright may want to know whether the Agency has contact with Soviet emigre
groups to an extent that might jeopardize detente.
Where operational details are involved-especially those relating to sensitive
sources and methods-the Agency has followed guidelines laid down by the
Chairmen of our Oversight Subcommittees, and generally no exceptions are
made to the strict rule against passing operational information except with the
approval of the Chairmen of these Subcommittees. However, like everything else
in the real world of politics in a democratic society, there are no absolutes. Rules
are usually flexible, and where disagreements occur, compromise is always con-
sidered preferable to confrontation. Thus, should a particular Senator express
special concern over an allegation that a diplomatic incident in some foreign
capital was the result of the misfire of an Agency operation, it is entirely possible
that the Chairman of one of our Oversight Subcommittees might call him aside
and, relying on his honor as a Senator to be discreet, explain to him the facts. Or
the Subcommittee Chairman might arrange, on the basis of his colleague's assur-
ances to respect confidences, for an Agency officer to brief him in full detail on
the matter in question. There have, of course, been cases where such confidences
have been broken, probably more often by inadvertence than design, but perhaps
this is not too high a price to pay to avoid the kind of confrontation that would
help nobody, and least of all the Agency. For, as the late Senator Russell once
cautioned an Agency official, "There isn't a single member of this Senate that's
so lowly that he can't make life unbearable for you fellows if he decides he
wants to do it."
There are, of course, occasions when activities which start out as strictly
clandestine operations end up as subjects of legitimate concern to other than
members of the Intelligence Oversight Subcommittees. For example, when
covert Agency assistance to the Meo tribes in Laos was first initiated, it appeared
both necessary and feasible to maintain a posture of plausible denial. But, as
often happens, what started out as a strictly covert program had more and more
requirements heaped upon it by higher authority. As more and more people
became involved, the U.S. media and other curious bystanders became more and
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CONFIDENTIAL CIA and Congress
more interested in what was going on, and gradually uncovered virtually the
whole story. In these circumstances it would have been quite unrealistic for the
Agency to insist that this was only a normal clandestine operation of no concern to
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
In fact, the Foreign Relations Committee's interest was recognized at an
early stage, and Committee members were briefed on the operation as early
as 1962. During the ensuing years, the Foreign Relations and Armed Services
Committees of the Senate were briefed on the matter on a total of 28 occasions,
and some 57 members were, at one time or another, informed of what the
Agency was doing in Laos. This didn't entirely solve the problem, however, be-
cause all of these briefings were in Executive Session, and what the members
really wanted was something they could use in public debate about the "endless
escalation of the illegal war in Indo-China." As the story of the Agency role in
Laos gradually seeped out through the media, some members developed the
line that they had never known anything about it, and if they had, they would
have put a stop to it long ago. This was for public consumption, however, and
some of these same members privately congratulated the Agency for having done
such an effective job in helping the Meo tribes to tie down such a large number
of Communist troops on a budget that, in terms of the costs of the overall U.S.
involvement in Southeast Asia, was infinitesimal.
Our most serious problems with Congress generally revolve around major
action programs such as the Laos operation. There is a widely held feeling,
shared not only by members of the Foreign Relations and Foreign Affairs Com-
mittees, but also by our friends on the Agency Oversight Committees, that such
operations should not properly be the responsibility of a covert intelligence
organization. The charge has been in recent years that the Agency's special
legal authorities and clandestine capabilities have been misused by one after
another administration to circumvent the will of Congress, and that such opera-
tions have often done more harm than good in serving the national interests.
This Congressional concern about covert political action and paramilitary
operations is not limited to programs of a strategic nature such as the one in
Laos. Even relatively minor covert action efforts are viewed with suspicion-for
example, the training of foreign police or security services has raised questions
about whether we can guarantee that the recipients of such assistance will
scrupulously observe due process of law, American-style. And there is a par-
ticular Congressional sensitivity to any sort of effort to influence the outcome
of foreign elections-even in situations where there is a real and imminent
threat that manipulation by Communist nations may lead to a Communist
take-over. Meddling with the media-even in unfriendly countries-also creates
Congressional uneasiness.
It's hard to generalize about the basis for this persistent Congressional
sensitivity. Perhaps it springs in part from a gut feeling that any attempt to
influence the course of events abroad should be under close and continuing
Congressional scrutiny, and that the President and his immediate staff should
not have at their disposal politically potent instruments which they can use
without Congressional knowledge and approval, and the misuse of which might
produce serious consequences or embarrass the national image.
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CIA ands Congress CONFIDENTIAL
This Congressional concern about the morality of covert action, and about
whether it is compatible with our professed desire to maintain friendly rela-
tions abroad, is shared generally by the more liberal members of Congress. They
are quick to suspect, for example, that any Agency contact with private American
corporations operating abroad, or any Agency assistance to foreign police or
security forces is a reflection of imperialistic purpose. The basic attitude among
the liberal membership seems to be that any legitimate interest the U.S. has
abroad can best be served by the State Department or other overt agencies, and
that any resort to clandestine means is proof of sinister purposes.
The more conservative members, on the other hand, usually have no quarrel
in principle with covert action, recognizing that chiefs of state even in the most
democratic countries have for centuries felt the need of a covert capability of
some kind in the conduct of their foreign relations. But many of these more
conservative members, and particularly those on the Agency Oversight Sub-
committees, often question whether covert action should be the responsibility
of an agency whose primary purpose, in their view, is the collection and analysis
of intelligence. Several of these members have, in subcommittee hearings,
expressed a strong view that Agency involvement in such activities as the war in
Laos, the Cuban invasion, the National Students' Association, or Radio Liberty
and Radio Free Europe are far too unwieldy and inherently insecure to be
properly made the responsibility of an organization which depends for its
effectiveness on its secrecy and anonymity. These members feel that the Agency
was created primarily to provide reliable national intelligence for the guidance
of our policymakers in dealing with critical problems of foreign policy and
national security, And they feel that the undertaking of additional burdens in
the covert action field diverts us from this objective and erodes and corrupts the
discipline and commitment which the successful accomplishment of our intelli-
gence mission requires.
Various arguments have been advanced on the Hill in support of legislation
to restrict our covert action authority or to require that Congress be kept more
fully informed regarding covert action programs. Along with these have been
proposals that the Agency's budget be made public. Such proposals vary in the
extent to which they would require a detailed breakdown of the budget, but
doubtless one purpose is to give to the Congress as a whole some sort of a
handle on the funding of the more ambitious and expensive political and para-
military programs. In addition there have been legislative proposals restricting,
or making us more fully accountable to the Congress for, programs supporting
foreign police and security forces, and any Agency association with American
commercial enterprises operating overseas.
Another area of Congressional concern, which has reached acute proportions
within the past year or so, involves Agency domestic activities. This all started
as a tempest in a teapot when a certain political figure discovered that the
Agency had provided some quite innocuous briefings to a metropolitan police
force in a large American city. From the press accounts that emerged from
this discovery, one would assume that the Agency was training local police
forces in the more sophisticated techniques of brutality, torture, and terror.
In fact, all we were doing was giving them the benefit of our experience with
the handling of information, and passing on to them a few tips about how to
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CONFIDENTIAL CIA and Congress
identify and deal with the foreign weapons and explosives that were being used
by alien terrorists. But even the more rational members of Congress have recently
been expressing some concern about how carefully the Agency observes its
statutory restriction against any sort of police, subpoena, law enforcement, or
internal security functions. They apparently feel there is something essentially
unhealthy about any agency involved in foreign intelligence carrying on opera-
tional activity within the United States.
While critical or suspicious regarding the Agency's covert action and para-
military activities, uneasy about suspected domestic involvements of the Agency,
and increasingly frustrated over the secrecy which protects the Agency's budget,
the Congress generally seems to respect the Agency's record in the collection
and analysis of intelligence information. They have noted increasingly in recent
years the candor and professionalism of the Agency's intelligence briefings,
and the scrupulous care exercised by the Agency in maintaining its objectivity
in handling highly controversial subjects of major political significance.
It therefore seems clear that where collection and production of intelligence
is concerned, the Congressional concern is not so much to clip the Agency's
wings, but rather to get access to the Agency's intelligence product, and several
legislative proposals have recently been introduced to serve this purpose. Some
of these have gone so far as to propose that all intelligence produced by the
Agency be made freely available to the full membership of the Congress through
the facilities of the Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees. Others
have simply sought to impose upon the Agency a statutory obligation to keep
certain committees fully informed on matters within the committees' purview.
But the fact that more and more concern is being expressed on the Hill to get
the benefit of the Agency's intelligence output is proof of the Agency's growing
reputation for competence and credibility.
When such controversial issues as the ABM program, the world oil situation,
SALT, and Mutual Balanced Force Reductions are at issue, it is only natural
that a number of members of Congress other than those who are members of
the Agency's Oversight Subcommittees should want up-to-date intelligence.
In general it has been our policy to provide this information as freely as security
considerations permit. There is, of course, the ever-present hazard that in doing
so a member with strong partisan interests will use information obtained from
the Agency out of context in support of one or another side of the argument.
'['here is also, of course, the hazard that in the heat of debate a participant will
reveal too much of the details of the information which we have provided. On
the other hand, it can be argued that the Congress certainly is now exercising,
for better or worse, a vital and frequently decisive role in decisions of the utmost
importance to national security, and if its membership is denied access to the
best available intelligence the national interest is being poorly served. The
denial of relevant intelligence to the Congress, it is argued, may not only lead
the Congress into blind alleys or costly and unwise decisions, but for the Execu-
tive Branch to have full access to vital information which is denied to the
Congress gives the Executive an undue advantage over the Congress, and may
have the additional effect of aggravating differences between the Congress and
the Executive Branch in their appreciation of the problem at issue.
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CIA and Congress CONFIDENTIAL
Certainly many of us have been troubled by the inherent security risks
involved in sharing highly sensitive information with the Congress. The problem
is how to impress upon the members whom we brief the reason for our concern
over security. Often they take the attitude that nearly everything that we tell
them comes out sooner or later anyhow, so why be so squeamish? Why shouldn't
we let them get up and make a speech about it on the floor, rather than wait
to be scooped by the newspapers?
In trying to cope with this attitude, it may be useful to point out the
difference between a revelation by a Jack Anderson on the one hand, and a
revelation by a responsible member of the Armed Services Committee who is
known to have just attended an Agency briefing on the other. If I thought the
KGB spent its time trying to analyze and evaluate every story put out by
Jack Anderson, I wouldn't worry too much. But when a senior member of the
Armed Services or Foreign Relations Committee appears on "Meet the Press"
and talks about how much we know about Soviet missiles or submarines, odds
are that the KGB assumes he's basing his comments on the best available intelli-
gence information.
We have also found it useful sometimes to remind the members of the
Director's statutory responsibility for the protection of intelligence sources and
methods from unauthorized disclosure. It's worth pointing out that not only
do we have this responsibility by law, but we are in a business which essentially
involves a number of fiduciary relationships. We are already the most open
major intelligence service in the world. Even in some of the oldest democracies,
such as the U.K. and the Scandinavian countries, neither the public, the press
nor the politicians are supposed to know the identities of the chiefs of the local
service or the location of its headquarters. References to its activities rarely
appear in public. Because we are determined to play the game according to
American standards, we are already so overt that we have two strikes against
us before we start. Therefore it is extremely difficult for us to live up to the
obligations implicit in our delicate fiduciary relationships with our sources
and collaborators-be they individual agents, friendly liaison services, cover
organizations or indeed friendly governments-which might be placed in gravest
jeopardy if certain of our special relationships with them, or activities which
they permit us to carry out on their soil, ever became known.
Another point sometimes worth making in trying to impress upon Con-
gressional members the value of our contribution to their tasks, and the im-
portance of protecting our security, is to remind them that the U.S. Senate
would never have ratified the first SALT agreement had it not been confident
that we had a national intelligence capability of detecting significant violations.
It can be persuasively argued that, in this sense, good intelligence is vital to
the achievement of a meaningful peace. It can be contended that the greatest
danger of major hostilities lies not in the deliberate attack of one great power
upon another, but rather in the area of miscalculation which can only be avoided
by an alert, competent, and credible intelligence service.
Most members seem to accept this point. They also accept, in theory, that
for an intelligence service to be credible it must be scrupulously objective and
non-partisan. However, in the heat of political controversy, it is inevitable that
evidence attributable to the Agency is introduced, sometimes in distorted form,
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in order to support one or the other side of the debate. During the ABM con-
troversy we were frequently called on to brief committees and individual mem-
bers of the Senate, and in nearly every case the recipients of these briefings
found something to support their position, whatever it might be. Moreover, some
of the more vigorous partisans used various devices to try to put words into
the mouth of the Director or other Agency witnesses tailored to support their
cause. It wasn't always easy to resist these pressures, but I know of no case
in which they were not effectively resisted. And I am sure that if we had once
started down the road of shaving our language, ever so slightly, to accommodate
one or the other side in such partisan debates, it would be quickly detected and
long remembered.
In fact, I think we can all be proud of the Agency's record in this regard.
This record was eloquently attested to by Chairman Mahon of the House
Appropriations Committee on January 16, 1973, when, in paying a tribute to
Mr. Helms, he said,
"I must say I have not encountered a man in government who in
my judgment has been more objective, more fiercely non-partisan, more
absolutely inclined to be perfectly frank with the Congress than you have
been. You have just called it as you have seen it, and we have complete
and utter confidence in you. I am just glad that we live in a country
which produces men who have the sense of loyalty and dedication that
you have."
We can be justly proud of this reputation, but it carries with it a heavy
burden. Inevitably, we will make mistakes in intelligence assessments, and
when we err on matters of sharp political conflict, one side or the other is
bound to accuse us of partisan bias rather than professional error.
If we overestimate any aspect of the Soviet threat, we are attacked by
the doves. If we underestimate, we alienate the hawks. There is no insurance
against these hazards, but the only way to keep them within tolerable proportions
is to continue to display, in all of our intelligence presentations, the highest
degree of professional objectivity and intellectual integrity.
Beside the problems we have in maintaining our professional integrity by
avoiding involvement in partisan debate, we have the problem of maintaining
our political integrity-or perhaps, more accurately, apolitical integrity-by
avoiding identity with either the liberal or the conservative blocs in the Congress.
Traditionally, the older members, because of their seniority on the Oversight
Subcommittees, have largely monopolized the oversight function. They tend
generally toward conservatism and hawkishness. The younger members, gen-
erally excluded from the prestigious Oversight Subcommittees and jealous of
the favored position of their elders, tend to be liberal and dovish. The Agency
can ill afford to be closely identified with either.
Inevitably, one who spends much time on the Hill is often asked for his
personal "net assessment" of the Congress as a whole. I would have to say we
get about what we deserve and maybe a bit better. They are, to be sure, not all
equipped for the role of statesman. Among them are a fair number of dull fellows
who instinctively distrust brilliance. (Dean Acheson, recalling his days as Assistant
Secretary for Congressional Affairs, once cautioned me that in dealing with
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Congress one is tempted to be brilliant, but it is safer to be dull, adding ruefully,
"This I earnestly tried, but with only limited success.") But in the main we have
a group of broadly representative Americans struggling to find a tolerable
compromise between the demands of their constituents, the pressures of the
media and special interest groups, horse-trading bargains offered by their col-
leagues, and the dictates of their consciences.
In the case of some, to resolve such conflicts on the basis of the limited
mental and moral resources with which the Creator has seen fit to endow them
must indeed be a formidable task, the results of which one should not judge too
harshly. From the standpoint of the Agency, I think we can be thankful that we
have on our subcommittees a number of members who devote so much con-
structive attention to Agency matters, knowing full well that they are thereby
gaining not a single vote from a constituent, boost from a pressure group, or
negotiable asset from cloakroom bargaining.
There have been a number of complaints in recent years, both from outside
observers and from some of the younger members of the Congress, about the
way the four intelligence Oversight Subcommittees carry out their responsibilities.
It is claimed that these Subcommittees are made up almost exclusively of the
older and senior members, generally of conservative bent, who lack the time
and interest to maintain adequate overview of the Agency. The Subcommittees
are charged with failure to insist upon a strict accounting of how the Agency
spends its appropriated funds, failure to ensure that the Agency sticks to its
legislative charter on such matters as refraining from domestic activities, white-
washing the Agency's mistakes, and failing to keep their colleagues informed
of what the Agency is up to, how much money it is spending, and so forth.
There is probably merit to each of these charges, and there is probably an
explanation in defense against each. It is true that, traditionally, membership
on the intelligence Oversight Subcommittees has been limited to the senior
members of the full Committees. This, of course, is something over which the
Agency has no control. But the fact is that the Congressional leadership, and
the chairmen of the full Committees, have seen fit to favor seniority where
intelligence matters are concerned. This may be in deference to the wishes of
the senior members who normally get first choice at committee assignments. It
may also be due to the assumption that the senior members are more likely to
behave responsibly in the handling of sensitive information. But whatever the
reasons, it is certainly true that, precisely because the members of the intelligence
Oversight Subcommittees are quite senior and often have a number of other
committee assignments or official responsibilities, they have only limited time
and energy to devote to their intelligence Subcommittee responsibilities.
The inevitable result is that most of our Subcommittee members simply do
not know the full details about what we are doing, and why we are doing it,
and how we are doing it, that they probably should know, and that we in the
Agency would be glad to have them know. In terms of efficiency, a democratic
parliamentary body is certainly a far from perfect piece of machinery. No doubt
subcommittees made up of younger members would find more time to devote
to Agency business, and might make many constructive contributions to the
conduct of Agency management and policy guidance.
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Moreover, younger members should probably have less difficulty in master-
ing the modern technology and jargon which often creep into Agency briefings,
whether relating to foreign weapons systems or to our technical intelligence col-
lection systems. I have seen my colleagues wince when asked questions about
how many missiles an hour can be launched from an SS-9 silo, or whether our
estimate of the number of Soviet Y-Class submarines is based on anything more
than a wild guess. One distinguished member apparently has never been quite
clear on the difference between Libya, Lebanon, and Liberia, and when answer-
ing his questions on what's going on in these countries, a witness can only guess
as to which of them he has in mind. In private discussions with him, it might
be appropriate to try to straighten him out or seek clarification, but in a formal
committee meeting in which a transcript is being made, precision must some-
times be sacrificed to tact.
The older members also occasionally suffer from a decreasing attention
span, and particularly in afternoon sessions are prone to intermittent dozing.
Also, failing faculties sometimes take their toll. I recall one elderly chairman,
when shown a chart of various categories of covert action, reacted sharply and
demanded to know "what the hell are you doing in covert parliamentary opera-
tions." When it was explained that the box on the chart he was pointing to was
"paramilitary operations" he was much reassured, remarking "the more of these
the better-just don't go fooling around with parliamentary stuff-you don't
know enough about it."
But one who has been privileged to watch such committee chairmen as
Stennis, McClellan, Mahon, Hebert, and especially the late Senator Russell,
deal with highly complex problems of national security cannot but be impressed
with their inherent wisdom and common sense which cuts straight through
technical jargon and bureaucratic verbosity to shrewd and rational judgments.
They may have only a vague conception of the highly technical matters that
frequently arise in intelligence briefings, but they have an uncanny knack for
asking simple and direct questions that force simple and direct answers that
go right to the heart of the issue involved. And beyond that, they have an uncanny
sense for detecting a snow-job. I remember one day driving back to the office with
it colleague who had just been up to brief the late Senator Allen Ellender on a
complex technical collection system. My colleague was deeply dispirited, feeling
that Ellender hadn't the slightest idea of what we were talking about. I tried to
reassure him by pointing out that whether Ellender knew what we talking about
was not the issue. The issue was whether Ellender thought we knew what we
were talking about, and whether we were leveling with him. I said that he had
apparently resolved both questions in our favor during the first five minutes,
after which he dozed off and ignored the rest of the briefing. My judgment proved
right, for a few days later he gave the project in question full support despite
strenuous opposition of certain other agencies in the community.
There is another advantage to us in having the more senior members of the
full Committees sit on our Oversight Subcommittees. Regardless of what one
hears and reads, the senior members of those exclusive clubs, the Senate and the
House of the U.S. legislative establishment, observe a strict code in their rela-
tions with each other. No member of either club really exercises much influence
among his colleagues unless he has a reputation for scrupulous personal integrity.
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A member must live up to his oral commitment to another member. He must never
lie to a fellow member. Therefore, when a member of our Oversight Subcommit-
tee tells a critic of the Agency that he has looked into the matter and found the
criticism unfounded, that usually puts an end to it. Also, when a Subcommittee
member shares with a non-member a sensitive secret on the assurance that it
will not be further revealed, that commitment is normally observed.
On the other hand, this code of conduct can occasionally result in problems
for the Agency. One of its provisions, for example, is that every effort should
be made to avoid a direct confrontation with another member. Thus, when some
committee or individual member seeks to probe an Agency matter which we
would prefer to deal with only before our Oversight Subcommittees, it is often
difficult to get the Chairmen of our Oversight Subcommittees to assert their
prior jurisdictional claim and force the non-member to back off. Usually some face-
saving compromise is arrived at, such as allowing the inquisitive member to receive
an "ears only" briefing on the matter from an Agency representative with an
assurance that he will keep the information to himself.
While there is much to be said for the seniority system so far as Agency
oversight is concerned, it has inevitably produced restlessness and suspicion
among the younger members who, like their seniors, have more and more come
to be interested in the Agency's activities and anxious for access to the Agency's
product. In the House, particularly, some of the younger members have become
quite vocal in their insistence that they be included in intelligence briefings and
that they be given some sort of an accounting by the Agency Subcommittees of
how these Subcommittees are carrying out their oversight responsibilities.
This restiveness has been particularly apparent in the case of the House
Armed Services Committee. Both the late Carl Vinson and the late! Mendel
Rivers ran the Armed Services Committee with an iron hand, and both chaired,
and dominated, the Intelligence Subcomittee of the Armed Services Committee.
As a result, when Representative Edward Hebert of Louisiana took over the
Armed Services Committee following the death of Rivers, he inherited a restless
situation in which an increasing number of the younger members demanded
reform in the way the Committee's affairs were managed.
In 1971, Mr. Hebert decided to forestall trouble by appointing as Chairman
of the Intelligence Subcommittee one of the younger and more liberal members
who enjoyed the full confidence of his colleagues. The man he selected was
Lucien Nedzi, a Democrat from Detroit. A graduate of the University of Michi-
gan Law School and veteran of World War II and the Korean War, Mr. Nedzi
represented a district embracing such disparate communities as East Detroit,
Hamtramck, and Grosse Pointe Farms. In taking over his new responsibilities
as Subcommittee Chairman, Nedzi displayed a hard-charging and hard-headed
attitude. He insisted on knowing not only the "what," but the "why," and the
who says so."
Throughout a series of "get-acquainted" briefings by Agency representatives,
Nedzi took nothing for granted. He insisted on detailed explanations of every-
thing he was told, and he read everything about the Agency and the intelligence
business that he could get his hands on. Although he had a number of other
commitments, he gave top priority to his responsibilities as Chairman of the
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Subcommittee, and apparently was determined to know more about CIA and the
intelligence business than any man on Capitol Hill. Needless to say, he wandered
into quite a few blind alleys in the process and picked up a good deal of non-
sense of the kind put out by disgruntled former employees and sensational
writers of the fashionable intelligence fiction advertised as fact. But the Agency
responded by answering all of his questions and freely making available to him
the most sensitive material of every kind. By the time the Watergate story broke,
he apparently was beginning to feel confident that he was on firm ground in
dealing with the Agency and could safely defend us in the face of persistent
efforts to implicate us.
As soon as all the Watergate allegations and speculations and suspicions
began to circulate, however, Nedzi quite characteristically insisted that every one
of them had to be explained or investigated. He launched an intensive investiga-
tion into all aspects of the matter, took sworn testimony from dozens of witnesses,
including top Agency officers as well as key White House officials, and heard
from a number of Watergate defendants themselves. His Subcommittee investiga-
tion was considerably better organized and more thorough and systematic than
any of the several investigations conducted by the other Congressional committees
who were interested in the case.
In the end, Nedzi's persistent skepticism and inquisitiveness, coupled with
the Agency's forthright responses to his questions, paid off. While his Subcom-
mittee report of the investigation did note that Agency officials had been "duped"
into lending certain assistance to "the Plumbers" on the basis of their false
representations, he absolved the Agency and all of its responsible officials of
any guilty knowledge or knowing participation. In a story about CIA and the
Watergate by Oswald Johnston in the Evening Star, 28 November, Nedzi is
quoted as saying that his Subcommittee's record was complete, and that they
had gone through piles of memoranda and classified files without finding a shred
of evidence of any improper Agency involvement.
The Agency is indebted to Mr. Nedzi not only for his tireless work in setting
the Watergate record straight, but also for some thoughtful comments on how
the problems of Congressional oversight look from the perspective of a Sub-
committee Chairman. These remarks, made before the CIA Senior Seminar on
November 14, 1973, are quoted in full text in the following article.
This is, I believe, the first time that any member of our Oversight Subcom-
mittee has given us in such detail the benefit of his perspective on the intelligence
oversight problem.
I can think of no better insurance for the Agency's long-term professional
credibility and political acceptability than to have people like Lucien Nedzi
know all he wants to know about the Agency, and be satisfied by what he knows.
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A Congressman talks to the
CIA Senior Seminar, Nov. 14, 1973
OVERSIGHT OR OVERLOOK: CONGRESS AND
THE U.S. INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES
Representative Lucien N. Nedzi (D-Mich.)
I have entitled my notes this morning "Oversight or Overlook: Congress and
the U.S. Intelligence Agencies."
"Oversight?" or "Overlook?"
To some extent this is a tongue-in-cheek characterization, but it is essentially
an appropriate, fundamental question.
Indeed, it is a bit unsettling that 26 years after the passage of the National
Security Act the scope of real Congressional oversight, as opposed to nominal
Congressional oversight, remains unformed and unclear.
It is a sobering experience for me, as Chairman of the House Intelligence
Subcommittee, to find our Subcommittee still in the process of defining ourselves,
still exploring (or worse yet, just beginning to explore) what we can do and
what we must do.
In Theory
There is inevitably a contradiction between needing to have more and more
information to run our open society, and needing secret intelligence in our effort
to survive as an open society.
I am sure we all agree on the fundamental assumptions:
- The secret aspects of intelligence cannot be dispensed with in
their entirety.
- Over $80 billion of our annual federal budget goes to defense,
and the impact of this expenditure is obvious.
- The question of how much defense money we spend and how we
spend it is basically determined by our assessment of the capabilities and
intentions of potential enemies. This, in turn, depends on intelligence.
It is beyond argument that an effective intelligence system is critical to
our national security. The limits we place on intelligence gatherers and intelli-
gence users are what the discussion should be about.
Obviously, there is emphasis on getting the most information quickly and
clearly to those who must make the critical decisions: The President, the Secretary
of State, the Secretary of Defense, and the National Security Council.
There must also be an unrelenting effort which seeks to insure that those
persons do not abuse the great power of the intelligence agencies and that the
agencies themselves do not stray from their responsibilities.
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Oversight
In my judgment, there are unsolved problems of accountability as related
to the intelligence community, the military, and the executive branch.
Major decisions have been made and perhaps are still being made on the
basis of information kept not only from the public but from the Congress. Indeed,
there have been decisions made which should have been cleared with the Congress
but weren't.
I believe accountability can be improved without doing damage to the
national security.
In theory, the C.I.A., the N.S.A., the D.I.A. and the other intelligence arms
are accountable to Congress and Congress is accountable to the people.
But what is the practice? Well, not as good as it should be.
Since the product of the intelligence community is used by the executive,
there is naturally a judgment made by the users on the quality of the product.
This provides a kind of "executive oversight "
However, merely using the product does not shield us from wrangling.
The recent hearings we held on the "Alleged C.I.A. Involvement in Watergate,"
and the recommendations we made, reminded us that we cannot insure against
wrongdoing merely by statutory language, no matter how carefully designed.
We must rely on a sense of propriety in the White House and in the agencies
themselves.
When that sense of propriety is absent, or fuzzed over, then we are in trouble.
Congressional oversight, in any event, must be improved.
Examples of Shortfall in Oversight
Two or three brief examples of shortfall in oversight should be sufficient
to make the point:
(A) A substantial question has to be raised about the scope and
depth of Congressional oversight when it is revealed that the Senate
C.I.A. Subcommittee did not meet at all in 1971 or 1972.
(B) When I was appointed chairman of the five-man House Intelli-
gence Subcommittee, I was aware of public estimates that the intelli-
gence community spends several billion dollars annually and has tens
of thousands of employees.
I wondered how a Subcommittee of five members, all busy with the
many time-consuming duties of high-seniority members, plus two ex-
officio members, plus a small, two-man, part-time staff, could cope with
anything so formidable in size, talent, and variety.
To ask the question is at least to be free of illusions.
(C) As my third example, I'll simply direct your attention to the
N.S.A. Has that agency ever had a real, thorough review? Has the D.I.A.,
for that matter?
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A Changing Mood in Congress
In my view, a vigorous exercise of Congressional oversight would be a good
thing for the Congress itself, the Executive, the agencies, and the public interest.
If we aren't vigorous in the short run, we aren't doing anybody any favors,
for problems will pile up in the long run.
If we don't do the job now under the present structure-and the jury is
still out-then something quite different may be established, for the mood of
Congress is undergoing a change.
Congress, and public opinion, is in a more challenging mood, not only on
defense matters, but on intelligence. The average age and tenure of members
has also declined substantially. This signals a departure from previous assump-
tions, and predilections.
There are more Congressmen and more Senators who want to get into
the act. In this they reflect the Congressional mood and the public mood. Inaction
on our part would feed these trends; responsible, deliberate action would quiet
many of the fires of discontent.
Further, there seems to be some public concern, fed by Watergate, that a
so-called "C.I.A. mentality" has taken hold in the Executive. That is, that an
Executive accustomed to approving "extra-legal" activity abroad became slack
in guarding against extra-legal activity at home. . . . There are philosophical,
moral, and political considerations here that call for our reflection.
My Various Constituencies
If I may, I'd like to personalize things for a moment or two, so that you
can understand me better.
For one thing, you should understand that while you are full-timers, I am
of necessity a part-timer in the intelligence business. You should also understand
that the pressures on us are different.
The way I see it, I have not one constituency but several constituencies.
I have the constituency of my Subcommittee members, all of whom are
senior to me and must be accorded respect and a proper measure of deference.
I have the constituency of my colleagues in the House, who feel, at least
in some degree, that I represent them generally and even in individual conscience
in dealing with the various intelligence agencies.
Then I have the constituency of the several agencies, whose interests and
problems I must be sensitive to and in a sense represent with my Subcommittee,
full Committee, and House colleagues.
Finally, I have the constituency of the 467,000 people of the 14th Congres-
sional District of Michigan. I must, for example, take care of my oldtimers who
desperately need an increase in social security benefits. I've got to stay in close
touch with political developments in all of the several communities of my district,
be sensitive and responsive to hopes and fears, enduring problems, and future
problems. At times, as in the 1972 campaign, when bussing, the Democratic Na-
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tional Convention quota system, and the McGovern debacle threatened disaster,
I had to devote months of my time surviving bitterly close primary and general
election campaigns.
Nevertheless, I am fortunate to have a veteran and able personal staff both
in Washington and Detroit. This personal staff does relieve me of much of the
Congressional office burden, and I have been able to perhaps spend more time
on intelligence than most of my colleagues.
I believe the Subcommittee and I have made some deep probes and are
becoming better acquainted with each other and with the agencies. I also believe
we have laid the groundwork for the enlargement of our Subcommittee staff.
Possible New Directions
As you know, the House Intelligence Subcommittee recently completed an
in-depth probe on "Possible C.I.A. Involvement in the Watergate and Ellsberg
Matters." Last year we looked into that basket of eels, the classification and
overclassification of documents.
These were probably the two most extensive inquiries made by an Intelli-
gence Subcommittee since the 1947 Act.
I am satisfied with the results. As a beginning.
But there remain many questions, some practical, some philosophical.
For example, how much detail should Congress receive? Should we limit
ourselves to the budget, or should we get into personnel, into policy, into
operations?
Second, there are four Subcommittees-two each in the House and Senate-
charged with oversight responsibility.
I must concede that the "interaction" between them has not been substantial.
Indeed, it has been barely visible.
To be candid about it, the four Subcommittees can be likened to four small
principalities, not at war with one another but going their independent ways.
The situation reminds me of a Greek dialogue, where there isn't point and
counterpoint, question and answer, but a preoccupation with building parallel
pyramids, each building away furiously. If this analogy is accurate, I think our
House Intelligence Subcommittee has built the highest pyramid thus far.
Third, we are well aware of certain axioms of government and public ad-
ministration, namely that regulatory agencies tend to take on the coloration of
the industries they are supposed to regulate, and that relationships between
part-time commissions and full-time executive directors tend to be weighted
in favor of the vigorous full-time executive director. There is an aspect of this
in our relationship and also an inevitable aspect of "joint enterprise" on some
issues. Nevertheless, I believe a Congressional subcommittee can be a joint
enterpriser on one matter and a responsible critic on another.
Fourth, there is always the possibility of a "moral crunch", the possibility
that if you know too much, if you don't side-step the moral ambiguities of a
particular intelligence operation, you will come up against some deeply troubling
decisions.
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There is such a thing as that certain glow, that pleasant vibration, which
flows to a Congressman allowed the privilege of being "on the inside," to be
privy to fresh and sensitive information. Some are quite satisfied to have a
corner of the rug lifted and to be given a peek, and that is enough,. If I may
paraphrase, it is my understanding that some members of Congress in the last
26 years have said, in effect, "I approve in general. I don't want to be told details.
Go to it."
This is understandable and can be explained in various ways:
Trust, Business, Laziness. The fear of moral involvement.
It may be simply that Congressmen trust the agencies, respect their
track record, respect their expertise and command of detail.
It may be that a member is too busy, or too ill or lazy, to summon
the intellectual discipline to really review things. So the easy way out
is not to give oneself the rugged assignment.
Finally, there is the worrisome complication of being morally in-
volved, compromised, silenced. It is, for example, easier for some am-
bassadors to function without knowing details of what the CIA country
chief is doing. Likewise, a Congressional committee. For if you know
a sensitive policy or operation, you may have to proceed to the question
of your responsibilities to your Congressional colleagues and to what you
perceive to be the national interest. And if you deeply disagree, are you
to remain silent? Or protest privately? Or publicly? It's not an easy
question.
The Optimistic Side
I don't want to paint too gloomy a picture.
We do have advantages.
We have proven, in the work of the House Intelligence Subcommittee, that
we can be probing and responsible and keep our findings leak-proof and
closely held.
Second, we have a flexibility of resources. Chairman F. Edward Herbert,
one of the veteran and major figures of the House, has been fully cooperative
and supportive.
Third, we have flexibility in picking our spots, using the power of the
purse and of subpoena.
Fourth, we do not perceive ourselves as being in a tense or rigid adversary
relationship with the various intelligence agencies. All, without exception, have
been forthcoming and cooperative.
Fifth, we have the rare and limited privilege of having an overview of not
only one agency but all agencies. This is quite an advantage in a field where
compartmentalization is the norm. We could, I suppose, even play one agency
off against another.
Finally, we have the advantage of being relatively informal in approach,
of being able to change directions, of not being hemmed in by structure or
precedent.
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We are, in the end, you and I, jointly trying to preserve the fundamental
processes of our free society.
It will help if we understand each other. And so I'll close with a personal
recollection.
I recall a meeting I had here with then-director Richard Helms in which
I told him, "you've been very cooperative in answering my questions. The trouble
is I'm not sure I'm asking the right questions."
"You're getting there," he smiled, "You're getting there."
Well, I hope I am getting there, and if I'm not, I'd like your help.
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There's a dark lantern of the spirit,
Which none see by but those who bear it,
That makes them in the dark see visions
And hag themselves with apparitions,
Find racks for their own minds, and vaunt
Of their own misery and want. (Samuel Butler)
THE SAM UPGRADE BLUES
Sayre Stevens
In the period from 1969 until the signing of the ABM Treaty in Moscow
in 1972, the intelligence community was faced with a new challenge. Most simply
stated, that challenge came in the form of a postulation that the Soviets might
somehow give ABM capabilities-through "SAM upgrade"-to their extensively
deployed air defenses and thereby significantly affect the strategic balance
between the U.S. and the USSR. This postulation came from a scientific and
technical community largely outside the intelligence business which found its
leadership in the Office of the Director of Defense Research and Engineering
(O/DDR&E). As a result of this challenge, the intelligence community, and
most particularly the CIA, was forced to assess the likelihood of material possi-
bilities fostered in the lively imaginations of defense technologists whose think-
ing was largely unfettered by the factual constraints affecting current intelli-
gence judgments. In this confrontation, we were faced with the task of counter-
ing an argument which was continuously modified and which preserved its
importance so long as any possibility of its viability could be maintained.
The Elements of the Strategic Problem
In order to understand the importance attained by the SAM upgrade ques-
tion, one must be willing to accept axiomatically a few precepts of strategic
thinking. Let us not argue these at the moment, but let each reader for himself
put the case:
1. That he must live in a world where international order and
national security rely upon a stable, mutual deterrence maintained
by the strategic weapons of the U.S. and the USSR.
2. That the only meaningful tests of mutual deterrence are weapons
exchanges which take place within the electronic circuitry of large
computers where the ability of one nation to exact, through retaliation,
an unacceptable price for the aggressive indiscretions of the other can
be shown to be assured under all conceivable circumstances.
3. That-in consequence of such a stability criterion-the power
to destroy millions of people by either side is desirable, while those
developments or actions which might degrade that capability are not:
missiles that are only capable of killing people are good; those that might
be used to kill other missiles (i.e., those that protect people) are not.
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4. That he has not been persuaded by Messrs. Panovsky and
Rathjens, among others, that ABM defense is inherently impossible,
that he worries about it a lot and notes particularly that when ABM
defenses are included in computer wars they are apt to have the un-
fortunate effect of greatly reducing the number of people killed.
5. That he then understands that the foundations of international
order and national security are threatened by the widespread introduc-
tion of ABM defenses in either the U.S. or the USSR.
These are more or less the rules which underlie the game of SAM upgrade.
They were the means by which the outcome of that game can be directly
coupled to a number of important strategic policies. There were some impera-
tives around at the time the game began which, without a doubt, helped get
it going. These imperatives arose from threats to proposed defense technology
It and D intended to enable the U.S. to cope with almost any conceivable
military threat. Most important was debate as to whether or not the Mark-12
MIRVing of our Minuteman force (i.e., equipping ICBMs with multiple inde-
pendently targetable reentry vehicles) should be implemented. Also of im-
portance, though less logically so, was the heavy flak being encountered by the
U.S. ABM program. Underlying all this, of course, was the growing momentum
toward the undertaking of serious strategic arms limitation negotiations with
the Soviet Union. Negotiations might well ultimately result in our freezing the
state of weapons technology and denying us the opportunity for improving or
augmenting our forces in ways already being espoused. With threats to programs
such as these and with the growing insistence that our defense expenditures
be related rather specifically to the anticipated threat from abroad, what might
be called "creative threat modeling"-always a popular sport-gained even more
adherents.
The intelligence community suffered some important disabilities in dealing
with the creative threat modelers: it was reasonably respectable and conserva-
tive; it had been responding to military fantasies for so many years that it had
been conditioned to an automatic skepticism and short-tempered response to
such proposals; and, finally, it really could not match the imagination that it
was facing from outside. It had an additional problem in that it was dealing
with a group of people whose forte was the innovative development of new
weapons concepts and the ability to overcome the technological hurdles which
stood in the way of their realization. Technical intelligence analysts must neces-
sarily work within an analytical framework that is bounded by technical con-
straints which serve to discriminate among the impossible, the possible but un-
likely, the probable, the most likely, etc. Thus, while intelligence analysts focused
upon the existence and the effective application of technical constraints, the
creative modelers focused upon their elimination.
The CIA had furthermore been conditioned to an immediate negative re-
sponse to the SAM upgrade proposal as a result of the long and bloody fight
about the role of the Tallinn or SA-5 system. In the course of this struggle, the
community had effectively chosen up sides in disagreement as to whether this
Soviet defensive weapons system, deployment of which began in 1963, was an
ABM or a SAM system. CIA had steadfastly maintained the system to have been
designed and deployed to fulfill an air defense role. The story cannot be con-
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sidered at length here but deserves separate treatment in some other article.
Suffice it to say that any suggestion of giving ABM capabilities to SAM systems
would be viewed as another ploy in that dwindling but still touch controversy.
It is also important to note here that this was not an issue that had been
generated and needed to be resolved within the intelligence community. Indeed,
the intelligence community was united and in agreement throughout the SAM
upgrade affair. The problem was raised outside the community, so that the long-
established mechanisms for resolving the kinds of differences that were to emerge
were not available for application. The CIA largely represented the intelligence
community throughout the debate because of its established role and representa-
tion within the SALT community. That it did so reasonably well is attested to
by the relatively easy acceptance of its views on SAM upgrade by the other
intelligence agencies in NIE 11-3-71.
Against such a backdrop, we must address the SAM upgrade hypothesis
explicitly. The Soviets had only a limited ABM defense around the city of Mos-
cow, and there was general agreement its capabilities were limited. No evidence
of further deployment could be found. A new defensive weapon system, the
so-called Tallinn or SA-5 system, was being widely deployed throughout the
country. But, while it made eminent strategic sense for that system to be an
ABM system, the likelihood that this was the case was being persuasively, if
not conclusively, ruled out by the intelligence community. The only remaining
possibility rested in the contention that the system might well have a dual
capability against both airborne and ballistic missile threats, but even this line
was running thin by 1968. If these were, however, air defenses, there was no
denying the Soviets had a hell of a lot of them.
More specifically, deployed throughout the Soviet Union were over 10,000
surface-to-air missile launchers of several different types capable of providing
defense against attacking aircraft. What, asked the SAM upgraders, would we
do if the Soviets were somehow able to provide these wide-spread air defenses
with a capability, which they might indeed now have, of attacking our ballistic
missiles? Suddenly the limited ABM defenses around Moscow would be re-
placed by defenses spread across the entire country in very large numbers. As
we have noted, ABM defenses have tremendous leverage in affecting the out-
come of paper wars searching for the assurance of unacceptable retaliation in
the event of a surprise attack. The addition of 10,000 new missile interceptors
might indeed throw that assured destruction into question.
A number of specific issues were considered at length in the course of the
SAM upgrade arguments. First and foremost was the question of whether air
defense systems could be effectively upgraded to perform a useful ABM role.
It was about this issue that most of the controversy raged. This is understandable
since a demonstration that such a step was not feasible could most quickly
end the debate. Unfortunately, one cannot categorically separate SAMs from
ABM interceptors with full assurance that a system designed to do one thing
will have no capability to do another, though the intelligence community was
perhaps guilty for a time of such thinking. A second issue involved the question
of whether any meaningful deterioration in our assured retaliatory capability
would result even if such upgrading occurred. While a convincing argument
that our retailiatory capability would not be put in serious jeopardy by SAM
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upgrade could be a powerful counter in the debate, it would be inevitably
blunted by the fact that it was Soviet perceptions which were most important.
This proved to be an issue which received only limited attention, and one that
was repeatedly confounded as the Defense Department continued to unearth
remarkable limitations in the flexibility with which the U.S. could employ its
strategic forces. Finally, there was the critical question of whether the Soviets
would indeed pursue a program like SAM upgrade. Ultimately, the intelligence
community had to make its stand on this issue.
Some SAM Upgrade Hypotheses
No one seriously contended that all 10,000 SAM launchers might be used
for missile defense. Some of the deployed Soviet air defenses were largely
obsolescent (the SA-1 system around Moscow) and others had specific tactical
or low altitude missions (SA-3 and SA-4) which denied them the inherent capa-
bilities needed even for upgrading. The only two real candidates were the
SA-2 and the SA-5 systems. They alone employed missiles and radars whose
performance begins to approach the levels required for such a task. In 1969
there about 5,000 SA-2 launchers and nearly 1,500 SA-5 launchers either opera-
tional or under construction across the USSR.
Quite remarkably, the greater part of the SAM upgrade debate centered
upon the SA-2 system. The problems with the SA-5 from an upgrade point of
view were its deployment in barrier fashion across major routes into the popu-
lation and industrial centers of the Soviet Union, and the impossibility of re-
locating it without tearing up yards of concrete. Thus, the limited area pro-
tected by an SA-5 operating in a manner consistent with its having an air de-
fense role had relatively little significance. We also suffered from a shameful
state of ignorance about its characteristics and so couldn't do the kind of de-
tailed technical analysis that supported SA-2 upgrading studies. The SA-5 re-
enters the story later on, however.
There were early suggestions that the Soviets might use SA-2 missiles for
ballistic missile defense purposes. The most notable of these suggestions came
from Strategic Air Command analysts who linked deployed SAM sites with Tall
King air warning radars in a scheme to which they attributed ABM capabilities
of a sort. This contention was not taken seriously by the technical intelligence
community which looked askance at its mystico-geometrical foundations. The
real opening gun of the SAM upgrade affair was fired in the spring of 1969
at Sandia Laboratories in Albuquerque. Analysts at Sandia had looked at the
problem for the first time in what proved to be the proper fashion. Using well-
accepted models of the SA-2 system and all the characteristics of U.S. ICBM
reentry vehicles, they were able to show, through simple engagement simulation
that the SA-2 could, in fact, engage a large portion of the U.S. missile force if
the interceptor were equipped with a nuclear warhead. Reports of Sandia's
results were circulated throughout Washington and within the CIA but were
not taken seriously. Sandia's concern with the problem was attributed to its in-
creasing nervousness about the vulnerability of U.S. weapons to nuclear weapons
effects and to a desire to get on with the Mark-12 reentry vehicle program.
Finally, in the summer of 1969 Sandia persistence resulted in a briefing of
analysts working in the defensive weapons field in the CIA. The Sandia argu-
ment was simple and impressive. We looked hard for obvious errors; we made
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some corrections to their SA-2 model; we questioned some of the characteristics
ascribed to the Mark-11 reentry vehicle carried by the Minuteman ICBM force.
But we could not shake the basic validity of Sandia's study. Moreover, we were
impressed with the importance of a detailed understanding of U.S. weapons
when assessing the capabilities of foreign weapon systems to counter them.
For example, the Mark-11 RV has an extremely small radar cross-section that
poses an almost impossible target for air defense radars. What we had failed
to realize was that the nose shield which provides this low cross-section burns
off at about 90 thousand feet so that the reentry vehicle then "blooms" as a
target. The effect of this characteristic-along with others-was to make in-
coming RVs far easier targets for SAM systems than we had previously realized.
If nothing else, the intelligence community was forced to abandon its considera-
tion of foreign weapons systems largely in vacuo and to accommodate its analysis
to the need to answer very specific questions arising from the net technical
assessment of U.S. and opposing weaponry.
Sandia's work was followed by a study by the General Research Corpora-
tion for the DDR&E and a hurried look at the problem by the Strategic Military
Panel of the President's Scientific Advisory Committee.
After a substantial amount of agonizing over these studies, and in response
to the expressed concern of the DDR&E and the Arms Control and Disarma-
ment Agency (ACDA), it was decided within OSI that we ourselves would
investigate the ABM capabilities of the SA-2 system. The report was a departure
from previous studies of Soviet advanced weapons developments produced by
the CIA. It concerned itself with the potential capabilities of a system-with
suitable modifications-to perform a role for which it was not designed and
in which it might at best be only marginally effective. We knew from unassail-
able evidence that the SA-2 system had been designed and developed for de-
fense against aerodynamic targets-not ballistic missiles. All available intelli-
gence information indicated that its deployment and operational doctrine were
dictated solely by consideration of its air defense role. Furthermore, our assess-
ment was based upon a greater knowledge of the SA-2 system than almost any
other Soviet weapon system; it had been derived from years of collecting in-
formation on the system, including the acquisition of actual hardware. It might
also be noted that the study was undertaken to the absolute horror of a number
of the Agency's best and most respectable air defense analysts.
In performing the study, we required that all the elements of the system
be employed in very nearly the same way that they were used in an air defense
role, but allowed the introduction of operational doctrine and procedures spe-
cifically tailored for an ABM role. We assumed the interceptors to be armed
with nuclear warheads-a sine qua non for ABM capabilities. This approach
later became known as the "mini-mod system" when many more imaginative
modifications to the system were introduced in response to the identification
of its specific shortcomings when used for missile defense.
The study was completed and published in December 1969. It generally
confirmed the basic results of the Sandia analysis: the nature of the ballistic
missile defense problem and the characteristics of the existing U.S. missile
threat allowed the SA-2 system-under restricted circumstances--to defend
portions of the USSR against a part of the U.S. Minuteman force. To provide
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even this limited ABM defense, early warning information, prelaunch target
acquisition information for the SA-2 guidance radar, widespread deployment
of nuclear warheads, and several minor modifications to the SA-2 equipment were
required. The availability of each of these was highly conjectural. Without them,
the system as deployed could provide no ballistic missile defense whatsoever.
Despite these limitations, the depth of defense that might be provided by the
SA-2 was not insignificant because of the large number of sites deployed near
Soviet cities and because of the general purpose flexibility built into this air
defense system.
Despite the inherent capabilities of the system, three very significant draw-
backs to its use for ABM purposes became clear:
1. The coverage provided depended heavily upon the reentry angle
of the attacking reentry vehicle (RV). At the time of the study, about
half the U.S. Minuteman force was targeted to employ trajectories in-
volving reentry angles of 19?. Against these targets, the protection that
might be provided by an SA-2 site could cover an area as large as 100 to
300 square nautical miles. The other half of the Minuteman force re-
entered at 24?. Coverage of targets attacked by these missiles would
extend at most to about 70 square nautical miles and in some circum-
stances would not exist at all. No protection could be achieved against
ICBM's with reentry angles greater than about 28?. The Mark-12 RV
(now deployed on about half our Minuteman force but then only
planned) reenters at such steep angles.
2. The coverage similarly waxes and wanes with the minimum in-
tercept altitude the defense is willing to accept. To achieve the larger
coverages noted above, intercepts down to 6,000 feet would have to
be allowed. At altitudes this low, the thermal and blast damage from a
1 to 20 KT defensive warhead could be fairly extensive. Furthermore,
if the offense were willing to detonate the RV at higher altitudes, it
could overcome the defense without serious degradation to RV damage
of soft targets.
3. A third drawback resulted from difficulties in discriminating en-
gageable targets from those which were acquired by the SA-2 radar
but not within reach of its missile. If a limited number of nuclear armed
interceptors were available, they might quickly be expended to no avail
in the event of a multiple RV attack.
It is not my purpose here to deal at length with the technicalities of SAM
upgrade, but these analytical results shed light on some important considera-
tions. Any ABM capability that might be ascribed to the SA-2 system was highly
qualified and conditional. But those who took the possibility seriously noted
that some capability could indeed be shown to exist. Those who denigrated
the possibility emphasized that such capabilities were "technical" or "theoretical"
and not "real," though no means for giving meaning to those characterizations
ever emerged. It was also pointed out that no country would rely upon a defense
which depended upon the attacker's behaving in a certain way which made him
peculiarly vulnerable; on the other hand, it was noted that the approaching
strategic arms limitations negotiations might freeze the offense so that pre-
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cisely such a situation might occur. Discussions about the possibilities of chang-
ing reentry angles or burst heights quickly showed that it could be accom-
plished only with great difficulty.
The report we prepared was not enthusiastically received. In several parts
of the Agency and elsewhere in the community, we were charged with having
added fuel to a destructive fire by not rejecting out of hand a palpably ridiculous
suggestion. Within the defense technology community, we were ridiculed as
delicate flowers unwilling to go the whole way in addressing the possibilities
of upgrading SAMs. Throughout the rest of the debate-through the SALT
considerations and the preparation of NIE 11-3-71-CIA's defensive weapons
systems analysts alternately defended the possibilities of SAM upgrade or
argued against its likelihood depending upon the particular protagonist being
encountered.
Our SA-2 "mini-mod" led to far more ambitious efforts by others. Charles
Lerch and Chris Nolen of the Institute for Defense Analysis did a truly magnifi-
cent job for the DDR&E. We all agreed that their accomplishment was rivalled
only by the "Report from Iron Mountain." In its later stages the Lerch-Nolen
system-employing radars that in ELINT were indistinguishable from TV sta-
tions-could even handle Mark-12 MIRVs. Most galling to the intelligence
analyst was their imaginative use of the obsolescent Spoon Rest as an acquisi-
tion radar for the SA-2. Because of its relatively low frequency, some substan-
tial modifications and proper use of this radar might allow detection of U.S.
ICBM RVs-which appear very small to radars operating at higher frequen-
cies-at very long ranges. We knew a lot about the Spoon Rest. We had meas-
ured its effective power and established its detection range in a very sophisticated
and sensitive technical collection program associated with assessing the vulner-
ability of the U-2 and Oxcart aircraft. What was the point of such efforts, if our
hard evidence about capabilities could be blithely assumed away when an issue
critical to national security arose? But Lerch and Nolen could show how the
improvement they needed to make their system work might be obtained and
we couldn't rule out the possibility that such modifications might have been
made since we made our measurements. Or, that if not made yet, that they
might not be made tomorrow.
Meanwhile, the beginning of serious SALT discussions was approaching and
the vast paper underpinnings of that effort were in preparation. SAM upgrade
posed serious problems in the treatment of ABM limitations since no one was
anxious to include air defenses within the scope of the discussions. Furthermore,
the possibilities of using SAMs for ABM defense argued against prohibiting ABM
deployment or limiting it to low levels, inasmuch as the U.S. had almost no
SAMs it might upgrade. They argued as well against prohibiting MIRVs since
they appeared necessary to penetrate a widespread ABM defense. Since ABMs
and MIRVs were the two developments that arms control proponents most
wanted limited, SAM upgrade was particularly vexing. ACDA in particular felt
anguish. It counterattacked by bringing into its camp a number of "hired guns"
in the form of leading scientists prepared to take issue with the technical argu-
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-nents of the defense technologists. Such men as Wolfgang Panofsky, Sid Drell,
and Dick Carwin were involved in this effort. They turned their imaginations
loose on improving the U.S. missile force. As one side improved Soviet defenses
by modifying SAMs, the other found ways of reducing the vulnerabilities of
U.S. missiles in an interacting spiral of technical inventiveness. An early attempt
to prepare a paper for SALT purposes on the effect of SAM upgrade on U.S.
retaliatory capabilities virtually collapsed as DDR&E representatives insisted on
the "realistic" treatment of U.S. missile forces but freely modified the intelligence
characterization of Soviet SAMs, while ACDA representatives upgraded U.S.
strategic weapons and insisted on sticking to intelligence estimates insofar as
Soviet forces were concerned. Caught in the middle, we tried to cling to some
vestige of what we thought might be reality and desperately sought some technical
constraint on the possibilities of SAM upgrade which might stem the tide. We
investigated computer and software limitations, communications problems, human
factors, the availability of nuclear weapons material, etc.; but nowhere could we
find that constraint that the Soviets might not be able to overcome.
Many others came up to bat in trying to upgrade the SA-2. There is little
point in reviewing all these efforts. None was able to push the possibilities beyond
those conjured up by Lerch and Nolen. In general, our original conclusion was
sustained. Some capability could be shown through technical analysis to exist;
that capability had strategic significance because of the large number of SA-2
sites and their deployment close to Soviet cities. That capability, even if it
actually existed, however, was fragile and subject to some drawbacks which
might allow the offense to deny it through modification of his ballistic missile
force.
The reader might well insist that the ABM possibilities of the SA-5-which
some were claiming already had ABM capabilities-be now addressed. The
deployment shortcomings of the SA-5 have been noted. It is not a system that
might easily be moved. The limited area protected by an SA-5 site intercepting
incoming RVs within the atmosphere simply could not be stretched to protect
major population or industrial centers. A good deal of work was done on investi-
gating possibilities for using the SA-5 system to attack ballistic missiles outside
the atmosphere in ways that would allow the system to provide extensive coverage.
As we learned more about the system, however, it became clear that the SA-5
missile required aerodynamic control which tended to dampen enthusiasm for
such schemes. Nevertheless, somewhat later in the game, a major net technical
assessment of the capabilities of the SA-5--as it was best understood by the
intelligence community-was undertaken jointly by the Agency and the DDR&E.
That study showed that with some important modifications, fairly large areas
might be protected by the SA-5. Once again, however, the defense could only
be characterized as fragile and uncertain. This analysis was necessarily performed
with more diffidence than in the SA-2 case because of the relatively large gaps
in our knowledge about the SA-5.
Though the electric qualities of the SAM upgrade debate now are all but
gone, concern about the matter continues because of the possibility that new air
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defense systems will emerge with inherent capabilities so improved that they
might have a true dual capability enabling them-with different operational
doctrines-to cope with both aerodynamic and ballistic missile targets. If
Soviet air defenses are to cope with threats like the U.S. Short Range Attack
Missile, (SRAM), they will have inherent capabilities of this order. The early
identification of such a system is, of course, tremendously important.
The Matter of Likelihood
But enough of the question of technical feasibility. The ultimate question
of concern is whether these possibilities were such that the Soviets might indeed
try to capitalize upon them. As noted above, there was some contention as to
whether or not the upgrading of SAMs would have any real effect on our ability
to retaliate in the event of a first strike. Clearly, one could show that with the
full U.S. arsenal intact, enough RVs would penetrate to dissuade the Soviets
from going to war. It was not so clear that that would be the case were our
retaliation to follow a successful first strike by the Soviet Union. In such cir-
cumstances, it would be uncertain which missiles would remain in our arsenal.
Targeting would be incomplete, and no pre-attack scheme for assuring pene-
tration could be relied upon because important elements of that attack might
have been lost. The rapid retargeting of missiles after a first strike was not
considered a realistic possibility.
Little has been said here about the capability of upgraded SAMs to cope
with the Polaris submarine-launched ballistic missile. It appeared for a time
that the Soviets' lack of knowledge about where submarine-based. missiles
might be launched left them with an initial detection and acquisition problem
that could not be handled by an upgraded SAM system. As the upgrade investiga-
tion continued, however, it was found that Polaris missiles present remarkably
large radar cross-sections and that a number of possibilities were available to
provide terminal SAM defenses with the acquisition information they needed.
Some argued early on that no first strike could counter our Polaris force and
that these missiles would by themselves have sufficient retaliatory capability
to assure deterrence since they could not be attacked by widespread SAM
defenses. This argument was, of course, blunted as ways to handle that threat
were devised.
A number of simulated weapons exchanges were run to determine the extent
of degradation that might be accomplished as SAMs were used for ABM de-
fense by the Soviets. When these simulations concerned themselves only with
the extent of possible protection, they showed such defenses to have a significant
effect. But the element lacking in this analysis was a measure of the quality of
defense. Certainly the likelihood that the Moscow ABM system could defend
targets within its calculated coverage must be higher than that an SA-2 site
could defend targets within the coverage we had calculated for it. The SA-2
system necessarily operated at the very margin of its capabilities. Human per-
formance had to be almost perfect. High assurances of RV kill were not involved,
etc. Despite the recognition of this problem, it was never adequately dealt with
throughout the debate. What was really needed was a quantitative measure
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of the probability of kill by an SA-2 interceptor operating against targets within
its range of coverage. No one was successful in generating such a number.
Thus, we were left in the unhappy situation of running studies that assumed an
SA-2 interceptor was as good as the Galosh missile in killing incoming RVs.
This is, of course, patently inadequate. The result was to leave us with the con-
clusion that should Soviet SAMs be used for missile defense they could, under
some circumstances, have a significant effect on our ability to retaliate.
But would the Soviets actually pursue such a course of action? Would
they undertake the costly task of upgrading a country-wide system of air de-
fenses in order to attain a limited and conditional defense? Our studies on the
effects of upgrading had shown that such defenses would not have high effect
in the event of a calculated U.S. first strike. Thus, such a massive upgrading
scheme would seem to make little sense for simple defensive purposes. The real
question seemed to be whether the Soviets would pursue such a policy in the
belief that, coupled with a first strike, it could perhaps protect them against
the response that would follow. Since we now had indications that the Soviets
were interested in ABM limitations, the cost of their following the SAM upgrade
path would presumably include the risks of being caught in violating arms
limitations agreements they apparently wanted. They would buy, at best, an
uncertain defense, one upon which it was hard to believe they would be willing
to risk their country. It was certainly an approach not in keeping with the Soviet
way of doing things. The Moscow ABM system employs huge radars of great
power, interceptor missiles that are larger than the Minuteman ICBMs they are
to counter, and, generally, a remarkable profusion of expensive system elements
for the amount of defense they could hope to achieve. To rely on a jury-rigged
SAM system seemed wholly inconsistent. The Agency's view on this likelihood
was expressed in fairly straightforward and simple terms:
The Soviets for years have demonstrated conservatism in assessing
their own defense requirements and in designing systems to meet those
requirements. With this conservative outlook, conscious of the short-
comings and ephemeral nature of any defense which SAM systems
might provide against missiles, and uncertain about the effects of being
detected in a treaty violation, Soviet leaders are unlikely to view the
upgrading of SAMs as a viable means of altering the strategic balance.
Although the inherent ABM potential of Soviet SAMs might be
utilized in extremis in an effort to reduce the destruction caused by a
U.S. missile attack, the uncertainties involved in such a step-even with
upgraded SAMs-make it very unlikely that the Soviets would adopt
this procedure. In view of these considerations, we believe that a program
of SAM upgrading for ABM defense is not likely to be undertaken by
the Soviets.*
There were, of course, other views; but none took sharp exception to that
of the Agency. The SAM upgrade enthusiasts tended to question anyone's ability
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in the U.S. to anticipate how the Soviets would act in such circumstances. We
were continually confronted with the argument that while we might call upon
any subjective arguments we chose, the objective fact of SAM upgrade effective-
ness had been shown and must be dealt with.
SAM Upgrade and SALT
The most immediate problem posed by SAM upgrade in negotiating the
existing ABM treaty hinged on the matter of verification. How could we be as-
sured that the Soviets were not evading compliance with treaty limitations by
upgrading their SAM systems to provide an ABM defense beyond the levels al-
lowed? We looked hard at our ability to detect signs of SAM upgrade through
"National Technical Means of Verification." We believed we could detect a
number of things. In particular, we in the CIA were convinced that we could
detect the testing of SAM systems in an ABM mode, that we would detect
significant changes in operating radars or in the patterns of deployment. Though
we argued these beliefs strongly, we suffered when the state of our knowledge of
the SA-5 system was raised. We had at that time not yet identified a single
signal intercept from the SA-5 radar. Conclusive proof that the system had no
ABM capabilities could not be mustered despite the fact its deployment was
approaching 100 complexes throughout the country. How then were we so sure
that we could detect a small matter of equipment modification and improve-
ment? When we pointed to our ability to monitor and technically characterize
the large Soviet early warning radars needed for SAM upgrade schemes, defense
technologists invented a radar built into the side of a building which emitted
signals indistinguishable from those of a TV station. Though we raged, we could
not disprove the possibility or even the outlandishness of such schemes if the
Soviets truly intended to develop a system deceptively in violation of arms
limitation agreements.
As a result of these discussions, verification of the fact that SAM upgrade
was not occurring became an important consideration in the initial U.S. arms
limitation proposals. Indeed, the first options presented to the Soviets for pro-
hibiting MIRVs were accompanied by a requirement for on-site inspection to
insure that SAM upgrading had not occurred. In other options, less intrusive but
nevertheless quite detailed ancillary constraints were included to insure that
verification could occur through national technical means. The Soviets very quick-
ly ruled out any possibility of their accepting any agreement which included
provisions for on-site inspection. And it is perhaps fortunate they did, because a
very detailed look at what we could learn about SAM system modification by
simply visiting air defense sites showed that it wouldn't necessarily be much. In
the course of the negotiations that led to the ABM treaty, nearly all these initial
provisions dropped away. Some few important ones remained. Most important,
both sides have undertaken "not to give missiles, launchers or radars other than
ABM interceptor missiles, ABM launchers, or ABM radars capabilities to counter
strategic ballistic missiles or their elements in flight trajectory and not to test them
in an ABM mode;" the belief that we can monitor compliance with such an
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undertaking rests in our belief that no country would be willing to risk its fate
when it had to rely upon an untested defense. Thus, we believe we will detect
evidence of test programs intended to prove the effectiveness of upgrading SAM
systems for ABM purposes if the Soviets do indeed intend to rely upon such a
defense.
In assessing Agency performance in coping with the challenge of SAM up-
grade, it is necessary to understand some basic problems which existed. In the
first place, the intelligence community sees its function as providing the best
description that it can of what is really going on and identifying those possibili-
ties of future developments which it believes are most likely to happen. It is a
matter of conscience that the conclusions it reaches are not influenced by the
effect of any specific answer on policy decisions. While we might select ques-
tions to answer on the basis of their importance to policy-makers, we must not let
their effects on policy choices influence us in assigning likelihoods to specific
answers. The people with whom we were dealing in the SAM upgrade debate
were not a part of the intelligence community. They were primarily interested
in policy choices. Thus, the policy impact of a specific answer gave that answer
great importance even when the possibility of its being right was low. So long as
a possibility of SAM upgrade could be "demonstrated," its possible effects on our
national security were large enough to require that it be taken seriously.
A number of these people were among the Agency's severest critics. They
criticized the Agency primarily because of its "arrogant refusal" to do more than
provide its conclusions on such intelligence questions as the likelihood of the SA-5
system's having an ABM role. It was not that they believed the Agency's con-
clusions were wrong. They would frequently admit-at least, in private-that
they probably reflected the greatest likelihood. What they did object to was our
alleged unwillingness to consider or explicitly treat other possibilities than
those we had settled upon as being most likely. Often these possibilities posed
threats that were so significant that to ignore them even if their likelihood was
low was to stultify the policy-making process. This argument has validity only
if there remains some real probability that such fears may come to pass. Does
the intelligence community have a responsibility to establish the extent of that
probability in each case? It is often a very difficult thing to do. Or are these
"possibilities" so obviously just apparitions produced by the "dark lantern" of the
defense technologists' spirits that they would best be dismissed out of hand?
I believe they deserve our serious attention. At least in the case of the SAM
upgrade hypothesis, I am convinced that it was proper that our policy makers,
faced with the decision of whether to take it seriously, were armed with all the
analysis and consideration of the problem we could muster. Thus, I think the
Agency deserved good marks for effectively taking a lead in seriously addressing
the feasibility and likelihood of a development it almost automatically found
repugnant. The technical intelligence analysis that was done did much to satisfy
the complaints of the Agency's critics. Indeed, a search for acerbic criticism
about its performance from former protagonists in order to enliven this paper
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was a generally unrewarding attempt. The results showed that once the Agency
became willing to discuss what might be rather than just what it believed was
true, these critics found the Agency's performance impressive and responsive to
their concerns. All felt that the Agency's position throughout the debate was
objective, and those on both sides of the debate rapidly turned to the Agency
for support in furthering some piece of the argument. Beyond that, we provided
technical information on the weapons systems involved that was authoritative
enough so that it was never challenged by proponents of either side.
There is, of course, another question of how much damage was done by
taking all this seriously. Clearly, possibilities of SAM upgrade affected the SALT
discussion and U.S. proposals. The fact that the many initial collateral con-
straints concerned with SAM upgrade could be dropped throughout the course
of the negotiations is in large measure a result of the full and detailed airing
of the threat it posed and the possibility that the Soviets might play the upgrade
game. In the last analysis, the SAM upgrade debate led to a far more enlightened
set of negotiations on arms control than might otherwise have been the case and
did not in any significant way limit the extent of arms control that was achieved.
Having said all this, the technical intelligence analysts failed to do some
important things. They failed to solve the most critical question in their domain,
namely: the quality of defense that could be provided. To date, this problem
remains unsolved. We need to know how to treat such matters. Something can
be done in this regard but will probably involve a far more perceptive consid-
eration of human contributions to weapons system effectiveness and a better
understanding of weapon system performance in the midst of nuclear war than
have been employed heretofore. In defense of the technical analysts on the latter
point, a summer study performed by the Jason Panel, a group of the country's top
physicists working for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, noted
that the effectiveness of the SA-2 could probably not be determined until "a few
well-instrumented nuclear wars" had been fought.
Most important, the intelligence community went into the whole problem in
very bad shape as a result of its inability to cope with the SA-5 problem. Its
general credibility and its ability to assure the verification of treaty compliance
were brought into doubt by its inability at that time to answer the critical
questions about this system. Harder and more explicit analysis of the problems
the Soviets would encounter in trying to accomplish a SAM upgrade program, and
the probabilities of their successfully cheating, would have strengthened our
position on the verification matter.
Our performance would have been improved had we worked both the
technical feasibility and the likelihood parts of the problem more nearly together.
The strategic analysts were right in insisting that the likelihood of the Soviets
adopting the scheme was the ultimate question, but they might have been more
sensitive to the fact that that likelihood depended heavily upon whether or not
it would work. But we would have benefited from the more serious considera-
tions of the non-technical factors as well. A set of "organizational constraints
on breaching" an arms limitation agreement would plague any bureaucracy de-
ciding upon and implementing such a decision. The nature and strength of such
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constraints are powerful considerations that bear directly on this argument. A
good discussion of these is given in Abram Chayes' "An Inquiry into the Workings
of Arms Control Agreements." * Such considerations were never brought forth
in a systematic, organized way as part of the SAM upgrade debate.
A Soviet View of the Matter
During the first phase of the SALT negotiations in Vienna, it was the prac-
tice for both sides to exchange formal presentations between heads of delegation
three times a week. These meetings were held in alternate embassies Mondays,
Wednesdays and Fridays. The principal delegates would solemnly face each
other across a table with their advisers sitting behind, while the heads of de-
legation would read their statements interspersed with translation. After these
formal meetings, the entire group would retire to vodka and caviar or bourbon
and peanuts, as was appropriate, for informal discussion. It was during this phase
of SALT that the SAM upgrade problem first arose. The Soviets were absolutely
horrified. They appeared to have no doubts that we had a bad "dark lantern"
problem. Professor Aleksandr Shchukin, a tall, gentle-mannered academician of
great scientific presence, noted to Paul Nitze, with agony on his face, that one
thing he really did know something about was the terrible problem of making an
ABM defense work, and he could assure us that you could not do the job with air
defenses. The U.S. delegation, as instructed, continued to express its concern
about the possibility of SAM upgrade and to seek inclusion of measures that
would preclude it.
On June 19, 1970, the meeting was held in the American Embassy. Sam
upgrade was mentioned in the Soviet presentation as an extraneous matter the
U.S. was introducing to complicate the negotiations. Subsequent to the formal
meeting, drinks in hand, informal discussions were going on in a number of groups
scattered about a sitting room in the Embassy. In one such group, Lt. General
Royal Allison of our Air Force was conferring with Col. General N. M. Alekseyev
and Col. General A. A. Gryzlov, both of the Soviet General Staff, and Minister
P. S. Pleshakov of the Ministry of the Radio Industry on the matter of SAM
upgrade. Pleshakov (whose ministry had built the Soviets' huge ABM radars)
was arguing that SAM upgrade was not feasible. Allison countered by insisting
that if this were so the Soviets should have no objections to accepting a pro-
hibition on SAM upgrade. The Soviets insisted that since it was not feasible
no prohibition was necessary. Allison pointed out that he wasn't so sure it
couldn't be done and finally called upon the Soviets to tell us in forthright fashion
about the capabilities of the Tallinn (SA-5) system if they really wanted to
allay our fears about this matter. The Soviet generals were tough birds. Gryzlov,
a former head of the GRU, not only looked like a horror-movie principal but
hovered in the background much as a military conscience to the delegation. The
Soviets had said almost nothing about their weapons and had taken pleasure in
our obvious discomfiture about the SA-5. The Soviets continued to evade but Alli-
son persisted. Alekseyev, the senior military delegate then in Vienna, at long last
shot a look at Gryzlov, gulped visibly, and answered that the Tallinn System was
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an air defense system like Nike-Hercules or Hawk, and that if it were to be used
in an ABM role, virtually all its components, including missile and radar, would
have to be replaced. Standing on the edges of this conversation, I somehow saw
a whole life of battles about the capabilities of the SA-5 system and the pos-
sibilities of SAM upgrade flash before my eyes. Though I returned to further
battles on both issues, I somehow felt more relaxed about it all.
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Lawrence R. Houston receives National Security Medal
from DCI William E. Colby
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'Father o t intelligence law'
Lawrence R. Houston, former General Counsel of CIA, received the National
Security Medal and the Agency's Distinguished Intelligence Medal in a ceremony
on 1 February 1957. The National Security Medal, awarded by the President
of the United States, has been awarded only 16 times since its inception in 1953
by President Truman. It recognizes distinguished achievement or outstanding
contributions-on or after 26 July 1947-in the field of intelligence relating
to the national security.
Mr. Houston served in Cairo with OSS, returned to Washington to act as
General Counsel for the successor organizations SSU and CIG, and in 1947
became CIA's first General Counsel and its only one until his retirement in 1973.
He has served as a member of the Editorial Board of Studies in Intelligence since
its inception in July 1957, and continues in that capacity in retirement.
The citation accompanying his National Security Medal commented:
Mr. Houston first dedicated himself to the service of the United
States Government when he left the practice of law in 1943 to enlist in
the United States Army. After being commissioned in the Army Judge
Advocate General's Corps, he was assigned to the Office of Strategic
Services and served with distinction in the Mediterranean theater of
operations for OSS.
Perceiving the looming threat to the United States, he became
the legal architect of the Central Intelligence Agency as the principal
drafter of the legislation which established the Agency. Throughout the
ensuing years, Mr. Houston practiced simultaneously the two professions
of law and intelligence.
As the Agency's first and only General Counsel, his deep devotion
to duty has been the companion of integrity, imagination, and flexibility.
His advice has been sought by all Directors of Central Intelligence. His
enormous contribution to the Agency and to our country will endure as
testimony of his unique capacity to meet the high challenge of serving
the national interest. Throughout his career, Mr. Houston's contributions
to the foreign intelligence effort of our nation reflect credit upon himself
and uphold the finest tradition of the Federal service.
The citation for the accompanying award of the CIA Distinguished Intelli-
gence Medal said:
Mr. Lawrence R. Houston is hereby awarded the Distinguished
Intelligence Medal in recognition of his outstanding achievement with
the Agency since its establishment in 1947. As this Agency's first and
only General Counsel, Mr. Houston has practiced two professions simul-
taneously: intelligence and the law. Through the quality of his per-
formance in each, the Agency has gained immeasurably while the
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UNCLASSIFIED Houston Awards
government as a whole has been a beneficiary. Mr. Houston, with his
devotion and thorough dedication, has been a key advisor to Directors
of Central Intelligence. His record remains as witness to his expertise,
to his character, and to his superlative capacity in responding to the
challenges of our national security. Mr. Houston's entire career exempli-
fies the highest professionalism and reflects great credit on him, con-
stituting an immeasurable contribution to the Central Intelligence
Agency and the United States Government.
In his remarks, Mr. Houston indicated that this was all the culmination of
a clerical boner in war-time army administrative channels.
Turned down as a volunteer because of eyesight limitations, he was
subsequently drafted and sent to basic finance school at Fort Benjamin Harrison.
There he learned that waivers were being granted on eyesight limitation for
the judge Advocate General School, and he applied for Officer Candidate School.
Nothing happened. Meanwhile, he missed one class at basic finance school be-
cause of pneumonia, entered and completed a second, and still remained un-
assigned because of "a great snafu in the administration of the finance school,
which led to an IG investigation and a complete reorganization of the school."
Pending the reorganization, Houston's class and two subsequent classes were
placed in a casual company and kept for chores at Fort Ben Harrison.
Ultimately, he was assigned to company headquarters as a file clerk, and
discovered that his original application for OCS had fallen behind a partition
in a drawer and had never been acted on. He resubmitted it, and it went through
quickly.
Without the snafu, Houston would have graduated from JAG school several
months earlier. The class in which he did graduate, however, was the first from
which the Office of Strategic Services was allowed to draw personnel, and
Houston was one of three members of the class assigned to OSS.
He went on to describe the struggle for a centralized intelligence agency
during the immediate post-war years:
At this time there was a bitter fight for the mere existence of the
concept of central intelligence. The State Department, because of the
impact on foreign policy, thought they ought to be the intelligence
control. The military thought they were the pros in the field and that
they ought to control it, because it was basically a military matter. I
don't know how many of you remember the work of the Lovett Com-
mittee in December of '45, which, after bitter debate for weeks, got
acceptance of the concept of a central intelligence entity as an inde-
pendent function. There was still a long way to go. But again I wonder
how many people now working for the Agency remember the first
Director of Central Intelligence, Rear Adm. Sydney W. Souers, who
drafted the directive of January 22, 1946 that set up the Central Intelli-
gence Group. CIG was technically illegal. You cannot have an operating
agency going on for more than a year without a statutory basis.
So John Warner-who was then my deputy and who, I am de-
lighted to say, has succeeded me-and I started working on the legis-
lation [for the Agency], taking both the Donovan concepts, which were
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put into the Souers paper, and then our experience with all the prob-
lems arising in OSS for the administrative and similar authorities. I think
John will agree with me that I would hate to go down and try to get
those authorities on a fresh start in this current age. They are quite
unusual, and we had tremendous support at the time. With Walter
Pforzheimer's fast footwork [as Legislative Counsel] on some of the
Committee members, we came through intact.
Even then we were not properly organized. For years the fight
went on in the intelligence community as to the exact role of the
Director. A number of the members of the intelligence community in
those days felt that he should be just one among equals, a sort of
Board of Directors concept. We were quite convinced that this was not
the intent of Congress, and through months and years of drafted
directives and so forth we kept to this concept that he had a position
of preeminence, responsible directly to the National Security Council.
But it wasn't really until the mid-'50s that this concept was thoroughly
accepted....
So what's the lesson from all this background, which had its dif-
ficult moments but which was at all times interesting and for the most
part enjoyable? Well, the lesson is the people who took part in it.
OSS had all kinds of people. It had genuine heroes, it had outstanding
academicians, it had princes and professional wrestlers and a few bums.
CIA has not been so flamboyant, but in my opinion it has been perhaps
the best combination of intellectual ability, imagination, dedication,
and integrity ever put together. I'm very proud to have been part of
this group. I knew a great many of them, I've worked with a great many
of them, and I believe that those standards have been demonstrated
again and again, If we can maintain those standards, the Agency and the
country will be well served.
In presenting the awards on behalf of President Nixon and of the Agency,
DCI William E. Colby remarked:
There is one complication to the [National Security Medal] award
today because the award is for services on or after July 26, 1947, and
Mr. Houston's contributions to intelligence began a number of years
before that. He is, like a number of us, a veteran of OSS. He served
overseas for OSS in Cairo, and then he returned here and stayed in the
intelligence business when many of us drifted off into other activities
for a time. He was one of that small band who committed their lives
to national intelligence during World War II, and who kept that activity
alive during some very tough days of the postwar era when America
thought for a couple of years that maybe it didn't really need intelli-
gence any more . . . In that small band . . . Mr. Houston took upon
himself the particular job of producing a legal basis for American
intelligence.
During the period in which he was General Counsel of the SSU
and the CIG, he started writing the basic law which established this
Agency. That law was passed on July 26, 1947, but his work on it pre-
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Houston Awards
ceded that a great deal. His work at that time, although he was a fairly
young man, required a great understanding of the needs of American
intelligence, and of the necessity that American intelligence fit new
kinds of standards to fit within American society. And therefore the law
is adjusted to our American society and it establishes American intelli-
gence and the CIA as a public institution, one which is known to every-
one, one whose Director is known to everyone, as distinct from some
countries in which it either is or is supposed to be a secret. It also
establishes that American intelligence is under the control of the senior
levels of our government-the National Security Council, and the
President-and makes it very clear that we are not going to have
an intelligence service that goes off on its own. It puts certain limita-
tions on American intelligence-that it will not have any law enforce-
ment or police powers or internal security functions, in line with
American tradition that in our country these are powers that should not
be associated with an organization for foreign intelligence. And it also,
in a number of other respects, provides for continuing Congressional
review and annual appropriations, so that the activities of this Agency
will be subjected to scrutiny by the representatives of the people of the
United States, from whom all our authority stems.
The law as passed, then, was quite a triumph in its description of
the need for an intelligence agency and the role it is to play in American
society, and Larry Houston is the basic author of it, even though a few
Senators and Congressmen had a little bit to do with a few of the words.
But that was not the end in the initiation of new law in this new
field of American intelligence law. . . . Certain additional arrange-
ments were necessary.... There had to be arrangements for secrecy.
Our normal legislation requires that all employees be open, and that
our records be available for scrutiny by any member of the Congress,
and so forth, and it was impossible to run an intelligence service if this
was going to be the situation. So Mr. Houston produced, for instance,
the CIA law of 1949, which gave the Director certain authority to certify
the expenditure of money without the normal review that is given to
regular appropriations; gave the Director authority to terminate the
employment of individuals when in his judgment it is in the interests
of the security of the United States, without the normal appeals and
open review. If we were going to keep our identities and our activities
secret, we could not subject them to normal open appearances through-
out the land.
He put together several other laws ... the CIA Retirement Act of
1964, for instance, . . . and one remarkable piece of legislation that
established not only some new law and statute, but seemed to estab-
lish recognition of a Constitutional principle. . . . The law is known
as the Wiretap Bill, and says that nothing in the bill shall limit the
Constitutional power of the President to take such measures as he deems
necessary to obtain foreign intelligence information deemed essential
to the security of the United States. . . .
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HousFlon Awars
So Mr. Houston has not only been creating these laws and getting
them passed through Congress, but he is also expressing some of our
Constitutional principles and making clear the relationship between them
and the necessities of our intelligence business... .
Over the years of Mr. Houston's activities as our General Counsel,
CIA has been involved in a number of legal contests in the courts.
He has a very good record of winning these cases, and establishing
through these cases some very significant points of law and even of
Constitutional doctrine, so that aside from his contribution as an
originator of law, he has also proved himself well able to manage the
natural conflict that laws are designed to manage and control-contests
which themselves also make law by the decisions reached and judg-
ments expressed by the judges in the process. . . .
What Mr. Houston really is, is the father of intelligence law.
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Interagency Gamesmanship
CONFESSIONS OF A
FORMER USIB COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN
David S. Brandwein
To many people the word "committee" triggers a reaction which ranges
between revulsion and displeasure. Within the intelligence community, the
likeliest targets for committee-haters are the USIB committees. Typically, criti-
cisms laid against them are that their judgments tend to be waffled, they don't
respond quickly to urgent tasks, and they don't come up with imaginative solu-
tions to difficult problems. Hardly a year goes by without a fresh study by a
high-level official or group of the "problem" of some or all of the USIB com-
mittees. Usually the objective of these studies is to improve the committees'
effectiveness through reorganization and reallocation of functions. Actually,
changes have been few and far between, and for the most part the committees
have proved to be very durable. One cannot escape the conclusion that they must
do some good, and that we have as yet not figured out how to come up with a
better scheme for ventilating interagency problems and for achieving coordina-
tion on them.
Surprisingly, the reproaches visited on the USIB committees are seldom
reflected back to their parent body, the USIB. One might say this stems from
a natural reticence in openly criticizing the boss. But there is more to it than
that. One needs to look at the people who make up the USIB, and then look at
the people who staff the USIB committees. The USIB principals on the one hand
are the top officials of large organizations. It can be assumed that they have
reached these prestigious positions through a process of natural selection which
rewards those individuals who combine a high order of intelligence, stamina, and
dynamism. On the other hand, it is sad but true that the USIB principals have
sometimes chosen mediocrities to represent them on the committees. The message
here is that one cannot examine the USIB committees as abstract organizations.
The caliber of the people involved is at least as important.
The foregoing is to introduce my subject, the committees. I propose to
describe the inner workings of two USIB committees from the vantage point
of the chairman-how they are staffed, what things they do, how they do them,
and how they might be improved. Because this presentation is based mostly
on my own experiences as chairman of two different committees-the Guided
Missile and Astronautics Intelligence Committee (GMAIC) and the SIGINT
Committee-it is probably more subjective than it is objective.
I Become a USIB Committee Chairman
My first deep involvement in the world of USIB committees was in No-
vember 1968, when I became Chairman of GMAIC. I had lobbied for the job,
partly because of the attraction of the prestige attached to it. I served as Chair-
man of GMAIC until the summer of 1972, when I was asked to chair the SIGINT
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USIB Committees
Committee, a job which I held until April 1973. The bloom was well off the
rose by 1972, and my acceptance of the SIGINT job was not characterized by
the same enthusiasm which I felt in 1968. Nevertheless, the experience was
broadening, because the two committees concentrate on different aspects of
intelligence. GMAIC is concerned primarily with the production of intelligence
on guided missiles, while the SIGINT Committee is oriented towards collection
tasking for certain forms of raw intelligence data-SIGINT, ELINT, and telem-
etry. Because my exposure to GMAIC was much more prolonged than that on
the SIGINT Committee, the larger part of the discussion which follows relates to
GMAIC.
One of the first things I did after I became Chairman of GMAIC was to
study the committee's charter. There I saw that "GMAIC shall coordinate guided
missile and astronautics intelligence production activities of the government."
Here was not just prestige, but powerl But it didn't take too long to realize
that in spite of all those fine words in the charter, my real responsibility was
quite limited. I could bark a lot, but biting was not allowed.
Actually, this lack of authority should not have been surprising. Each mem-
ber of the committee was in the pay of a different agency or department of the
government. He looked to his own organization for direction and career develop-
ment. His work on the committee was usually a collateral assignment, not to
be confused with his real job. Even the CIA member could take issue with the
chairman, and indeed he sometimes did so. In the face of such nonexistent com-
mand authority, it was really remarkable that a respectable amount of positive
work was in fact done by the USIB committees.
People
Theoretically, each USIB committee has members representing the same
organizations as are in the USIB. Actually, there are differences. In the case
of GMAIC, the members for each of the service intelligence agencies are voting
members, whereas in USIB, the service representatives are observers. (As
chairman, I soon discovered that on issues brought to a vote, the service members
tended to follow DIA's lead, but that if they were asked to vote before the
DIA man, they tended to vote more independently. The seating around the table,
going clockwise, was always Army, Navy, Air Force, DIA, CIA, State and NSA.
Therefore I always took votes clockwise.) GMAIC also had a man from the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration as a non-voting participant. The
SIGINT Committee also had voting service members, and a representative of the
National Reconnaissance Office as a non-voting participant.
Since the AEC and the FBI are members of the USIB, they exercised their
prerogatives and named individuals to the committees. But neither the AEC nor
the FBI man ever attended a meeting. And it was the sensible thing for them
to do, because we almost never had items on our agenda which involved them.
(Toward the end of my tenure as GMAIC Chairman, I did get to meet the AEC
member-the committee sponsored a junket to Charleston, South Carolina, to
see Polaris and Poseidon missiles and the submarines which carry them. The AEC
man "activated" his membership temporarily, and joined us on the trip. He
turned out to be a likable person, and took the ribbing he received from the
other junketeers with good grace. But we never saw him again.)
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To paraphrase Orwell, all members of the committee were equal, but some
were more equal than others. The kind of representation differed dramatically
from one organization to another. Some were senior officials with easy access to
their USIB principal and commensurate authority, but others were very junior
officers who were primarily note-takers and message-passers. Some organiza-
tions were represented by men who had been on the committee for more than
a decade, but other organizations chose to rotate the membership at frequent
intervals. It is also unfortunately true that sometimes toally unqualified in-
dividuals with no prior experience in the intelligence business were assigned to
the committee. All of this made for a mixed bag. At no time was there a true
team effort encompassing the whole group. On the other hand, it would be fair
to say the quotient of intelligent, informed, and active members was always
high enough to permit the committee to discharge its responsibilities reasonably
well.
The caliber of the secretariat for a committee probably is as important to
the success or failure of a committee's efforts as the capability of the chairman
to lead or the quality of the membership. This was particularly true in my case.
Running the USIB committees was a part-time job for me, and having a capable
person who could spend as much time as was needed to do all the staff work
connected with committee affairs was indispensable.
The main work of GMAIC is to produce intelligence, and within this
category the key job is to make inputs to the national estimates devoted to stra-
tegic, military, and technical matters. For many years now, these estimates have
gone along two tracks. First, each USIB member agency is free to send its own
estimate input to the drafting team assigned to an estimate. Second, GMAIC
can provide its own estimate input to the drafting team. There is an apparent
redundancy here, but it seems worse than it is. This is because GMAIC does
not write a complete estimate; rather, it tries to identify those areas within
the estimate where there are likely to be different judgments. It examines the
evidence and tries to resolve the differences, or failing that, it tries to describe
their nature as lucidly as possible.
Within GMAIC, the actual work on estimates is done in standing subcom-
mittees devoted to particular substantive areas-Soviet offensive weapons, space,
ABMs, etc. In these subcommittees, called working groups, the issues are dis-
cussed and documented by working level analysts. This interchange at the
working level is, I think, the best way to achieve interagency coordination on
intelligence production. Granted, there are many issues which fail to be resolved.
But even in those cases the fact that there is a difference is disclosed early in
the estimate process. The specialists who are most familiar with the intelligence
data have a chance to determine if all parties worked with the same data and
how the various analytical groups came to differing conclusions.
If the above process works properly, then by the time the representatives
of the USIB principals meet to consider a draft estimate, confusion is minimized,
and the task of preparing the estimate for submission to the USIB principals
is made easier. Of course, sometimes the system doesn't work properly. Data may
arrive too late for incorporation at the early draft phase, or a senior official may
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choose to change an estimate judgment at the 11th hour, for reasons which may
have very little to do with intelligence. An interagency committee like GMAIC
can do little in such situations-perhaps the new system of National Intelligence
Officers will be effective in handling such last-minute panics more smoothly.
Collection requirements also absorb a fair part of GMAIC's time, in two
ways. First, GMAIC is called on to identify intelligence gaps and to suggest
collection efforts which might fill them; and, second, it is asked to evaluate the
contribution of various ongoing collection programs to the solution of its problems.
The tasks undertaken run the whole gamut from trivial ones to those having
a major impact on the country's collection efforts. For example, described below
is the committee's response to the Soviet ABM problem. Because of a poor
collection posture, there was in the mid-60's great uncertainty as to whether
a particular major new Soviet development program was for an ABM or for an
air defense missile. Resolution of this uncertainty was desperately needed by
U.S. defense planners, and later on by our SALT negotiators. USIB asked GMAIC
to study the problem and to recommend new collection programs to fill the
gap. The committee did so, using not only its own resources but consultants
drawn from outside. It delivered an exhaustive report containing a number of
recommendations for collection, some of them with very major cost impact.
There followed in the late 60's a burgeoning of expensive collection programs
whose primary rationale was the Soviet ABM problem. All this didn't happen
just because of the GMAIC report-the whole community was by then sensitized
to the ABM problem and there was a general consensus that something had to
be done. But the GMAIC report was at least the key document used by managers
of the new collection programs to justify their systems to the budget people.
Multi-million-dollar technical collection programs take many years to go
from the design concept stage to an operational system, and by the time they
were in use, the ABM/Air Defense Missile question they were intended to shed
light on had pretty well been answered by less exotic methods. And, as it turned
out, the community wound up in the 70's with a capability to collect data on
second-generation ABMs and on new air defense systems which was infinitely
superior to the collection posture a decade before. But one can question whether
the money was well spent. A case can be made that GMAIC delivered up col-
lection recommendations with not enough regard to their cost impact, and that
in their panic to do something about the ABM problem the collection system
managers brought out some systems of questionable cost-effectiveness.
In addition to its work on estimates and collection problems, there are many
lesser matters which require the committee's attention. For example, GMAIC
provides the mechanism by which the U.S. exchanges missile and space intelli-
gence with This is done through periodic working-
level meetings on a variety of subjects. The scheduling of the meetings is done
by a three-member steering group consisting of the GMAIC Chairman and his
counterparts from
These international meetings are a tender topic. There is no denying the
fact that because of the huge size of the U.S. intelligence community compared
to that of F_ I it is unlikely that in any exchange
we will get as much as we give. For this reason it has been easy for people
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to snipe at the meetings by suggesting that their primary benefit is the chance
for the participants to get trips I I at the
government's expense.
But I believe that an objective study would show that the U.S. is ahead
of the game. Keeping I I analysts informed of activities here
allows them to channel their work into more productive areas. And, in spite of
the small size of I intelligence groups, they keep coming up
with nuggets in the form of new unique analysis which have been very helpful
to us.
On the ludicrous side, I came to dread those sessions devoted to nomencla-
ture. Most people are unaware that GMAIC is the authority responsible for
naming such beauties as the SS-X-18 ICBM. In the example given, it stands for
the 18th surface-to-surface ballistic missile system brought out by the Soviets,
with the "X" signifying that the program is still in the experimental test phase.
Sounds simple, doesn't it? But I remember very well the interminable wrangling we
got into the day we decided to attach names such as CSS-1, CSS-2, etc., to Chinese
missiles. One member concluded we were obliged to rename all the Soviet missiles
SSS-1, SSS-2, etc. Another member wanted CCSS-1 and CCSS-2, so that it would
be clear that they were Communist Chinese missiles and not those owned by the
Nationalist Chinese. The problem here was compounded by the fact that even
the committee members who were ordinarily passive at our meetings became
instant and vociferous experts when it came to choosing names for missiles.
So much for GMAIC's activities-not a complete catalog, but rather a
representative sampling. The time involved in these affairs was usually a half-
day a week for the meeting itself, and perhaps another eight hours a week devoted
to committee-connected matters. It was time worth spending, not only to dis-
charge the statutory responsibilities of the committee, but for some intangible
benefits as well. The intangible benefits derived from the fact that the committee
provided a fairly informal but systematic mechanism for passing information on
and raising questions about missile and space intelligence across agency bound-
aries, at a number of levels in the hierarchies of these agencies. This observation
is equally true for the SIGINT Committee and I suppose the other USIB commit-
tees as well. Given the present structure of the intelligence community, composed
as it is of a group of autonomous agencies, it is hard to visualize how else inter-
agency coordination and information exchange can take place except through
committees such as USIB's.
The SIGINT Committee
The work of the SIGINT Committee is devoted primarily to providing
guidance to SIGINT collectors. Some of the other things the committee concerns
itself with are the evaluation of collection programs, sanitization and decontrol
problems, and recommending policies for cooperative SIGINT collection pro-
grams by other countries. The greatest share of the time is devoted to communica-
tions intelligence (COMINT). In fact, in its early years, virtually all SIGINT
collection was COMINT. This situation has changed with time, so that nowadays
collection of emissions from foreign radars (ELINT) and foreign instrumenta-
tion signals (primarily telemetry) have become equally important.
25X1
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Looking at the work content of the SIGINT Committee is not the whole story,
because one needs to understand the environment in which these affairs are con-
ducted. The National Security Agency (NSA) is a huge organization, and it is
singularly preoccupied with the collection and processing of SIGINT. The NSA
member represents a production organization, while the other members represent
user organizations. NSA, for the most part, tries to avoid explicit direction of its
work. It prefers to get tasking in the most general terms possible. The users-
State, CIA, DIA, and the Services-would like to be as restrictive as possible,
and tend to write tasking documents in great detail. There results a tug-of-war be-
tween NSA and the other members over many of the issues discussed in the
committee. Usually the committee resolves the issue by doing that which com-
mittees do best-finding a compromise solution acceptable to both sides.
There is a similar relationship between the representative of NRO and the
committee members. NRO is a huge organization, too-not in numbers of people,
but in the fact that it exercises great control over a large share of the intelligence
budget. Overhead sensors used to collect SIGINT are procured with money
doled out by NRO to the agencies managing the particular sensor programs. There
results a different sort of tug-of-war, in which NRO tries to get the committee to
specify requirements for SIGINT data in general terms. But the user organiza-
tions would like to know how NRO proposes to satisfy their requirements, and in
so doing inevitably get involved in the details of the design and capabilities of
the satellite collectors. Some of the committee members represent both user
groups and satellite project management teams, and this causes additional
trauma.
One of the most difficult documents for the committee to get out is its annual
statement to the USIB of the 5-year guidance for the SIGINT portion of the
national reconnaissance program. There is no requirement that the 5-year guid-
ance take into account the availability of funds to satisfy the requirement, and
if the committee chose to be completely irresponsible, it would merely put out
a "wish list" of all the things it would be nice to get. Fortunately, the committee
has tried to inject some realism into the process, by doing such things as putting
requirements in priority order, identifying those requirements whose satisfaction
would result in changes in the national reconnaissance program, and estimating
their cost impact. Even so, the process is not without defects. It has not been
possible so far to interleave COMINT, ELINT and telemetry needs into a
single priority list. This makes for great difficulty for those who have to make
choices between costly overhead collection sensors which specialize in one or
another form of SIGINT.
An even more fundamental problem is the one alluded to earlier, the lack
of a system for matching the value of intelligence to the cost of its collection. The
SIGINT Committee, in doing the 5-year guidance, has problems in making
authoritative choices of the most cost-effective programs. It must screen proposed
requirements collected from analytic organizations, and it has no guarantee
that they have been submitted with a consciousness of their cost impact. The
degree to which the final document is useful to the policy level therefore is
very dependent on the maturity and good judgment of the committee members.
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Why Not Do Away with the USIB Committees?
Alvin Toffler in his book Future Shock concludes that bureaucracy is on the
way out, and is being replaced by management by "adhocracy." Similarly, it has
been said that the USIB committees should be abolished and the work be done
instead by ad hoc committees convened to handle specific problems. There is a
certain attraction to the idea. In recruiting people to serve on an ad hoc com-
mittee, care could be taken to see to it that each individual had the necessary
expertise to contribute to the issue in question. Also, agencies having no interest
in the issue would not be burdened to provide representation.
It is probably true that we are likely to see ad hoc committees used more and
more as time goes on. They should be particularly useful for tackling major issues
on which the community is split. I also believe, however, that there will always
be a need for standing committees like GMAIC and the SIGINT Committee. I
submit that there are a number of positive aspects to these committees which
are often overlooked, as follows:
1. A useful mechanism is provided for passing information on par-
ticular topics across agency boundaries, and at all levels.
2. A wide variety of problems which range from trivial to moderately
important arc handled routinely. In general a standing committee pro-
vides a more effective way to handle these problems than does the
creation of a fresh ad hoc group to deal with each new problem.
3. Ready access is provided for user organizations to air their
particular concerns. Conversely, the matters being discussed in commit-
tee are routinely reported back to the user organizations who thereby
have a chance to object to actions with which they disagree. Both ways,
a mechanism exists to keep things from falling between the stools.
4. The USIB committees have an institutional history which pro-
vides a useful background against which to view incoming action items.
Members of ad hoc groups run the risk of not knowing how related issues
were dealt with in the past.
Another way to look at the performance of the USIB committees is to focus
on the really egregious problems. From my vantage point, the issue which has
plagued the community for years is the problem of getting better collection and
processing of radar and optical data from missile reentries in the Pacific. Others
have told me that the community's approach to the problems of narcotics and
terrorism has been chaotic. The thing these subjects all have in common is that
none of them are within the charter of any existing USIB committee. What this
says is that however poorly the committees perform, in those areas where there
are no committees, things are worse.
What Should Be Done to Improve the Committees?
I think that the key to more effective work by the USIB committees lies in
improving the quality of the representation. Ideally, each agency should pick
representatives who are senior enough to have a good rapport with their prin-
cipal in the USIB, and who are expert in the affairs under study by the com-
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mittee. If this were done, it would follow that the men on the committees would
be representatives in fact as well as in name, and many issues could be resolved
in the committees without recourse to the USIB itself.
Also, I believe that wherever possible the members ought to be people
whose regular jobs are in line organizations. Obviously, full-time members
could devote more time to committee affairs, but this advantage is outweighed
(at least in my mind) by the bureaucratization which would take place with a
committee composed of members with no other jobs.
It is clear that the future should also see changes in the responsibilities of
the committees themselves. It seems logical that the SIGINT Committee and
others concerned with collection will evolve into bodies having closer links
to the Intelligence Community Staff and the Intelligence Resources Advisory
Committee. Similarly, GMAIC and the other committees concerned with sub-
stantive intelligence should evolve into bodies more capable of assisting the
National Intelligence Officers. Stress should be placed on the word "evolve." I
believe it would be a mistake to wipe out the existing committee structure and
replace it with an entirely new one. The losses which would follow from ripping
out all the present wiring might be a good deal more severe than would be
obvious to the casual observer.
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INTELLIGENCE IN RECENT PUBLIC LITERATURE
SOVIET CONQUEST FROM SPACE. By Peter N. James. (Arlington House
Publishers, New Rochelle, N.Y., 1974. 256 pp.)
Soviet Conquest from Space presents an assessment of the Soviet aerospace
threat-an assessment by a man who apparently is embittered and frustrated
with his previous aerospace and intelligence experiences. Throughout the book,
Mr. James interweaves factual information with half truths, misinformation, and
personal interpretations. And he attempts to create the impression that all is
based on confirmed, hard intelligence collected and analyzed by a one-man
intelligence community: Mr. James,
The early chapters deal with the Soviet organizations-the rulers, the es-
pionage establishments, the science and technology organizations, and the military-
industrial complex. Much of this information is accurate. It includes descriptions
of the interrelationships among the various Soviet organizations, however, which
appear to be more definitive than any available to the established intelligence
community. He goes to great lengths here and in later chapters to point out
how efficient the Soviet system is; how thorough, imaginative, and coordinated
their program plans are; and how well the programs are managed. The great
efficiency and experience factors claimed for the Soviets by Mr. James., however,
do not show in their space programs. Most new Soviet systems initially go through
a disastrous series of failures. They seem repeatedly to make the same mistakes,
yet Mr. James conveniently ignores or is unaware of this fact.
In his discussion of the Soviet rocket engines, propellants, and boosters
for spacecraft systems, the author, with reasonable accuracy, presents the char-
acteristics of several selected older and more commonly recognized systems.
His credibility is shattered, however, in the description of new systems.
Mr. James frequently cites information which he claims has been obtained
personally from Soviet scientists and the KGB. This information is used to describe
in detail the Soviet space shuttle, reusable orbit-to-orbit spacecraft, and a variety
of space station programs. There is little doubt that the Soviets have ambitious
plans in all of these areas and that they will exploit space to the fullest for
military, political and economic advantages. Much of Mr. James' intimate
knowledge is based on misinterpretation and exaggeration, however, and appears
to be largely self-generated.
Throughout the book, Mr. James is critical of the U.S. system, the inefficiency,
the lack of long-range planning, the use of overly complex systems, the reluctance
to commit adequate funding for space and defense programs. On the other
hand, he glorifies the Soviet approach. It is recognized that the Soviets already
do present and, with increasing efforts in the future, will continue to present
a formidable threat to the free world with their missile and space systems as
indicated by Mr. James. But the information and methods used to convey his
concern are misleading.
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SECRET SENTRIES IN SPACE. By Philip J. Klass. (Random House, New York,
1971. 236 pages.)
The aim of Secret Sentries in Space is to tell "... the story of the U.S. and
Soviet reconnaissance-satellite programs, and their impact on world affairs."
Any hesitancy arising from the fact that many aspects of the U.S. reconnaissance
program are still classified is quickly dismissed with the observation that ". . . while
the Soviets are fully aware of the American reconnaissance-satellite program,
and its effectiveness, the U.S. public has been denied even the barest details
of the program by its own government." Author Klass loses no time in attempting
to correct this deficiency. The goal he has set would be an ambitious one even
for someone having full access to classified information on the subject. It is to
his credit, therefore, that even though he presumably lacks such access, Klass
does manage to convey a good deal of the flavor and scope-if not the precise
details-of satellite reconnaissance.
As senior avionics editor for Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine,
Klass is perhaps as well suited to tell this story as anyone outside of government.
Ile is a strong advocate of satellite reconnaissance, and he has clearly done a
good deal of research on the subject. Nevertheless, Sentries still contains many
defects of the sort already familiar to readers of Aviation Week. These defects
arise when open sources are exhausted and the author resorts to educated guessing
about the details of classified programs. This problem is compounded by the
fact that Klass is not always careful to inform his readers when fact gives way
to speculation. Thus, to the purist Sentries presents a frustrating amalgam of
fact and fiction, the de-interleaving of which will not be attempted here.
Despite this drawback the book contains much to recommend it, for while
specific details are sometimes wrong, the overall thrust of the book is generally
quite accurate. Hence, for a reader who simply wants a non-technical explanation
of what satellite reconnaissance is all about and how it evolved, Sentries would
make a good starting point.
The early chapters of the book are especially well done. In them Klass
effectively re-creates the tense international climate in which satellite recon-
naissance was born. The years of the "missile gap," the Berlin crisis, and the
Cuban missile crisis are vividly recalled through quoted press headlines and
speeches of the period. Carefully interwoven, of course, is a strong lesson on the
important role of satellite reconnaissance in preserving world stability. By the
end of the Cuban missile crisis "the automatons-in-orbit, adolescent as their
performance was at that stage, had kept the two giant thermonuclear powers
from bombing into World War III at least once, perhaps twice."
Following this lively beginning, the book settles into a slightly tedious
and inaccurate account of how satellite reconnaissance capabilities progressed
from their humble beginnings to the sophisticated "Big Bird" of the 1970s. The
book focuses most of its attention on photographic reconnaissance satellites, but
there are short sections treating various other related satellite missions such as
early warning, nuclear detection, and electronics intelligence, as well as other
types of sensors such as infrared scanners, side-looking radars, and multispectral
cameras. And as promised in the introduction, there are brief sections which
provide a thumbnail sketch of the Soviet reconnaissance satellite effort.
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As an attempt to cover the topic of a satellite reconnaissance thoroughly,
Sentries falls considerably short of its mark. While this is dissatisfying from a
literary standpoint, it is probably fortunate from a national security standpoint.
A shortcoming apart from those already mentioned is its total failure to put
satellite reconnaissance in its proper perspective as one of many different tools
available to the intelligence analyst. Because of this, a casual reader would no
doubt be left with the false impression that what cannot be learned through
satellite reconnaissance cannot be learned at all.
In summary, the value of Sentries depends largely on the reader's needs
and prior knowledge. The book is not especially comprehensive or authoritative,
but it does provide a reasonably good introduction to the field of satellite
reconnaissance.
JOHN C. N. SMITH
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SOVIET STRATEGY FOR THE SEVENTIES: FROM COLD WAR TO
PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE. By Foy D. Kohler, Mose L. Harvey, Leon
Goure, and Richard Sell. (Center for Advanced International Studies, Uni-
versity of Miami, Fla., 1973. 241 pp. with index.)
Roger Seydoux, a former French Ambassador to Moscow has been quoted
privately by a Western colleague as commenting, before leaving his Moscow
post, that by far the greater part of his work there had consisted of attempting
to correct prevailing misconceptions at home. The introductory overview which
prefaces this book by a team headed by Ambassador Foy D. Kohler sounds
the same plaintive note: a veritable chorus of prestigious Soviet spokesmen
has made it abundantly clear that peaceful coexistence, the present basic Soviet
strategy, concerns only state-to-state relations. Its primary purpose is to forestall
policies and actions by capitalist states which would involve use of force or
which might lead to nuclear war. They do not have in mind any modification of
the anti-capitalist struggle, violent and non-violent. They reject any notion that
respect for the Western powers' vital interests, or anything in the way of "live
and let live," is implicit in this policy.
"Why, then, is there so little understanding in the West of this Soviet
concept? . . . The simple fact is that few in the West have ever been willing to
take the Soviet leadership at its word." Ambassador Kohler and his colleagues
have come to the conclusion that the answer lies in the fact that a world outlook
such as the Soviet leaders profess strikes Westerners as essentially irrational,
and they refuse to believe that men capable of ruling a great modern state can
in fact be irrational; hence a proclivity to recast the Soviets in one's own
image-setting aside in the process all testimony from the Soviets themselves
as ideological window dressing.
"Actually, and as most observers who have made a profession of
Soviet affairs recognize, the members of the ruling hierarchy provide
through their public utterances a substantially accurate picture of what
they are up to and why, at least in a strategic sense. This is due to the
requirement for uniformity that is so vital to the Soviet system. . . .
The leadership must not only inform the officials and people of its
policy 'lines such as peaceful coexistence, but also spell out their
implications and limits lest they give rise to misinterpretations and
thus to erroneous expectations, attitudes or behavior."
In a recent exercise in kritika i samokritika,* practicing Kremlinologist
Professor Alexander Dallin (of the American School of that art) devotes some
space to the distorting effects of the biases which prevail among his colleagues-
and, by implication, in his own work. This reviewer has used the term "the Ameri-
can prism" in commenting on similar phenomena in the Agency's work. "Preju-
dices" would probably do equally well. The answer to this real and very vital
problem is empathy, but this in turn requires the thorough preparation of the
patient for the complicated surgical operation that empatho-emplacement rep-
resents.
In this book, the Kohler team undertakes to prepare the patient for the
surgical insertion. It is not a book to keep by one's bedside for casual reading
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before dropping off. It is heavy going because the language of Communism
was embalmed at about the same time Lenin's corpse was. But it is important
because it is a serious, knowledgeable and empathic effort to tell you what
they really have in mind for us. On the one hand, it unlimbers the bristles
provoked by Khrushchev's "whistling shrimp" and "we'll bury you," because
it puts them in their ideological/ linguistic context, and on the other it lends
special emphasis to the underlying significance of a report of a conversation
not so many years ago between a Soviet functionary and a diplomatic representa-
tive of a neutral nation on the significance for the West of the burgeoning Sino-
Soviet dispute: said the Soviet, "What are they gloating about? We are simply
arguing about the best way to finish them off."
The Kohler book-why not call it that, it bears his stamp?-is in two basic
parts. The second is documentation, which is thorough and as authoritative as it
could be made. It is also thoroughly tied into the commentative text of the first
part of the book, which it supports and amplifies. This reviewer, as a longtime
footnote-ophobe and passionate hater of notes that are supernumerated in the
text and buried in an impossible apparatus in the back, found the approach
unirritating and even helpful.
The guts of the book is a very orderly, concise, and cogent analytic presenta-
tion of the case for the prosecution. Its avowed purpose is to warn against dis-
belief of what we have been more than adequately told, and to make sure that
they know that we know what they intend. This is contained in an unpre-
possessing 95 pages of text, well organized and subdivided. It begins with Lenin's
seizing upon the concept of "peaceful cohabitation" (he apparently never put
the term "peaceful coexistence" to paper) as a tactic to gain time, and Stalin's
cunning prosecution of the same concept as he needed it, up to the post-World
War II decision by the "genial murderer of the people" * that it was a, two-camp,
irreconcilable world. After a brief interregnum, Khrushchev labored and brought
forth de-Stalinization, a large element of which was "peaceful coexistence" and
a master plan for the competitive victory of "socialism" throughout the world
without the necessity of nuclear holocaust. Even violence became a theoretical
unnecessity to the revolution. And most important, what for Lenin and Stalin
had been a tactic, had now become a "strategy for struggle."
The "Year of the Rat" had not yet arrived, but the Chinese very quickly
smelled one. In addition to some basic fumbles in Hungary and Poland, it
became clear-as the Kohler team points out in its well-documented discussion
of the "Khrushchev Revision" of Lenin's and Stalin's tactic-that the name of
the game had become "let's you and us not fight, or even `struggle,' but see
who can win all the marbles in a game played largely by the rules." An over-
simplification, to be sure, but the documentation makes it clear that "K" had
indeed sold out world revolution for goulash and a long-shot bet on the in-
dustriousness of the ideologically motivated working class.
Exeunt Nikita et al., including some ill-advised missiles in Cuba. The Chinese
demonstration, on the Indian border, of how to carry out an operation of this
kind without losing all of one's faces, quite properly belongs in another book
and is not treated in this one.
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A major virtue-the reader is enjoined to excuse the expression at this point
in time-of this excellent publication is that it makes it unmistakably clear that
the Khrushchev-vintage "peaceful coexistence" and the post-Khrushchev-vintage
"peaceful coexistence" are not simply horses of a different color, but more along
the lines of apples and bananas. In a sense, one might say that while Khrushchev
banked on the ability of his system to pull together and outdo ours-given the
absence of a major conflict-, the present leaders are banking on a growing
debility of our system to give them a significant advantage which Khrushchev
saw only as a future possibility. The truce of the Fifties and early Sixties, which
was inherent in Khrushchev's peaceful coexistence strategy, is no longer there.
As is spelled out in Chapter IV of this book, the main objective of peaceful
coexistence "as a form, instrument and strategy of struggle" is to put the West
under unilateral constraints. We stop doing all those terrible things that capitalists
and imperialists are congenitally condemned to do, and they continue to do
everything and anything that will contribute to our downfall and their victory-
except, of course, that we do not annihilate each other nuclearly.
There is an institution in this country called the "Farmer's Almanac." There
was a time when it was relied upon most heavily by some of the most important
people in our society. This is a book of that kind, and it should be read-nay,
more than read-by those whose nagging and constant concern is: "What are
they really up to?"
This book has prompted your reviewer to add one item to his wish-list for
next Christmas: a book to help resolve the prejudices in our business against
the acceptance of human source intelligence. What a quantum-jump that
would be!
J. THOMAS DALE
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STUDIES
IN
INTE.LL'IGENCE...
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Cj. 14
VOL. 18 NO. 1-S SPRING 1974
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to be treated as information privy to the US official community. All
copies of each issue beginning Summer 1964 are numbered serially and
subject to recall.
25X1
All opinions expressed in the Studies are those of the
authors. They do not necessarily represent the official
views of the Central Intelligence Agency or any other
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Warning Notice
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NATIONAL SECURITY INFORMATION
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CONTENTS
THE COORDINATOR OF INFORMATION
AND BRITISH INTELLIGENCE
Thomas F. Troy
Page
I. A Problem of Origins ................ ....... .... 1
H. Frank Knox: A Friend at Court ....................... 5
Knox Pushes Donovan ..................... ....... 6
Publisher Becomes Secretary ...... ....... ..... .. .. 11
III. Stephenson, Hoover, and Donovan ....... 15
"The Quiet Canadian" ...................... ...... .15
Arrival in the United States ...................... 17
British Intelligence and the FBI ..................... . . 20
Stephenson and Hoover ........................... ...... . 22
Stephenson and Donovan ......................... . .... .. 24
Donovan's Trip to London .......................... .... . . 28
IV. Donovan: To and From London ............................ .. 33
An Angry U.S. Ambassador ........ ........ ....... ..... . 33
Confused Britons ......................................... . 35
The Red Carpet ........................ ........ . .. 36
Reporting to Washington ..................................... 40
V. Stephenson's British Security Coordination ............ .. . 47
The New "Passport Control Officer" ... 48
Building a "British Security Coordination" Office 51
BSC Worries the State Department 56
VI, Donovan: In London and the Mediterranean ............. 61
The "Two Bills" off for London ...................... ..... 61
London Clears the Tracks ............................ ..... 64
Donovan Sees Everything ........................ ..... .... 66
Deeper Into Intelligence ............................. . ..... 71
Donovan Alarms G-2 ................................. .. ... 74
VII. Roosevelt and the 4ntelligence Agencies 75
FDR Brings the Agencies Together ......... . .. 75
FBI and MID: A Storm Breaks Out .............. 79
More Trouble: ONI and Vincent Astor .. 82
Astor is Put in Charge ..................... 86
G-2 Again: How to Control Donovan .......... ........ .. .. 89
VIII. A Green Light on COI ......................................... 91
Cabinet Consults Donovan ................................... 91
FDR's Other Problems ....................................... 95
Opposition to a Coordinator .................................. 97
Stephenson "Manoeuvres" .................................... 100
"Our Man is In" ............................................. 107
IX. Postscript ..................................................... 109
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No Foreign Dissem
An Essay on Origins
THE COORDINATOR OF INFORMATION
AND BRITISH INTELLIGENCE
Thomas F. Troy
Wrestling philosophically with the question "What is time?", St. Augustine
observed, in his Confessions: "If no one asks me, I know: if I wish to explain
it to one that asks, I know not." 1 This insight into the problem of knowing
is, perhaps, only slightly less applicable in the order of historical reality, in
particular, to the origins of human organizations. The Who, Where, When, What,
How, and Why of these developments are rarely as clear-cut and definitive as
habitual knowledge would have them. Is this true of the Central Intelligence
Agency?
It is generally accepted that the CIA, which was established in 1947, evolved,
after the usual zigs and zags, from the wartime Office of Strategic Services.
This, in turn, is generally known, at least to the older or more informed, to
have replaced the Office of the Coordinator of Information (COI) on 13 June
1942. Still moving backward in time, it is accepted that COI was set up on
11 July 1941, as the result of a recommendation made to President Roosevelt
by Colonel William J. ("Wild Bill") Donovan, which, in its own turn, was the
outgrowth of two trips to London and the Middle East taken by Donovan in
1940-41. Finally, as with a firm grasp on the ultimate beginnings, the public
knows that this sequence of events was initiated when Donovan was asked
by the President, after the collapse of France and the British withdrawal from
Dunkirk, to visit London in order to investigate the nature of the Fifth Column
and to determine the ability of Britain to withstand the expected imminent
assault of the Nazis on England.
This account of Donovan and the establishment of the Coordinator of Infor-
mation has become a tradition within the CIA. With additional and, in some
cases, only slight variations in details, it appears in the classified "Origins of
Central Intelligence" by Arthur B. Darling and in such public works as Sub
Rosa by Alsop and Braden, The Secret Surrender by Allen Dulles, and Lyman
Kirkpatrick's The Real CIA.2
Yet few realize apparently that the British have a version of these same
events which is significantly different although not necessarily contradictory. This
' St. Augustine, Confessions, Everyman's Library (London, 1942), p. 262.
'Arthur B. Darling, "Origins of Central Intelligence," Studies in Intelligence, VIII,'
(Summer 1964), pp. 55-94. Stewart Alsop and Thomas Braden, Sub Rosa: The OSS and
American Espionage (N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace, 2nd. ed., 1964), pp. 9-17. Allen Dulles, The
Secret Surrender (N.Y.: Harper & Row, 1966), pp. 4-9. Lyman Kirkpatrick, The Real CIA
(N.Y.: MacMillan, 1968), pp. 14-17.
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version was put forth most fully by H. Montgomery Hyde in The Quiet Canadian,
whose American edition is entitled Room 3603.3 This is the biography of William
S. Stephenson, who was the chief of British intelligence in the United States
during the war, a close friend and collaborator of Donovan's now living in re-
tirement in Bermuda. Some twists to this British account appear in Room 39,
Donald McLachlan's story of British wartime naval intelligence, and in The
Life of Ian Fleming by John Pearson.4
According to this British account, which has the disconcerting merit of push-
ing the question of origins one step farther back, Stephenson was personally
asked by Winston Churchill, intent on obtaining the fullest American assistance
in the dark hours of 1940, to take over the intelligence post in New York. In
that capacity, first as Passport Control Officer, later as Director of British
Security Coordination (BSC), Stephenson renewed an acquaintanceship with
Donovan, inspired and arranged both trips in 1940 to acquaint Donovan with
Britain's capabilities and needs, then urged upon Donovan the idea of the estab-
lishment of a new American intelligence organization with which Stephenson's
outfit could effectively cooperate, and then finally brought about the appoint-
ment of Donovan as the Coordinator of Information. The Fleming angle in this
account is his alleged authorship of the memorandum written by Donovan to
President Roosevelt recommending the establishment of COI.
Without endeavoring here to assay the respective merits of these accounts
or to anticipate the conclusions of this study, suffice it to say that the British
account, on its face, is no less plausible than the American version. Indeed,
the British account of Stephenson's role, for which he was knighted by King
George and awarded the Medal for Merit by President Truman-the first for-
eigner so honored by the United States Government-has the additional merit
of revealing the inadequacies of the American tradition. The Stephenson story
is prima facie evidence for undertaking a new examination into the origins of
the Coordinator of Information,
't'his study aims not at the mere bare bones of organizational history but
seeks to provide an intellectually satisfying answer to the question of how
William J. Donovan-lawyer, soldier, publicist, and public servant-came to
espouse the idea of an organization for the coordination of American intelligence.
In particular, it seeks to answer three basic questions: (1) What was the origin
of Donovan's trip to London in July, 1940? (2) How did the idea of an or-
ganization develop and take hold of Donovan? (3) How was Donovan's ap-
pointment as head of the new organization effected?
In answering these questions, attention will be focussed, first, on Donovan
himself and his association with the Roosevelt administration, then on Stephenson
and his role in advancing British interests in the United States in the field of
security and intelligence, and next, on the efforts of the United States Govern-
11. Montgomery Hyde, The Quiet Canadian (London: Hamilton, 1962), pp. 34-47;
151-156 (Room 3603. The Story of the British Intelligence Center in New York during
World War II (N.Y.: Farrar, Straus, 1963), same pagination). Future references to this work
will be QC.
' Donald McLachlan, Room 39: A Study in Naval Intelligence (N.Y.: Atheneum, 1988),
pp. 224-239. John Pearson, The Life of Ian Fleming (N.Y.: McGraw-Hill, 1966), pp. 100-102.
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COI and the British
ment (especially, President Roosevelt, Army and Navy intelligence, and the
Federal Bureau of Investigation) to organize itself, in terms of information, in-
telligence and counterintelligence, and special operations, in the face of the
growing needs and problems posed by the threat of war. Finally, it will be
shown how out of the activities of these men and organizations a new organi-
zation-COI-was born, an organization which was to be part, indeed the
point de depart, of a larger evolutionary process. (See Figure 1.)
While a search for origins, this study has its own limits; and the time frame
must perforce be 1939-41. The beginning is the outbreak of war in Europe in
1939, because it was the war which caused President Roosevelt to bring into
his cabinet two outstanding Republicans, Frank Knox as Secretary of the Navy
and Henry L. Stimson as Secretary of War; and because in bringing them into
the government, he thereby brought into the machinery of his administration
another staunch Republican and very close friend of the new Navy Secretary,
Colonel (later Major-General) Donovan.
Another reason makes the outbreak of war and the "coalition" cabinet a
fitting place to begin this narrative. For Donovan, who had been the hero of
New York's "Fighting 69th" in World War I, who had been highly decorated
by his own and the French and Italian governments, who in the interwar period
had continued to study military experiences and operations in Europe and Africa,
and who told an American Legion audience on Armistice Day, 1939, that the
United States might have to send men to fight in Europe 5 for such a man, the
outbreak of war posed the problem of the area of his own involvement. Secretary
of War Stimson, a personal friend of Donovan's, was to observe in August 1940
that Donovan "was determined to get into the war some way or other." 6 Just
how? This was the question, and the pages that follow will show that, in
Donovan's case, Nasser's famous line about a role in search of a hero must
be reversed.?
'Speech to the Erie County (N.Y.) American Legion, Nov. 11, 1939, New York Times,
November 12, 1939. He said that the position of the U.S. did not mean "that we are not
going to contribute man power at some time. . . . In an age of bullies we cannot afford to
be a sissy."
'Henry L. Stimson Diary (MS), New Haven, Yale University, Sterling Memorial Library.
Vol. 30, entry for 6 August 1940, cited hereafter as Stimson Diary.
'Carnal Abdul Nasser, Egypt's Liberation: The Philosophy of the Revolutions, with an
Introduction by Dorothy Thompson (Washington: Public Affairs Press, 1955), p. 87. Nasser's
line is in turn a modification of Luigi Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of An Author.
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Chapter II
FRANK KNOX: A FRIEND AT COURT
Even prior to the outbreak of war, President Roosevelt had given some
thought to the formation of a coalition cabinet. Whenever he did so, he usually
thought of the Republican candidates for president and vice president in 1936,
the titular leaders of the party, Alfred M. Landon and Frank Knox.' The latter,
the publisher of the Chicago Daily News, was reportedly asked by the President
in 1937 to become Secretary of the Navy, but this account conflicts so sharply
with Knox's own direct statement as to suggest someone's faulty memory at work.2
Landon and Knox were apparently first linked in this fashion by Louis
Brownlow, the University of Chicago professor who was the President's advisor
on governmental re-organization. About the time of Munich, September 1938,
he endeavored to pass on to Roosevelt, through others, the suggestion that if
war should come and it should seem necessary for him to bring Republicans into
the cabinet, he should select not "tame-cat" Republicans or "halfway Democrats"
but "the particular Republicans who have been chosen as leaders by the Re-
publican party itself." Since the suggestion was not passed on, Brownlow, in the
spring of 1939, about the time of the march on Prague, himself proposed it to
the President, whose response was, "You are right. If the time comes, that is
what I intend to do, if there is any practicable way to do it." 8
That time came in September after the German move on Poland, when the
British government was re-organized and a coalition war cabinet was formed
with Winston Churchill back after 25 years as the First Lord of the Admiralty
and Anthony Eden as Secretary for the Dominions. This prompted comments in
the American press about the desirability of a similar re-organization in Mr.
Roosevelt's cabinet. Discussing this with Harold Ickes, the Secretary of the
Interior, on 9 September 1939, the President observed that the columnists "had
been harping on the idea that there should be taken into the Administration
such men as Herbert Hoover, Arthur H. Vandenberg, Robert A. Taft, young
Lodge, and `even Dewey'...." Both the President and Ickes agreed that such
comments were a Republican move to build up a candidate for the 1940 presi-
dential election, because "They do not say anything about Landon and Knox, the
titular heads of the Republican party." 4
'Elting E. Morison, Turmoil and Tradition: A Study of the Life and Times of Henry
L. Stimson (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1960), p. 479.
'Grenville Clark Memoirs (MS), cited in letter from Robert G. Albion to Mrs. Frank
Knox, 3 August 1949, Frank Knox Papers, Washington, Library of Congress, Manuscript
Division, AC 10,457, Folder 21, cited hereafter as Knox Papers. For Knox's statement see
his letter to Roosevelt, 15 December 1939, n. 9, p. 17, infra.
' Louis Brownlow, A Passion for Anonymity: The Autobiography of Louis Brownlow,
Second Half (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1958), pp. 433-35.
'Harold L. Ickes, The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes, Vol. II: The Inside Struggle,
1936-1939 (N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, 1954), pp. 717-19.
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Roosevelt, at the time, had many cabinet problems, and he was notoriously
reluctant to tackle any of them. The War and Navy posts were particularly
vexing. In the former, Secretary Harry Woodring, who had been appointed in
1937, apparently on a temporary basis, was not only openly opposed to the
President's foreign policy but was also openly at war with his Assistant Secretary,
Louis Johnson. At the Navy, Secretary Charles Edison was so deaf he occasionally
misunderstood instructions. Replacing both men now took on added urgency,
and the need for strength at home made a coalition cabinet, though politically
difficult, very desirable.
Negotiations, which were on and off for nine months, initially centered on
Landon and Knox, but then, when Landon became unavailable, shifted to Knox
and Stimson. In the meantime, Knox tried mightily to get his close friend and
political colleague, Colonel Donovan, appointed Secretary of War.
The first step in these negotiations was taken on 20 September when Landon
and Knox were brought to the White House along with a number of legislative
leaders to discuss plans for repealing the arms embargo in the forthcoming
special session of Congress. The Republican Speaker of the House, Joe Martin,
noting the people in attendance, observed in a stage whisper to Alf Landon, "I
don't know what we're doing here. This is a conference of his legislative leaders." 5
The reason for their presence had already been given to Brownlow, who reports
that Roosevelt had told him of his invitation to Landon and Knox as providing
him with an opportunity "to look them over" and also an opportunity for them
"to look me over from a little different angle than they used in 1936." The upshot
of this encounter, in which no mention of cabinet posts was made, was that
Roosevelt was favorably impressed by Knox but observed that Landon had
"acted like a bad little boy," apparently a reference to Landon's alleged un-
cooperative attitude on plans for effecting repeal of the embargo.,,
After this disappointment, nothing much happened until the name of Colonel
Donovan provoked the White House's first public statement on the possibility
of a coalition. On 9 December, the White House discounted a report that Donovan
would be made Secretary of War in place of Woodring. "I don't think it is likely,"
said the President's secretary, Stephen T. Early, that "the President will put a
Republican in as a member of his cabinet." 7 As a matter of fact, the President
made just such a proposal the next day, 10 December, when he had a lengthy
Sunday afternoon review of the world situation with Frank Knox.
According to Knox's memorandum of conversation, the President rather
abruptly said, in the midst of a discussion of the bad relations between Woodring
and Secretary Johnson, "I would like to have you come with me as Secretary
of the Navy. I think the crisis in international affairs would justify your doing so."
Knox's immediate reaction to this invitation was one of surprise that the President
should extend such an offer to one like himself who had been so strong a critic
1 etter from Alfred M. Landon to A. H. Kirchhofer, 13 June 1962, Author's Files.
" Brownlow, op. cit., p. 436.
'New York Times, 10 December 1939, p. 3, col. 2.
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e jand f e riffs
of the President, at least on domestic affairs. Knox went on, however, to say
that since recent events had somewhat lessened "the sense of gravity" felt by the
general public, his entry into the cabinet would be considered "treasonable to
my party, and I would be classified from one end of the country to the other
as a political Benedict Arnold." To this Roosevelt entered a demurrer, but Knox
held to his conviction that the time was not ripe for public acceptance of such
bipartisanship. The publisher then suggested that several Republicans should
be brought into the cabinet, and he particularly "urged that a strong man be
found for the War Department." 8
Knox's memorandum does not mention the name of Donovan, and perhaps
it did not come up in this Sunday conversation. It did appear, however, in the
Roosevelt-Knox correspondence which resulted from this meeting. Back in Chi-
cago, Knox put in writing some of what he had said in person, and then added:
I have heard during the month even more rumors of your taking my
good friend, Colonel William J. Donovan, into your Cabinet as Secretary
of War than I have heard of your thinking of me in connection with a cabinet
post. I have no means of knowing whether you have even considered this
just as I lacked any slightest confirmation of your having thought of me
until our talk last Sunday.
I know Bill Donovan very well and he is a very dear friend. He not
only made a magnificent record in the world war, but he has every decora-
tion which the American government can bestow for bravery under fire. In
addition, he is an outstanding member of his profession.
Frankly, if your proposal contemplated Donovan for the War Depart-
ment and myself for the Navy, I think the appointments could be put solely
upon the basis of a nonpartisan, nonpolitical measure of putting our national
defense departments in such a state of preparedness as to protect the United
States against any danger to our security that might come from the war in
Europe or in Asia. . . .8
This strong testimonial evoked from FDR his own appreciation of Donovan:
Bill Donovan is also an old friend of mine-we were in the [Columbia]
law school together- and frankly, I should like to have him in the cabinet,
not only for his own ability, but also to repair in a sense the very great
injustice done him by President Hoover in the winter of 1929. Here again
the question of motive must be considered, and I fear that to put two
Republicans in charge of the armed forces might be misunderstood in both
parties.1o
Actually, it is very doubtful that Roosevelt and Donovan were anywhere
near as close as Knox and Donovan. Years later, Donovan was to observe that
"Roosevelt used to say he was a friend of mine, knew me in law school. But I
8 "Memorandum of conversation with President Roosevelt on December 10, 1939, at
the White House," 12 December 1939, Franklin D. Roosevelt Papers, Hyde Park, Franklin D.
Roosevelt Library, President's Secretary's File, Box 59, cited hereafter as Roosevelt Papers, PSF.
8 Letter from Knox to Roosevelt, 15 December 1939, Roosevelt Papers, PSF (Navy).
xu Letter from Roosevelt to Knox, 29 December 1939, ibid.
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always reminded people that Roosevelt never knew me in law school." 11 Signifi-
cant also is the fact that the Roosevelt papers at Hyde Park show little evidence of
any contact between the two prior to 1940.12 Likewise, the White House presi-
dential diaries, which are a catalogue of the names of the many people visiting,
dining and overnighting at the White House, show no entry for Donovan in
1940-41.13 While most Britishers stressed the closeness of Donovan to Roosevelt,
one, writing in February 1941, cautioned:
Whilst we have every reason to think that he enjoys the confidence of
the President, Colonel Donovan is not one of his intimate associates. Indeed,
he only came over to the side of the administration when Colonel Knox
joined the cabinet.14
Roosevelt could well have wanted to repair the "injustice" done Donovan,
that is, the unexpected failure of Hoover to make as his Attorney-General the
man who had served Coolidge as an Assistant Attorney-General, but again there
is no indication that Roosevelt ever really contemplated Donovan in the cabinet.
At this particular juncture in history, Roosevelt seemed intent on bringing the
Republican leaders into his administration.
Putting two Republicans "in charge of the armed forces" may have seemed
unwise to Roosevelt at the time, but that, of course, is just what he did when
he announced the appointment of Knox and Stimson on 20 June 1940.
Knox returned to the subject of Donovan when, many days later, he wrote
the President: "I am delighted to learn that you, like myself, hold Bill Donovan
in high esteem and can readily understand the point you make concerning my
suggestion in that direction." 11 With this letter, nothing more is heard of the
coalition idea until spring. Knox and Roosevelt did exchange several pieces of
correspondence touching on the war, but none is pertinent to this study. The
correspondence does suggest that there was developing between the two men
a rapport that strengthened the President's resolve to bring Knox into the cabinet
when the time favored it. This does not mean that Roosevelt was not toying with
other candidates or possibilities than coalition. For instance, in March, he offered
the Navy post to his old friend, William C. Bullitt, then Ambassador to France,
but nothing came of this even though as late as 9 June, Bullitt was telling FDR
of his willingness to run the Navy.16
Coalition negotiations were resumed when the Germans attacked the Low
Countries, thereby ending the so-called "phoney war" and thoroughly alarming
" "Notes from WJD [William J. Donovan]," 5 April 1949, William J. Donovan Papers,
Washington, CIA, Job No. 66-595, Box 1, Folder 22, cited hereafter as Donovan Papers.
" Thomas F. Troy, "An Inventory of Papers at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library of
William J. Donovan, the Coordinator of Information, and the Office of Strategic Services,"
Washington, CIA (Typescript Pp. 7, 15 February 1968).
"The Composite Presidential Diary, 1940" and the "Usher's Diary, 1940," Roosevelt
Papers. These are appointment books or logs rather than diaries.
John Balfour, commenting on Tel. No. 359, 26 February 1941, from British Embassy,
Cairo, in Foreign Office Papers, London, Foreign and Commonwealth Office Library, A
1.154/183/45(1941), cited hereafter as F.O. Papers.
Letter from Knox to Roosevelt, 17 January 1940, Roosevelt Papers, PSF (Navy).
William L. Langer and S. Everett Gleason, The Challenge to Isolation, 1937-1940
(N.Y.: Harpers, 1952), p. 510.
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the Western world. Knox was at the White House on 16 May, but there is no
record of the conversation. Knox's biographer observes: "it would be surprising"
if Roosevelt had not once again offered the Navy job to Knox.17 Perhaps there
is a suggestion of just that in a letter which Knox wrote the President two days
later-a letter, incidentally, in which Knox again advanced the name of Donovan,
this time to serve on a three-man committee to coordinate industrial production.
In this letter Knox hoped that the President would have a satisfactory talk with
Landon at their scheduled White House luncheon on Wednesday, 22 May, and
stated that Landon "is stopping off here [Chicago] to talk things over with me
on Tuesday and I will try to emphasize if it should seem necessary how vital
a united front is right now." is
The "united front" was Knox and Landon on the subject of joining the
cabinet. On 21 May Knox sent to the President, through Paul Leach of the News
staff, a brief note in which he spoke of Landon and himself having "reached
a mutual conclusion" which had been "animated solely by our desire to promote
national unity in the face of grave national peril." 19 Actually, there was not as
much united front as Landon would have liked. Landon generally supported
Roosevelt's foreign policy, but he genuinely and firmly believed that the two-
party system was seriously endangered by Roosevelt's unwillingness to take him-
self out of the 1940 presidential election. Landon, therefore, pressed Knox, who
was much more willing to enter the cabinet, not to do so without a Roosevelt
promise to take himself out of the race. In this he was echoing the sentiments
of the most powerful elements of the Republican party who had been alarmed
at the prospect of Roosevelt capturing the titular leaders of the party on the
eve of the national convention. On the eve of his meeting with Roosevelt, at
which there was general expectation that he would be offered a cabinet post,
the Kansan made provocative public statements which prompted the White
House to call off the luncheon. A day later, the President, caught in the White
House staff's confusion, personally telephoned Landon, renewed the invitation
for lunch, and then on the 22nd spent two hours with Landon discussing every-
thing but the idea of a coalition, This comedy was concluded with Roosevelt
accusing the press of having invented the idea of the coalition and declaring he
had no intention of naming any outsiders to the cabinet.20
At this point, Landon was out, but Knox was still a good possibility. This
probably sat well with the Chicagoan, who still wanted Donovan as his fellow-
Republican in the cabinet, who was more concerned with the gravity of the
international situation than with suspected Rooseveltian thrusts at the two-party
system, and who, moreover, was personally tired of the Landon-Knox couplet.
Of Landon, Knox had said, late in 1936, that he "had played second fiddle to
that second-rater for the last time." 21
"George Henry Lobdell, "A Biography of Frank Knox" (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation,
University of Illinois, 1954), p. 312.
"Letter from Knox to Roosevelt, 18 May 1940, Roosevelt Papers, PSF (Knox).
10 Letter from Knox to Roosevelt, 21 May 1940, ibid.
'New York Times, 25 May 1940, p. 3, col. 2.
" Quoted in Donald R. McCoy, Landon of Kansas (Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska;
1966), p. 351.
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The next month was one of uncertainty for Knox. On 27 May he wrote the
President telling of the meeting two days earlier of the group interested in pro-
moting training camps for aviators, a group which was to be headed by General
Malin Craig, and which included among its members Colonel Donovan, General
Frank R. McCoy, and Lewis Douglas.22 On 5 June, he arrived in New York
where he breakfasted at Bill Donovan's home and there discussed the aviation
project again and then left for "a lunch date with Bill at the Vanderbilt," In
writing his wife on that day, he remarked that
There is nothing new to report on the Washington situation except
that Bill told me Mrs. Roosevelt asked Mrs. Meloney (Missey) whether she
thought Donovan would be loyal to F.D.R. if given a place in the cabinet.
Of course you know what Missey would reply to such a question.23
Then, on 11 June, Knox wrote the following to his wife in New Hampshire:
"Curiously today at lunch at the [Chicago] Club a rumor circulated
that f had been appointed Secretary of the Navy. One LaSalle Street man
said it was current in financial circles. I said I had no knowledge of any new
developments and I found none when I returned to the office. I didn't tell
anyone however that just before lunch I was informed by Professor Brownlow
of the University of Chicago ... who had a talk with the President Saturday
that F.D.R. was unchanged in his determination to have me as his Secretary
of the Navy and was now engaged in trying to find a satisfactory Republican
or non-Democrat for war in order to meet my condition that other Repub-
licans be included in the cabinet. Brownlow asked me who I would recom-
mend and I again suggested Bill. Later Brownlow called me to say he
thought well of the suggestion and would convey it to the President.24
In Brownlow's version of the meeting, Knox raised the subject of the cabinet
post by asking the professor to tell the President that he, Knox, was now ready
to serve him "in any capacity that he wants me to serve and without any condi-
tions whatsoever." He then corrected himself to say that the only condition
was that he not be called prior to the Republican convention, which was to open
in Philadelphia on 24 June.25 Even so, on 15 June, Knox wrote Annie that he
still "had no word of any kind from Washington and I am beginning to believe
that I will not-and this produces a sense of personal relief rather than dis-
appointment." 26
When Brownlow reported to Knox that the President was endeavoring to
find another Republican for the cabinet, he apparently did not know that that
other Republican was Henry L. Stimson, as prestigious, experienced, and au-
thentic a Republican as any on the scene, even though Brownlow was at that
Letter from Knox to Roosevelt, 27 May 1940, Roosevelt Papers, PSF (Knox).
"Knox to Annie R. Knox, 5 June 1940, Knox Papers, Box 3. Mrs. William Brown Meloney
was a great friend of Mrs. Roosevelt and was the organizer of the New York Herald-Tribune
"Forum." On 25 June 1940 she sent FDR a reprint from the Tribune of Donovan's article,
"Should Men of Fifty Fight Our Wars?" Roosevelt Papers, President's Personal File (cited
hereafter as PPF), 6558 (William J. Donovan).
"Knox to A. R. Knox, 11 June 1940, Knox Papers, Box 3.
Brownlow, op. cit., pp. 445-46.
" Knox to A. R. Knox, 15 June 1940, Knox Papers, ibid.
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time, at the President's request, canvassing various press people for their com-
ment on the suitability of Stimson as spokesman for the President on foreign
affairs. The Stimson story, in shortened form, had begun "in the middle of May"
when Grenville Clark, an old friend of Roosevelt's, a distinguished but quiet
public servant, and currently a vigorous proponent of universal military con-
scription, "woke up one morning . . . with the firm conviction that the only
way to achieve his purpose was to obtain a Secretary of War who would `push
it through.' He needed, he decided, someone like Henry L. Stimson." 27 Here
was a Republican of the first rank, a servant of four Republican presidents-
notably, Secretary of War under Taft and Secretary of State under Hoover-and
an advocate of conscription, national defense, and aid to Britain.
This project Clark discussed with Felix Frankfurter, the Justice of the Su-
preme Court, "the Talleyrand of the times." 28 The two of them went over Stimson
"and other names-especially William J. Donovan and Lewis Douglas-but they
always came back to Stimson." 29 On 3 June Frankfurter, who a month earlier
had arranged Stimson's first meeting with Roosevelt in years, pushed upon the
President the idea of appointing Stimson as Secretary of War and Robert P.
Patterson as Assistant Secretary. Once assured of the good health of the 73-year
old Stimson, FDR was easily sold on his appointment. When Brownlow returned
from Chicago with the news of Knox's availability, the President had his coali-
tion cabinet in prospect. Both men were contacted on 19 June, Stimson at his
office in New York, and Knox while lunching with friends at the Skyline Club
in Chicago; and the news of their appointment was broken by Roosevelt on 20
June, to the surprise of the capital and the bitterness of the Republican high
command who virtually read the two appointees out of the party on the grounds
of party betrayal. Among the minority of Republicans who rallied to the support
of Knox and Stimson was Donovan, who sent a telegram to the Republican
Convention urging the delegates "to approve the designation" of the two as a
means of strengthening the defense of the country. 30
Publisher Becomes Secretary
There is no need to follow the two men through the successful process of
Senate hearings and confirmation except to note the close collaboration of Knox
and Donovan. So close was this, in fact, that upon accepting the appointment
Knox told an associate, while still at the Skyline Club, that he "intended to ask
Bill Donovan to become Under Secretary." Donovan, for whatever reason, was
"unable to serve." 31 When Knox arrived in Washington on 1 July, he told his
wife he found Donovan there waiting to meet him and help him get ready for
the Senate Naval Affairs Committee. They immediately repaired to Donovan's
home in Georgetown,32 where they were joined by Senator Scott Lucas for
'Morison, op. cit., pp. 480-81.
2' This title appears in Eliot Janeway, The Struggle for Survival: A Chronicle of Economic
Mobilization in World War II, Vol. 53 of The Chronicles of America Series, ed. by Allan
Nevins (New Haven: Yale, 1951), p. 140.
w Cf, n. 1, p. 22, supra.
'New York Times, 22 June 1940, p. 10, col. 7.
" L Letter from Rawleigh Warner to A. R. Knox, 29 March 1949, Knox Papers, Box 1.
" 1647 30th Street, N. W. The address has since been changed to 2920 R Street, N. W.
The residence is now owned and occupied by Mrs. Katherine Graham of the Washington Post.
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SECRET CO! and the British
lunch, and the three spent the afternoon preparing for the hearings which covered
much of Tuesday and Wednesday. Knox, as a matter of fact, moved in with
Donovan:
Bill was most anxious to have me stay with him until I had a chance
to get the details of starting on a new and difficult job under weigh
[sic] . . . Bill is there alone and only part of the time but keeps three
servants on duty anyway. Mrs. Donovan is in Maine right now and will be
there for some time so I told Bill (fine, if he lets me pay my share). He
finally agreed so 1 will be there for two or three weeks at least. It is ideal
for me for it gives me freedom and privacy.33
Donovan also had his own business to pursue in Washington. On 3 July
he appeared before the Senate Committee on Military Affairs in support of the
selective service act and gave a three-page statement and answered questions,
on the basis of extensive experience in battle and observation of recent warfare
in Ethiopia and Spain, on a subject which was always dear to him, the train-
ing and leadership of men in battle. He was to do the same on 10 July when
he appeared before the House Committee on Military Affairs.
Indeed, if one can accept at face value Donovan's own account of the
origin of the trip, then it was on 3 July he was called to the White House
and asked to go to London. This account, however, leaves so many questions
unanswered that it is best left to later consideration in Chapter III. Suffice it
here to note that it probably was some time between 3 and 10 July that the trip
was officially proposed and approved.
Tate on the 10th, Knox was confirmed by the Senate, and he was sworn
in by the President on the 11th; he then went for the first time to the Navy
Department but left soon, he wrote his wife, "for lunch with several of my
friends at Bill's." On Friday, the 12th, he had a session with the whole General
Board of the Navy. That afternoon he held an impromptu reception for the
300-400 bureau chiefs, and "Friday night Bill had a few in to dinner." He was
called to the White House the next morning at 11:45. This report to his wife
on his first few days in office ends with the following account of Donovan's
departure for London plus the usual note on his living arrangements:
All offices close at noon Saturdays so when I got back from the White
House Bill Donovan, John Sullivan, Jack Bergin of N.Y., Jim Forrestal of
White House staff and I went aboard the Sequoia, the Secretary of the
Navy's yacht, had lunch aboard and cruised down the Potomac until about
B o'clock. Then Bill and I got into dinner clothes and went to dine with
the British Ambassador Lord Lothian at 8 P.M. The only other guest was
Minister Casey of Australia and the four of us talked until nearly 11 o'clock.
Bill is leaving by Clipper for London today and we had much to discuss
before he got away. I will tell you why he is going when I see you as I
hope next week. Bill left at midnight for New York and sailed by Clipper
for Lisbon at 3 P.M. today.
Knox to A. R. Knox, 6 July 1940, Knox Papers, Box 3. The date of this letter, to judge
from its contents, is 5, not 6, July.
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CQI and the British E Rt
I am moving much of my things aboard the Sequoia where I have
a luxurious cabin . . . the only cost is the food. Bill insists that I keep
some of my clothes at his house and stay there whenever I may want to
until you come. . . . This solves the living question until you come in the
fall.34
One can only imagine at this date what Frank told Annie, when he saw
her, about the purpose of Donovan's trip. It probably did not occur to him,
however, to emphasize what must be emphasized here, namely, that almost his
first act as Secretary of the Navy, indeed, an act that was decided upon before
he was actually confirmed, was to send his good friend Bill Donovan on a
secret mission to Europe. How this happened, and to what extent the new chief
of British intelligence in New York, William S. Stephenson, was involved, will
be told in the next chapter.
All that matters here is that for the first time in the eight years of the
Democratic administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, William J. Donovan, a
life-long Republican and a foe of the New Deal, but a vigorous internationalist
and a close friend of the new Navy chief, had in that friendship a firm operat-
ing base in the machinery of the national government.
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Chapter III
STEPHENSON, HOOVER, AND DONOVAN
Whatever Knox did tell his wife about Donovan's trip, neither he nor any-
one else has left behind a complete picture of its genesis. Both Stephenson, who
claims to have initiated the trip, and Donovan, who made it, have given con-
flicting accounts, and independent evidence does not conclusively resolve the
difference. In considering this evidence, it is well to begin with a brief look at
William S. Stephenson 1 himself and his activity in the United States in the
months before the trip was conceived. (See Figure 2.)
"The Quiet Canadian"
At the outbreak of war, Stephenson, at 43, was a man of many accomplish-
ments, much money, and many influential friends. His friendships reflected a
personality which caused a one-time foe, Assistant Secretary of State Adolf A.
Berle, to remark years later: "It was impossible not to like Bill Stephenson." 2
His accomplishments reflected his versatility. As a pilot in the Royal Flying
Corps in World War I his exploits had won him Britain's Military Cross and the
Distinguished Flying Cross, and France's Legion of Honor and Croix de Guerre
with palm. At the same time, he had gone in for boxing; and at Amiens, early
in 1918, as corps member of the Inter-Service Boxing Teams, he won the amateur
lightweight championship of the world. It was on this occasion that he met Gene
Tunney, who also won a title then, and whose friendship was later to be the
link between Stephenson and J. Edgar Hoover of the Federal Bureau of In-
vestigation.
After the war, the Canadian-born Stephenson moved to Britain where "his
peculiar inventive and commercial genius transformed him into a millionaire"
before he was thirty.3 Not only had he patented and commercially exploited a
can-opener he had found while a German prisoner of war, but he had become
the inventor, in a field dearer to his heart and talents, of a device for the faster
wireless transmission of pictures, both still and moving, a device which was
headlined in 1924: "Moving Pictures by Radio on Way; May Soon Be Possible
to `See-in' as Well as `Listen-in' at One's Home." 4 By the 1930's he controlled a
score of companies-in radio, films, cement, plastics, etc.-the most important
of which, from the point of view of his subsequent career in intelligence, was
'For Stephenson's life see, in addition to Hyde's Quiet Canadian cited above: J. J. Brown,
The Inventors: Great Ideas in Canadian Enterprise, The Canadian Illustrated Library. (Toronto,
Canada: McClelland and Stewart, 1967), pp. 90-92; Arch Whitehouse, Heroes of the Sunlit
Sky. (N.Y.: Doubleday, 1967), pp. 236-37. McKenzie Porter, "The Biggest Private Eye of
All," McLean's Magazine, 1 December 1952, pp. 66-75.
2 Adolf A. Berle, private interview, N.Y.C., 7 October 1969.
'Hyde, op. cit., p. 11.
'Charleston News and Courier (South Carolina), 22 September 1924.
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Figure 2. Sir William S. Stephenson (Passport photo, 1942).
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an
the Pressed Steel Company, which made 90% of the bodies for the major British
automobile manufacturers. It was Pressed Steel which brought him into touch
with German steel production, and in the years after the rise of Hitler and with
the re-armament of the Reich it was his information that was fed to Winston
Churchill who used it in his public and parliamentary warnings against the
danger of Nazi Germany.
Inevitably, and especially after September 1939, Stephenson was brought
into contact with Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), whose chief was
Colonel (later Major-General Sir) Stewart Menzies-pronounced, to the dismay
of many, "Mingiss"-known in the service, according to a recent custom, simply
as "C." With the hearty support of Churchill, then back as First Lord of the
Admiralty, and the collaboration of the SIS, Stephenson undertook, but finally
had to abort, a project to sabotage the Germans' supply of Swedish ores. From
Stockholm Stephenson was then sent on to Helsinki where he discussed modes
of aid, by subversion or sabotage, to the Finns then under assault by the
Russians.
On his return to London, lie was asked by British intelligence to go to
the United States in order to "establish relations on the highest possible level
between the British SIS and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation." Re-
turning shortly thereafter to London, he was again asked to go to the United
States, this time by Churchill, who was now Prime Minister, in order to render
Britain a much larger list of services.5 These are the two trips which he
claims brought him into contact with Hoover and Donovan. Since both these
contacts are fundamental to the story of the development of Stephenson's organi-
zation, British Security Coordination, and of Donovan's COI, their dates must
be established before the details of Stephenson's activity in the spring of 1940
can be profitably spun out.
Arrival in the United States
About the second arrival in the United States there is no doubt. The record
clearly shows that when the "S.S. Britannic" arrived in New York harbor on
Friday, 21 June 1940, two of its 760 passengers were Stephenson and his wife
Mary, who gave the Waldorf Astoria as their address and "indefinite" as the
length of their intended stay. Stephenson listed himself as a civil servant with
diplomatic status.6 (See Figure 3).
Unfortunately, the earlier arrival is not so easily verified, but evidence
shows that it did occur, although not exactly when. Thus, the record just cited
also shows that he stated that his last previous entry into the U.S. occurred
in "1940" when he visited "New York and Cal[ifornia]." Visa records show that
he had been issued a visa some time in the last two weeks of March, and that
he was traveling to the U.S. as a "Government Official [and] Company Director
[who was] Proceeding to the United States on an Official Mission for the
QC, pp. 24, 30.
' U.S. Dept. of Justice, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Form 1-404-A, Stephenson,
William S., N.Y.C., 21 June 1940 (INS File A6 762816).
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SECRET COI and the British
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CC7T
Ministry of Supply." 7 Moreover, the SIS, in response to a query on this very
point, has categorically affirmed: "Stephenson visited the USA in April 1940." B
Perhaps the most interesting item on this point turned up in a most unlikely
place: a memorandum on "German Activity in Mexico," which had been sent
to G-2 at the Presidio in San Francisco by the "Head Inspector, Air Plant
Protection Control" for the Army's Western Procurement District.' The inspector
reported on 20 June 1940, the day before Stephenson's second arrival in the
States, that he had been informed of "a recent visit" in California by "Mr. W. S.
Stevenson (sic), Attache of the British Foreign Office at London." Though the
name is misspelled, a common error, it can hardly refer, as the body of the
report shows, to some other person. For this reason, and because of its reference
to a Stephenson-Hoover meeting, a point which needs to be documented, it is
worth quoting:
. . . Mr. Stevenson had advised him (Mr. B. [E.] L. Cord, former
airplane and automobile manufacturer) that all of the information furnished
Mr. Cord had previously been furnished to Mr. J. Edgar Hoover, Director
of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with whom he had been in con-
ference for 14 hours just prior to his visit with Mr. Cord.
Mr. Stevenson advised Mr. Cord that the Russian Government had
shipped 50,000 Spanish-Loyalist refugees to the Republic of Mexico during
the past year and that the German Government had shipped 37,500 troops
to the Republic of Mexico during the past three months. He also stated that
the German troops were equipped with machine guns, hand-grenades, and
small artillery sufficient to equip an army of 200,000 men.
Mr. Cord stated that he was quite satisfied this information had been
furnished to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the proper War
Department authorities by Mr. Stevenson during his recent visit.
While this is not the place to evaluate the accuracy of the numbers of
Spanish Loyalist refugees and German troops in Mexico (1), and while it takes
us a little ahead of the story, it is pertinent to note that the supplying of such
intelligence as this to the FBI was one of the purposes of establishing liaison
between SIS and the Bureau.
Stephenson, then, did arrive in the United States early in the spring, in April,
but his approach to the Bureau at that time was not the first approach of British
intelligence to an intensification of liaison with the FBI. An approach was already
being made at the time Stephenson was getting his visa for the United States;
and whether there was any connection between the two is hard to say. The
"'Weekly Report of Visas Issued ... ," U.S. Embassy, London, Desp. No. 4981, 2 April
1940, National Archives, Record Group 59 (State Decimal File), File 811.111 Dip/15254.
This Groun will be cited hereafter as RG 59.
'Letter from SIS to U.S. Embassy, London, No. YP/81/1 (Historian), 10 November
1969, paras. 3-5, SECRET, Author's Files.
'Memorandum from Edward K. Merritt to Lowell H. Smith, 25 June 1940, National
Archives, Military Intelligence Division, Record Group 165,. File 2801-304/34 CONF. This
source will be cited hereafter as RG 165.
SECRET L9
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SECRET COI and the British
earlier approach, by members of the allies' purchasing commissions, is never-
theless part of the background to Stephenson's own work and hence must be
considered before finally turning to the Stephenson-Hoover relationship.
British Intelligence and the FBI
On 19 March an FBI official met for three-quarters of an hour in Wash-
ington with Mr. Hamish Mitchell, Special Assistant to the Director General
of the British Purchasing Commission, and Mr. Charles T. Ballantyne, the
Washington representative of the Anglo-French Purchasing Commission. Mitchell
apparently did all the talking, and the gist of his message was that the British
were so concerned about preventing a repetition of the unfortunate World
War I experience of seeing much of their war materials sabotaged in the
United States that they were suggesting "the advisability of utilizing an under-
cover branch of the British service to secure information with respect to possible
sabotage so that the enemy's movements . . . could be anticipated and fore-
stalled." Mitchell was also concerned about the Bureau's plant protection surveys
and supervision and about the role of railroad police in protecting materials
in transit. He wanted the Bureau's assistance in getting information about the
many Americans the Commission had had to hire; he offered to make available
to the Bureau the "considerable information" which he acquired in the pursuit
of his duties; and finally, he inquired as to whether he might make similar
contacts with other Bureau offices in the United States.' ?
Mitchell's approach was duly communicated by Hoover to Assistant
Secretary of State Adolf A. Berle, who served more or less as the President's
overseer of the Interdepartmental Intelligence Conference (IIC )11 In a memo-
randum of his own, Berle referred to the proposed "undercover unit" as a
"unit of British Intelligence . . . reporting" to the Purchasing Commission and
noted: "The F.B.I. reacted instantly and unfavorably." He continued:
I feel we should discourage activities of this kind. If we are to have
a combined counterespionage and secret intelligence unit, it should be our
own, and not foreign. But I do think that this suggests a more expeditious
way of getting information from these people into the hands of our own
agencies, so that if there is thought of German or Russian espionage or
sabotage we can deal with it promptly. Specifically, I think an officer of
either the F.B.I. or the Department ought to be detailed to receive and
examine any reports or indications which the Purchasing Commission may
have to offer. We should do this for any private company, or at the behest
of any government, in equivalent circumstances. 12
On 4 April Berle informed Mr. Edward A. Tamm of the Bureau that "this
Government could not permit an extension of the British activities in this country
in the matter suggested." 13
""Memorandum for Mr. E. A. Tamm" from R. P. Kramer, 19 March 1940, RG 59, FW
File 841.24/229.
" Hoover to Berle, 22 March 1940, ibid. Hoover also forwarded to Berle a copy of
Kramer's memorandum. The IIC is described in ch. VII, infra.
Memorandum by Berle, 26 March 1940, ibid.
""Memorandum for Files" by Fletcher Warren, 4 April 1940, ibid. Warren recorded
what Berle had told him of his conversation with Tamm.
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Meanwhile, Hamish Mitchell again approached the FBI on the same
subject; this time he approached the New York office on 30 March. Again, he
expressed a desire to cooperate with the Bureau and indicated his office was
endeavoring to keep informed on possible sabotage to British war materials. He
also referred to a document, sent by the British Embassy to the Department of
State, describing the setup of "the German organization for developing informa-
tion in this country." Y4
When informed of this second approach, Berle advised Mr. James C. Dunn,
the Department's Advisor on Political Relations:
The F.B.I. declined to entertain any suggestion of `cooperation' or the
building up of any `cooperating' organization under the British Purchasing
Commission. I stated that I thought they were entirely right in this regard.
I am not so clear, however, that they might not maintain contact for the
purpose of getting whatever information may be passed on to them, provided
this is promptly and adequately reported here, so that we know what is
being done.
In other words, I am not clear that the Scotland Yard tie-up works very
well in connection with American matters, and the British may know things
that we ought to know promptly. I should be glad to have your comments.'
Was Mitchell representing Scotland Yard? The SIS, when queried in 1968
about the connection between Mitchell and Stephenson, replied: "We have no
information on this point but as Stephenson also visited the USA early in 1940
and held discussions with the head of the FBI, it is likely that there was some
coordination of the two visits." 16 In any case, Dunn told Berle that "it should
be made entirely clear to the F.B.I. and justice that entire responsibility with
regard to these matters within the United States lies with the Department of
Justice." He went on to say: "I would not, for my own part, consider it advisable
that any secret service organization of a foreign country should be permitted
to carry on its operations in the United States." As for "cooperation" with a
foreign organization, in matters relating to sabotage and espionage inside this
country, that is the responsibility of the justice Department.17
In the meantime, the minutes of the Interdepartmental Intelligence Con-
ference show that on 9 April the FBI informed G-2 and ONI, as well as State:
the "British Purchasing Commission desires to set up an intelligence service in
[the] U.S." 18 Strangely enough, this very same entry shows up in the minutes
of the meeting of the Conference on 13 May,"' almost three weeks after Dunn
had written the above message to Berle, the last message in this Mitchell-FBI
episode. Then on 31 May, Mr. Hoover, when asked about the operations of foreign
agents in the United States, told the Conference that the Bureau had "within
14 Hoover to Berle, 10 April 1940, ibid, File 841.24/235.
la "Memorandum from Berle to Moffat and Dunn, 18 April 1940, ibid.
le SIS, op. cit. para. 2.
14 Memorandum from James Clement Dunn to Berle, 23 April 1940, RG 59, File FW
841.24/235.
18 U.S. Interdepartmental Intelligence Conference, Minutes of Meeting, 9 April 1940.
RG 165, File 9794-186A (L) .
1? Ibid., meeting of 13 May 1940.
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SECRET COI and the British
the past few months been developing an increasing store of information upon this
subject." He indicated that "the British and Canadian intelligence services in the
United States appear to be particularly well organized and that these services
have been furnishing considerable information to the FBI." 20
Then on 16 July Hoover told his fellow-members in the Conference:
... the relations and dealings of the FBI with the British intelligence
service had been extended to a considerable extent and the Bureau hoped
to possess within the course of a few days a complete outline of the organiza-
tion of the British intelligence service within the Western Hemisphere.
This information would, of course, be transmitted to the Military and
Naval Intelligence Services. 21
Ten days later, General Sherman Miles, the Army's intelligence chief, inquired
it the Conference as to whether any additional information had been received
on some "German documents received from the British Secret Service. Mr.
hoover advised that the source of this information would call on him Saturday,
duly 27, 1940." 22
It is idle, of course, to speculate on whether that "source" was Stephenson
himself. It is not idle, however, to ask whether or not the obvious build-up in
relations between the FBI and British intelligence reflected the hand of Stephen-
son at work after the relative failure of the Mitchell approach. In any case, it
is time to go back to Stephenson's first arrival in 1940 in this country.
Stephenson and Hoover
Stephenson's story, in The Quiet Canadian, is that he was asked to go to
the U.S. in order to effect an FBI liaison, that he was informally introduced to
floover through his friend Gene Tunney, that Hoover insisted upon a personal
liaison with him, with Presidential approval and without the knowledge of the
Department of State, and finally that Roosevelt's authorization was acquired
through the intervention of Mr. Ernest Cuneo, an influential lawyer, newspaper-
man and friend of Roosevelt's. Cuneo is reported to have carried back to
Stephenson FDR's statement: "There should be the closest possible marriage
between the F.B.I. and British Intelligence," a statement which Roosevelt is
later supposed to have made to Lord Lothian, Britain's ambassador in Washing-
ton." 23
Gene Tunney has corroborated the account of the meeting with Hoover:
Through English and Canadian friends of mine, I had known Sir William
for several years. He wanted to make the contact with J. Edgar Hoover and
wrote a confidential letter from London. I arranged to get the letter into
the hands of Mr. Hoover, having known him quite well. Sir William did not
want to make an official approach through well-placed English or American
friends; he wanted to do so quietly and with no fanfare.
'O Ibid., File 9794-18BA(2) CONF.
Ibid., File 9794-186A (9) CONF.
' Ibid., File 9794-186A(12) CONF.
?8 ()C, pp. 25-26.
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i and the British
J. Edgar Hoover told me on the telephone that he would be quite
happy to see Sir William when he arrived in the United States, so when
he did come to Washington everything was set up for him; this was sometime
early in 1940. Naturally, I had to stay out of whatever business was between
them, but it was my understanding that the thing went off extremely well.24
(Italics mine.)
Ernest Cuneo, when asked about his part in this episode, was unclear about
any such meeting so early in 1940. Asked about the statement on "the closest
possible marriage," his reply was: "No. The President did not say that to me."
He claimed that his role as intermediary was played later when relations between
Stephenson and Hoover had dropped considerably from the level of amicability
on which they had been originally established. Cuneo agreed with the suggestion
that the intermediary with the White House could well have been the wealthy
Vincent Astor, who was not only a close friend of both Stephenson and the
President but who also played a virtually unknown role as intelligence source
for the President.25
While this White House angle must be left unclear, liaison between Stephen-
son and Hoover was effected. The FBI itself has stated that the two first met
in March 1942; this was described as their first "official" meeting, and it was
said that they had met "once or twice." 26 There is considerable evidence that
they had met long before March 1942. On 29 January 1942 Hoover and Stephen-
son were two of thirteen American, British, and Canadian officials who met at
the FBI for a "Hemisphere Intelligence Conference." 27 In July 1941 Hoover
and Stephenson discussed the many secret messages that British intelligence
was sending to London weekly on the FBI radio.28 And in a remarkably undis-
covered statement, though publicly printed in 1948, and probably the first sig-
nificant public statement about Stephenson's role in World War II, Robert
Sherwood declared:
By the spring of 1941, six months before the United States entered the
war [May ?] ... there was, by Roosevelt's order and despite State Depart-
ment qualms, effectively close cooperation between, J. Edgar Hoover and
the F.B.I. and British security services under the direction of a quiet
Canadian, William Stephenson. The purpose of this cooperation was the
detection and frustration of espionage and sabotage activities in the Western
Hemisphere by agents of Germany, Italy and Japan, and also of Vichy
France. It produced some remarkable results... .29
On 14 March 1941 Vincent Astor, forwarding to the President some intercepted
mail which he had acquired as the result of the British opening of diplomatic
pouches in Bermuda and Trinidad, remarked: "It really is a good thing that
" Letters from Gene Tunney to the Author, 6 and 18 August, 18 September 1969. The
last two letters were signed by Tunney's Secretary, K. M. Skallon.
26 Ernest Cuneo, private interviews, Washington, 27 November 1968, 1 October 1969.
" Communication from FBI through CIA Liaison, 15 February 1968.
2z Minutes, Hemisphere Intelligence Conference, held in the Office of the Director of
the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 29 January 1942, RG 59, File 800.20200/9.
2' Memorandum of Conversation by Berle, 10 March 1942, RG 59, File FW F841.20211/36.
? Robert Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History (Rev. ed.; N.Y.:Harper,
1950), p. 270.
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you made F.B.I. the contact with British intelligence. If O.N.I. and M.I.D. [the
Army's Military Intelligence Division, G-21 were in it too, nothing would ever
be forthcoming. At present this situation is working perfectly." 30
When this evidence is added to the earlier testimony of Gene Tunney, to
the SIS reference to Stephenson's "discussion with the head of the FBI," and to
the California plant inspector's report, the very strong presumption follows that
the two men met long before March 1942 and much closer to the time when
Stephenson says he came here for that specific purpose. The evidence also
indicates that the liaison which was then established was not set up without the
knowledge of the State Department, even though there might have been some
lack of clarity on the nature of the relationship, and even though the Depart-
ment could well have had the "qualms" of which Sherwood spoke. Certainly,
Stephenson, Hoover, and Berle were later on to have their problems.
Stephenson and Donovan
What now about Stephenson and Donovan in the first half of 1940?
The Stephenson story is that he was asked by Winston Churchill himself
to take the assignment as Passport Control Officer in New York which Menzies
had first offered him. The job, as Stephenson had outlined it to others even
before it was offered to him, was to do everything possible "to assure sufficient
aid for Britain, to counter the enemy's subversive plans throughout the Western
Hemisphere, . . . and eventually to bring the United States into the War." 31
In the quiet of retirement, Stephenson related how Churchill, in the first month
of his premiership, and speaking from a full awareness of the importance of
American aid and support to the survival of Britain, said to him with directness
and without reserve: "Help mel" Stephenson stressed that he alone, unlike other
prominent Canadians and Britons who served in this country-Arthur Purvis
in purchasing, Arthur Salter in shipping, and the Treasury expert Sir Frederick
Philips-was "the personal representative" of the Prime Minister. Indeed, Stephen-
son revealed considerable contempt for Menzies and the SIS as he found it in
1940, and insisted that he sent many of his communications direct to Churchill
rather than to Menzies, who was at least his nominal superior.32 For his part,
Menzies "was indeed always at pains to describe Stephenson as `my representa-
tive' and inclined to be jealous of occasional communications not sent by or
through SIS." 33
Having returned to the United States on 21 June, Stephenson allegedly
immediately renewed an acquaintance with Donovan whom he had "first met
during a visit [by Donovan] to England" and "instinctively" concentrated on
him as the individual above all others who could help in the procurement of
badly needed war materials.34 Queried later as to when he and Donovan had
'Letter from Astor to Roosevelt, 14 March 1941, Roosevelt Papers, PSF Astor (General
1933-1944).
" QC, p. 28.
Stephenson, private interview, Bermuda, 23 October 1989.
SIS, op. cit., para. 8
QC, pp. 34-35.
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first met, Stephenson was unclear; he did recall that their friendship was
given an initial impetus when it was discovered that both, unbeknownst to one
another, had been in the same French town at the same time in World War I,
Donovan on duty with his troops and Stephenson an accidentally-downed fighter
pilot. They were to meet occasionally throughout the thirties in London, he went
on, whenever "Bill was in town." 36
When Stephenson did arrive in New York, he stayed not at the Waldorf
Astoria but at the St. Regis at the insistence of his friend Vincent Astor, who
referred to the Hotel as "his broken-down boarding house." 36 On calling Donovan,
Stephenson was told to "stay where you are," and in 20 minutes Donovan and
Stephenson were face to face again." 37 Shortly thereafter, according to a British
intelligence document, which was written in 1945, and which Stephenson "com-
missioned and read," Stephenson "suggested to Donovan that he should pay a
visit to Britain with the object of investigating conditions at first hand ... [and]
Donovan referred the proposal to the President . . ." 38
Additional details were added about 1960 in a memorandum which Stephen-
son dictated for an OSS historian, and the same account then appeared in 1962,
in The Quiet Canadian:
In June of 1940, very shortly after I arrived in the U.S., he [Donovan]
arranged for me to attend a meeting with Knox and Stimson where the main
subject of discussion was Britain's lack of destroyers and the way was
explored towards finding a formula for the transfer, without legal breach
of U.S. neutrality and without affront to American public opinion, of 50
over-age American destroyers to the Royal Navy. It was then I suggested
that he should pay a visit to Britain with the object of investigating condi-
tions at first hand and assessing for himself the British war effort, its most
urgent requirements, and its potential chances of success. He referred to
Knox and they jointly referred to the President.39
In 1968 Sir William additionally claimed: "General Donovan and I left for
London by air July 14th ... We flew back to Washington early in August." 4?
The first and by far the chief difficulty with this account of the origin of
the trip is that its major premise, the renewal of a pre-existing Stephenson-
Donovan friendship, has been denied by Donovan himself. In November 1944
Donovan received for comment a British paper entitled "British Relations with
OSS;" this was a British submission to an early but abortive OSS history; and
since it deals almost solely with Stephenson's relations with Donovan, it must
have been read by Stephenson, and it may well have been the basis of the 1945
Stephenson, private interview, Bermuda, 12 February, 23, October 1969.
Ibid., 12 February 1969.
84 Ibid.
" SIS, op. cit. Conversation with SIS Historian, London, 13 November 1969.
SB Stephenson's memorandum, entitled "Early Days of OSS (COI)," was dictated for
Whitney H. Shepardson; a copy is in the Author's files. The reference in QC is p. 36.
'0 "The Two Bills," Transcript of C.B.C. interview of Sir William S. Stephenson by Shaun
Herron; others participating: Earl Mountbatten of Burma, Ernest Cuneo, Col. Charles H. Ellis
(Bermuda: The Island Press Ltd., April, 1968), p. 4 (pagination mine).
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SECRET CO! and the British
history mentioned above, as well as of what passes for gospel in the SIS today.
In any case, a passage that drew Donovan's attention reads:
When Mr. Stephenson was first posted to the United States in June,
1940, one of the first people he got into contact with was General, or as he
then was, Colonel Donovan. As a result of their discussions, the President
sent Colonel Donovan over to London in July, 1940, ostensibly to discuss
with the competent authorities, British methods of dealing with all forms
of German propaganda; in fact his mission from the President was to
ascertain the true extent of the German menace and to report on the methods
as to how it could be stopped.41
In reading this Donovan circled the words "As a result of their discussions" and
pencilled in the margin: "Did not know S [tephenson] then. I met him only after
return." (See Figure 4.) This, of course, is impressive testimony which pits
Donovan's memory against Stephenson's but which is so specifically focussed
on a cardinal point as to seem controlling in the matter; and therefore its
authenticity must be established. The covering memoranda show conclusively
that this British draft had been submitted to General Donovan "for any com-
ments that you think are called for," that "the General's corrections on the at-
tached document" were noted, and that a subordinate was reminded to "please
note the comments which the General has made on the attached manuscript
which you forwarded to him." 42
Secondly, the SIS has offered a statement which clouds Stephenson's claim
to having inspired the trip and conflicts with the claim to having accompanied
Donovan to London:
From our own files, we can confirm that Stephenson certainly had
advance knowledge of the visit and that Menzies acted as Donovan's mentor
in UK. He informed Stephenson that he was in daily touch with Donovan
and that, apart from stressing the determination of Britain to continue the
war and emphasizing the importance to Britain of the release of the US
destroyers, his main object was to ensure that Donovan met all the leading
officials, Ministers and other relevant personalities.43 (Italics mine.)
Stephenson could easily have had "advance knowledge" of the trip from
Lord Lothian with whom he was undoubtedly in touch, but the text leaves one
with the implication that that was all he had. That Menzies was writing to him,
presumably in New York, and that Menzies was Donovan's "mentor" in London
does not help the travel claim. That Menzies told Stephenson he was intent upon
Donovan seeing the most important people certainly does jibe with Stephenson's
own capabilities and his claim that he "arranged that he [Donovan] should be
afforded every opportunity to conduct his inquiries." 44 This claim Donovan
""British Relations with OSS," OSS Records, Job No. 62-271, Box 29, Folder 2 (Type-
script, p. 1). Accompanying memoranda indicate it was written before 16 October 1944.
"Ibid. Accompanying memoranda are: Conyers Read to Donovan, 16 October 1944;
O. C. D[oering], Jr. to Lt. Bane, 3 November 1944; Lt. Charles A. Bane to Read, 7
November 1944. That the writing in the margin is Donovan's has been confirmed by a
questioned document analyst, Dr. David A. Crown, in a letter to the author, 12 February 1970.
SIS, op. cit., para. 7 and 8.
QC, p. 37.
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I. INIB0DUCTION
In order fully to understand the relationship which
has existed from the beginning between OSS and the British,
it it necc car/ briefly to sketch the relationship between
General Donovan, its Director, and Mr. Y.S. Stephenson,
the Director of British Security Co-ordination, and the
rc,,rc-cntative in tae U.S.A. of all the Britisl. _ecr..t
ana the activities undertaken by Genvr.l
Donovan which largely arose from this relationship before
the formation of the office of the Co-ordinator of
Information, which was the predecessor of OSS, in July, 1941.
//~~ ;1hen Mr. Stephenson was first osted to the United
LL States in June, 1940, one of the first cople he dot into
result of their discussions the President sent
Colonel Donovan over to London in July, 1940, ostensibly to
'discuss with the competent authorities, British methods
of deaaing with all forms of Germ;.n propaganda"; in fact
his mission from the President was to ascertain the true
extent of the German menace and to report on the methods
as to how it could be stop,.ed.
Rhen in England Colo-el :o:,ov.a. saw all the leading
figures in the British Gov.rnc:ent and had close contact
with the head of British SIS, who was able to give him
much information not then available to the U.S. Government
or to the President. As a result of what he saw and
heard, he as .c ,uickly c ):.vinced that, while the position
w.,s serious, the British Commonwealth had every intention
of continuing; the struggle and subject to certain assistance
from the U.S.,1., could not only holu out but cu. 1d ulti:, i i i
Figure 4. Donovan says he met Stephenson after July 1940.
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himself seems to have supported; for when he read the sentence "Lord
Lothian ... arranged for Donovan to see Churchill," he struck out "Lord Lothian"
and in the margin wrote "Bill Stephenson." 45
Thirdly, there is not the slightest indication anywhere of a meeting of
Stephenson, Donovan, Knox, and Stimson. Nothing shows up either in the letters
of Knox to his wife or in the Stimson diary, and both cover this period quite
well. Moreover, the known chronology of the destroyers-bases agreement makes
it unlikely that these four men were meeting at that time to discuss the legal
aspects of the deal.46 Such a meeting was much more likely to have taken place
in August, after Donovan's return, when the legal problems were really being
faced, when Knox and Stimson, and especially Knox as Secretary of the Navy,
were officially seized of the problem, and when Donovan himself, fresh from
importunate conversations on the subject, was resolved to do something about it.
Finally, one wonders why, if Stephenson had suggested the trip and had
traveled to London with Donovan, he was not present at the British Embassy
when Knox, Donovan, and Casey of Australia had dinner with Lord Lothian
and had, as Knox wrote his wife, so "much to discuss before [Bill] got away."
In this conflict of memories, the Stephenson story, first put to paper in 1944,
and repeated thereafter, has only that tradition to support it; what evidence
there is casts doubt on it or contradicts it. The likelihood is that Stephenson
has read history backwards. He was to develop such a close and mutually fruitful
collaboration with Donovan, was to make so many Atlantic crossings with him,
was to play such a creative role in the establishment of COI, and was to be
in such weekly, almost daily, contact with Donovan for the rest of the war, that
it is quite probable he has unconsciously pushed the line of collaboration back
to the beginning of the trip, transforming, in the process, "advance knowledge"
into the conception of it.
Donovan's Trip to London
As has been mentioned, Donovan has left an account of how he happened
to go to London. Like Stephenson's account, this also has given rise to a tradi-
tion, but it too leaves many questions unanswered. In an off-the-record address
in 1941 before the prestigious Union League of Philadelphia he recounted how
Last July I was in Washington, appearing before the Military Affairs Com-
mittee of the Senate on the Conscription Bill and I was called to the White
House. Being what I am [a strong anti-New Deal Republican], that was
a very surprising invitation to me. I saw there the Secretaries of State and
of War and of the Navy, and the Secretary of State was very disturbed
'g Conyers Read, "Pre-COI Period," OSS Records, Job No. 62-271, Box 29, Folder 4
(Typescript, p. 5).
"For this chronology see: Philip Goodhart, Fifty Ships That Saved the World: The
Foundation of the Anglo-American Alliance. (London: Heinemann, 1965), pp. 121-190;
passim; Harold J. Sutphen, "The Anglo-American Destroyers-Bases Agreement, Sept. 1940"
(unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Tufts University, 1967), pp. 14-84. Throughout June the
President was unconvinced of the practicability, to say nothing of the legal feasibility, of
a transfer of destroyers. According to the naval historian, Samuel Eliot Morison, it was not
until 24 July 1940 that an "agreement in principle" was reached on an exchange of destroyers
and bases. See Sutphen, op. cit., p. 27.
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about conditions in South America. I was asked if I would go abroad, go
to England, and see if I could learn something of what had been the ac-
tivities of the Fifth Columnists in the various sections of the Continent
that had then been taken over by Germany, and also if I could learn some-
thing how [sic] England was dealing with that problem. I said I would
do it, and then other departments of the Government asked me to get
certain information.47
On the face of it then, the trip was conceived at the White House, sprung
on Donovan without any prior notice, and proposed-though the text is vague-
by Secretary of State Cordell Hull. But other evidence must be considered before
these conclusions are reached.
On 10 July, Lord Lothian cabled London that Knox:
said to me last night that he was most anxious to make survey of the Fifth
Column methods, as they have been disclosed in Norway, the Low Coun-
tries, France, etc. in order to warn the American public. He has appointed
Edgar Mowrer, press correspondent now in England and Colonel `Bill'
Donovan who had a very fine war record in the American Expeditionary
Force, was Assistant Attorney-General and may now become influential
adviser of Colonel Knox to make investigations in England from official
sources, refugees, etc. Donovan is leaving by boat or clipper end of this
week. Colonel Knox has asked me to secure for them all reasonable facilities
for getting information which can be [useful] to the American public but
particularly privately for himself. I have assured him that you would see
that both Mowrer and Donovan were given every facility. Could you send
a telegram that you could do this which I could show him eventually? 48
(Italics mine.)
A few hours earlier on 10 July, Hull cabled Ambassador Kennedy:
Edgar Mowrer of Chicago Daily News at the request of Secretary-
designate Knox is now in England seeking data on fifth column activities
there which might prove of value here. In view of the interest Mr. Knox
expressed to me in this subject, will you in your discretion afford to Mowrer
such assistance as you may find to be appropriate and advisable.48 (Italics
mine.)
Approximately thirty hours later, Hull sent Kennedy the following about
Donovan:
Colonel Knox desires to send Colonel William J. Donovan to England
for a brief survey and report on certain aspects of the British defense situa-
tion. The President has approved of this trip, and Colonel Donovan plans to
leave New York on the clipper July 14, and will report to you on his arrival.
We would appreciate any arrangements and preparations which would
"William J. Donovan, An Address delivered before the Union League of Philadelphia,
29 April 1941, The Union League of Philadelphia: Annual Report, 1941, pp. 80-95.
" Lord Lothian to F.O., No. 1311, 10 July 1940 (sent 11 July at 0210). F.O. Papers,
A 3542/90/45 (1940).
`B Hull to Kennedy, No. 1696, 10 July 1940 (Noon), RG 59, File 841.00N/9.
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facilitate Colonel Donovan's mission. Colonel Donovan asks that reserva-
tions be made for him at Claridge's.50 (Italics mine.)
It becomes clear that the initiative in this trip was being taken not by the
Secretary of State, who, as a matter of fact, never had any particularly close
relation with Donovan, but by the Secretary of the Navy. This is particularly
clear when one appreciates the role of Edgar Ansel Mowrer, who gets prior
billing in Lothian's cable and is mentioned by Hull thirty hours before Donovan.
It almost leads to the conclusion, which the British were to make, that Knox
was acting not as the Secretary but as the proprietor of the Chicago Daily News.
It also becomes clear that the White House meeting to which Donovan
was summoned, must have taken place on the 9th, the day on which Knox
informed Lothian of his plan to send Mowrer and Donovan to London. Between
the 1st and the evening of the 8th, Stimson was not in town; and at 5:15 on
the 9th, Knox and Stimson were at the White House with the President; an hour
earlier Knox had met with Hull at the State Department; and while there is
no documentation that Hull was at the White House on that date, he could
easily have walked across the lane with or shortly after Knox.51
Knox's role shows up strongly in the letters of introduction, which were
written for Donovan, and practically all of which were written on the 11th.
Knox himself, in writing to Lord Beaverbrook, then Minister of Aircraft Pro-
duction, stated that Donovan was abroad "on an official mission for me, with
the full approval of the President." He hoped that Beaverbrook would be "as
frank in talking to him as you might be in talking to me if I were able to
go over myself." 52
That last clause may contain the gist of the original idea; one of the letters
of introduction written at Knox's request reads:
Colonel Knox had hoped to make this trip to England himself to in-
vestigate first hand the question and methods of modern defense, both
from a physical and a morale standpoint, but finding it impossible to do
so at this time has prevailed on Colonel Donovan, who is eminently qualified,
to do this job for him.63
By itself, the preceding sentence may be factual or conventional dressing, but
the former seems more likely when it is realized that such an idea was hardly
less than instinctive with a man who was a newspaper publisher, a national
political campaigner, and a newly-appointed cabinet officer. Evidence of how
his mind worked in December 1941, may shed some light on how it could have
worked in July 1940. He gave the following account to Paul Scott Mowrer of
how he came to travel to Pearl Harbor shortly after 7 December:
That trip of mine to Hawaii was an inspiration that came to me just
as I heard the President read his message. Immediately, the air was filled
'Hull to Kennedy, No. 1722, 11 July 1940 (1700). ibid.
" Stinson Diary, entries for 25 June, 9 July 1940. Hull "Desk Diary," 1940, LC, Manu-
script Div., Container 67B.
"Knox to Beaverbrook, 11 July 1940. Donovan Papers, Job No. 65-508, Box 70, Item 3
(Vol. 34), cited hereafter as Donovan Papers, Vol. 34.
John D. Biggers to Col. R. W. Weeks, 11 July 1940. ibid.
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1 an the ritis
with rumors. There was a prospect ahead of a nasty congressional investiga-
tion, and I made up my mind in a flash to go out there and get the actual
facts, and if the facts warranted it, to initiate the investigation myself.54
Did something like this happen to the new Secretary of the Navy as he
contemplated the collapse of France, the imminence of a Nazi assault on Britain,
and the insidious threat of political termites, a Fifth Column that threatened
not only Europe but the entire Western Hemisphere? If it did, and inasmuch
as his new responsibilities kept him closer to Washington, then who was a
better substitute than his friend Bill Donovan who needed nobody to suggest
a place to visit, who had been to Ethiopia in 1936, to Spain in 1938, who had
toured Germany in 1939, and who, like Stephenson, was to make many Atlantic
crossings throughout the war?
In the absence of contradictory evidence, it seems reasonable to conclude
that at the meeting of the Secretaries with the President either Knox proposed
the trip and, realizing that he himself could not go, suggested Donovan go in
his stead, or someone else proposed the trip and Knox quickly suggested the
name of his good and much-travelled friend.
"Bill left [Washington] at midnight for New York." Some time on the 14th
he telephoned his wife that he was going abroad on "a secret mission." 55 His
flight, which was scheduled to leave at 3 p.m., did not depart until 4:05. He
left "on what he said was private business," but he was "in possession of what
customs men said was a special passport from Washington. He declined to dis-
cuss the nature of the `private business'." Among the six other passengers were
Jean Bodard and Edward B. Amouroux of the French Purchasing Commission,
and Charles C. Goetz of a Portuguese arms missions.56
As he left New York, he probably had no idea how much confusion the
trip had already generated in London.
"Knox to Mowrer, 18 December 1941, Knox Papers, Box 1.
"5 Letter from Mrs. William J. Donovan to the Author, 20 May 1968. The information
was taken from Mrs. Donovan's "line-a-day," a diary which she kept at the time.
"New York Times, 15 July 1940, p. 28, col. 2.
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Chapter IV
DONOVAN: TO AND FROM LONDON
However the trip originated, it took shape so quickly that the visitors, Mowrer
and Donovan, were either on the scene or on the way before their hosts, Am-
bassador Kennedy and the British government, really knew what was going
on. Mowrer, who was in Spain and Portugal at the time, was ordered by Knox
to fly to London and put himself at Donovan's disposal,' and was thus the first
to arrive, to the anger of Kennedy and the confusion of the British. It was from
Mowrer, apparently, that Kennedy first learned of Donovan's imminent arrival,
and from the British Kennedy was soon receiving calls asking for clarification
of the status of the correspondent whom the new Secretary of the Navy was
sending to them.2
An Angry U.S. Ambassador
Kennedy, who had been notified of Mowrer's arrival by Hull's cable of
the 10th and of Donovan's coming by a separate cable of the 11th, 30 hours
later, exploded on the 12th. For his part, Mowrer was a newspaper man butting
in on the normal working of both governments, and it was "utter nonsense"
that various officials of the British government should have to query him on
Mowrer's status.3 As for Donovan, he would be happy to make any arrangements
or preparations if he only knew "the nature of his mission." As indicated, Hull
had only told him that Colonel Knox desired to send Donovan to England "for
a brief survey and report on certain aspects of the British defense situation."
In any case, the British preferred to deal with "permanent attaches" and have
"frequently declined to furnish information to anyone else." Kennedy further
considered that his staff was doing its job perfectly well, and "to send a new
man in here at this time, with all due respect to Colonel Knox, is to me the
height of nonsense and a definite blow to good organization." 4
Kennedy's explosion was as much the latest in a series of frustrations and
humiliations, as he saw them, at the hands of the President, as of annoyance
and anger at not being consulted prior to the sending of Mowrer and Donovan.
For instance, at the outbreak of war, he had been "furious" because he had not
learned earlier than he did of the projected but subsequently abandoned purchase
'Edgar Ansel Mowrer, Triumph and Turmoil: A Personal History of Our Times (N.Y.:
Weybright and Talley, 1968), p. 315.
'Tel. from Kennedy to Hull, No. 2113, 12 July 1940 (1700), RG 59, File 740.0011
EW 1939/4571 1/3. Kennedy wrote: "I had been advised this morning . . . Donovan was
coming by Mr. Mowrer ... [he] said he had been instructed to stay here and go back with
[Donovan]."
'Tel. from Kennedy to Hull, No. 2133, 12 July 1940, ibid., File 740.0011 EW 1939/
4571 2/3.
'Cf. n. 2, supra.
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by the U.S. of both the "Normandie" and the "Queen Mary." 8 So later, on the
12th, in replying to Hull's second cable, the Ambassador denounced the Mowrer
mission as "utter nonsense," and anyhow: "We are making an investigation here
on this subject [the Fifth Column] and [Harvey] Klemmer of my office is
handling it." Unless ordered otherwise, he intended to tell the British that Mowrer
was just a newspaper man who was not "entitled to confidential files and dis-
cussions with Government officials." As a final blast he warned: "If Colonel Knox
does not stop sending Mowrers and Colonel Donovans over here this organization
is not going to function effectively." 6
Still on the 12th, he called the State Department on the trans-Atlantic phone,
not exactly an unusual thing for him to do, and asked Under Secretary Sumner
Welles to lay before the President the cables he had received from Hull along
with his own strong protest against the whole procedure. FDR forwarded the
papers to Secretary Knox with the note: "Please take this up with Secretary
Hull and try to straighten it out. Somebody's nose seems to be out of joint!" 7
The next day Kennedy cabled a strong request to Washington that Mowrer's
assignment be called off. "I am definitely sure that this whole picture," he wrote,
"is full of dynamite." He complained that the British thought Mowrer had an
official capacity, that the Embassy was put in the position of backing one paper
against others, that Mowrer was not needed, and finally: "It is most embarrassing
to me." 8
Meanwhile, State endeavored to clarify Mowrer's role and mollify its am-
bassador. Hull reported that he had been advised by the Secretary of the Navy
that the latter was taking "these steps in his official capacity" and that he was
intent on gathering "comprehensive material as to the methods of subversive
activities and propaganda the Germans are now using ... for general distribu-
tion ... to all the press." Mr. Kennedy was assured that Colonel Knox appreciated
"the excellent reporting of the Embassy" and did not desire to interfere in any
way with either the Embassy or the service attaches. With this cable State had
the last word."
Was Kennedy the victim of a "calculated snub" by the President? This
statement has often been made, and certainly Kennedy would have affirmed
it, and there probably was enough coolness between Kennedy and Roosevelt
to give rise to it.'0 But the speed of events suggests there was less "calculation"
than thoughtlessness or indifference. The Navy, for instance, did not notify its
Naval Attache in London, Captain Alan G. Kirk, that he soon would be respon-
sible for the care and custody of Colonel Donovan, a high-level visitor from
"John Morton Blum, (ed.), From the Diaries of Henry Morgenthau, Jr., Vol. 2, Years
of Urgency, 1938-1941 (N.Y.: Houghton, 1965), p. 96.
'Cf. n. 3, p. 33, supra.
Welles to Roosevelt, 12 July 1940, and Roosevelt to Knox, 13 July 1940, Washington
Navy Yard, U.S. Navy, Chief of Naval Operations, Central Files (Classified), File A8-2/EF13
CONE, cited hereafter as CNO Files.
'Kennedy to Hull, No. 2147, 13 July 1940, ibid., File 841.OON/9 1/2.
'Hull to Kennedy, No. 1776, ibid., File 740.001 EW 1939/4571 1/3.
10 QC, p. 37. The statement therein is repeated in Richard J. Whalen, The Founding
Father (N.Y.: The New American Library, 1964), p. 303. For Kennedy's attitude see Arthur
Krock, Memoirs: Sixty Years on the Firing Line (N.Y.: Funk and Wagnall's 1968), p. 335.
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the Secretary of the Navy himself, until Kirk had advised his superior to read
the Kennedy-Hull cable traffic of 12 July." Like Kennedy himself, and the
British, Kirk also had to catch up with events.
Confused Britons
While the Americans were regularizing the situation, the British were en-
gaged in the same business. At the same time that Lothian was informing London
of the approach of the two visitors, Mowrer was knocking on various Whitehall
doors, especially on the door of Lord Swinton, who ran the Home Defense (Se-
curity) Executive, an enlarged M.I. 5 operation. Swinton had no trouble as
long as he and Mowrer discussed general questions and the 5th column on
the continent, but the Britisher wanted to know what he was to do with this in-
quiring newsman who "finds us interesting and helpful and will be a frequent
visitor." 12
Other officials were no less perplexed. One opined that in sending Mowrer,
"Colonel Knox was speaking as proprietor of the Chicago Daily News rather
than as Secretary of the Navy. Otherwise the request should have been put
forward by the State Department." He also asked: "To what quarters are the
appointees of Colonel Knox [to] be told to address themselves? (One of them
is here already)" 13 The Foreign Office cabled Lothian as late as the 1.6th: "Please
telegraph urgently whether status of Donovan and Mowrer as regards this in-
vestigation is official or journalistic, in order that we may know how to treat
their further requests for information." 14
Even Mowrer was not certain of his status, for in the cable of 16 July the
Foreign Office declared that "Mowrer believes that investigation is being carried
out for official purposes." This merely echoed an earlier marginal note that
Mowrer did not think he was acting "on behalf of the Chicago Daily News,"
and, anyhow, the writer thought Mowrer should get together with Donovan
as soon as he arrived in order "to avoid reduplication." "I
The British got no enlightenment from the U.S. Embassy, which was not
only uncertain about Mowrer's status but whose Ambassador also ]looked upon
Mowrer "with disfavor as a newspaperman employed by Colonel Knox ap-
parently for his own paper." 16 In time the Foreign Office and the Embassy had
representatives get together to clarify the matter. These gentlemen fell back
on a "two hats" theory and concluded, whether with or without a straight face
is hard to say, that Mowrer was both an official representative and a newspaper
correspondent, that he had "two wholly separate positions," and that it would
"Tel. from Kirk, 12 July 1940, and tel. received by Kirk, 14 July 1940, CNO Files,
Kirk Papers, Series 1, 1939-1941.
'Letter from Swinton to Lord Halifax, 15 July 1940, F.O. Papers, A 3542/90/45 (1940)
No. 231.
'a J. V. Perowne, 12 July 1940, in two comments on Lothian's tel. No. 1311, 10 July 1940,
ibid., A 3542/90/45 (1940).
" F.O. to Lothian, No. 1542, 16 July 1940, ibid., A 3542/90/45 (1940) No. 231.
'Charles Peake, 15 July 1940, in a note on folder containing the related cable traffic.
" Ibid.
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be necessary, therefore, in each case to determine whether he was acting as
a correspondent of the News or a representative of the Secretary of the Navyl 17
Meanwhile, Lord Lothian was sending a series of cables to London explain-
ing Mowrer's mission and stressing the importance of Donovan as a potentially
valuable friend because he was a close advisor of the Secretary. On Mowrer,
Lothian told London on 18 July that "Knox does not want information for the
Chicago Daily News. He wants part of it [for the] F.B.I. here and the balance
for dissemination through the press so as to explain to and warn the public about
characteristic 5th column activities against which they should be on their guard." "I
On Donovan, Lothian was emphatic. On 10 July, when he sent his first
cable on the subject, he said he had assured Colonel Knox that London would
provide Mowrer and Donovan with every facility. The next day he said: "I
think it would be very well worthwhile for the Prime Minister to see him
[Donovan] when in London. On the 13th he cabled Alfred Duff Cooper, the
Minister of Information: "I told Colonel Donovan to go and see you as soon as
he arrives.... He will tell you what he wants. Please arrange with him to [meet]
the people he wants to see. He may exercise considerable influence here on his
return owing to his close association with Mr. Knox." Again, on the 15th Lothian
cabled:
Have had letter from Frank Knox saying Donovan is going to England
as he is [sic] representative on a very important mission which has full
approval of both the President and the Secretary of State. Knox is most
anxious that Donovan should have the opportunity of meeting the Prime
Minister and I hope very much that this can be arranged and that Donovan
can also be put in touch with other leading personalities at home.',,
By this time, London had a firmer handle on the situation. When Donovan
arrived on the 19th, he was met by Captain Kirk's duty officer and ensconced
in Claridge's, as he had asked, and the following day began a round of visits
and calls that indicated the British were happy to see him even if Kennedy
was not.
The Red Carpet
With Kirk taking the initiative, and other Britishers and Americans joining
in, Donovan saw in two weeks as many important people, visited as many dif-
ferent civil and military establishments, and discussed as wide a variety of sub-
jects as was humanly possible and as only a very high level visitor could have
had the opportunity.
He saw the King and Queen; and, reconstructing the event, this probably
occurred at the home of Lady Astor at 4 St. James Square on Tuesday, 30 July,
in the middle of a two-day tour of various coastal command installations.20
" Frank Darvall to T. N. Whitehead, 18 July 1940, ibid., A 3542/90/45 (1940) No. 234.
" Lothian to F.O., No. 1395, 18 July 1940, ibid., No. 230.
" Lothian's tels.: No. 1311, 10 July, No. 1338, 13 July, and No. 1366, 15 July 1940, ibid.,
Nos. 227, 228, and 229 respectively.
"Letter from Lady Astor's secretary to Donovan, 27 July 1940; telephone message
from same to WJD, 29 July; Chief of Air Staff's program for WJD, 30 July 1940; and note
by Donovan, undated, showing "Lunch K[ing] Q[ueen]-Astor, 4 St. James Sq 1:15," all in
Donovan Papers, Vol. 34.
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Just how the meeting with the Prime Minister was arranged cannot be
determined, but many people were quite clearly endeavoring to arrange it. Knox
had requested it; Lothian had urged it; undoubtedly, Stephenson had lent his
weight in that direction. The chief diplomatic advisor to the Foreign Secretary,
Robert Vansittart, writing as though no one had informed the Prime Minister
of Donovan's presence in the country, and looking for the proper occasion for
Churchill to send another message to Roosevelt regarding the need for destroyers,
sent the following note to the Prime Minister:
And in this connection I would like also to make another suggestion:-
There is at the present moment over here a Colonel William Donovan (he is
staying at Claridge's), who is one of the best soldiers produced by America
in the last war. He afterwards became one of the most successful lawyers
in the country. He was for a time Assistant Attorney-General under Hoover
[Coolidge] and has an enormous practice of his own. He is a Republican,
but he is a friend of Roosevelt and has been sent over here on a mission
by consent of the two political parties in the United States, his real object
being to collect as much information as would be useful in the event of
America coming into the war. He is returning to America almost at once.
Would it not be possible for you to reinforce any cabled message you may
have sent or be sending to Roosevelt by a personal message sent through
Donovan? It would be very easy to introduce the subject in the course of
a ten minute conversation with him; if you could spare the time I think
that in any event you should see him for a short while. He is an important
person, and will be still more important to us in the future. And it would
probably pay to give him this pleasure.
This was written on 23 July; and Churchill penned on it, on the 25th: "I am
meditating a message (today or tomorrow)" and at the top of the page was
written: "Colonel Donovan has been asked to call to see the P.M. at 5:30 p.m.
on Thursday, July 25th." 21
In the meantime, other arrangements were also being made to bring the
Prime Minister and Donovan together. Lady Diana Cooper invited the Colonel
to dinner on Sunday, 28 July, in order to meet the Prime Minister. Ironically
enough, this coincided with another invitation for dinner on the same day, this
time with Ambassador Kennedy at his residence. Since The Quiet Canadian makes
the point of stating: "One person Donovan did not see in London was the de-
featist Ambassador Joseph Kennedy," and since this has been repeated in many
accounts of Donovan's visit to London, it is well here, and fair to both men,
to set the record straight.
Donovan did see and did dine with Kennedy. Whether or not he needed
the urging of Captain Kirk to do so is not demonstrable, but Kirk did exert
himself to bring about the meeting. On 25 July Kirk informed Donovan of the
Ambassador's dinner invitation and asked him to "confirm these arrangements
as Mr. Kennedy is rather particular about knowing whether you are coming
Sunday night or not." Again, on the 27th, he wrote: "Having learned of the
' Robert Vansittart to Churchill, 23 July 1940, Churchill Papers (Premier Three), Great
Britain, Cabinet Office, Historical Section, Box 145, Folder 463 (miscellaneous). Hereafter
these papers will be cited as Churchill Papers.
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possible complications for Sunday evening, I offer you, in the most friendly way,
my personal suggestion:-to wit: Come to the Ambassador's dinner." After
arranging to meet him that evening, Kirk concluded: "I think it would be a
mistake indeed if you are diverted to another party that night-and the details
have been given to me, so I realize all the ramifications."
The best, and surely conclusive, evidence that Donovan did pass up Lady
Cooper's party in order to be with the Ambassador at St. Leonard's just outside
Windsor is the following charming message from the Lady herself to "Dear
wild Colonel:"
Thank you so much for the yellow roses. They comforted me a little
for your absence. I was so disappointed that the interest of our two countries
came between us.
I am happy to tell you that Winston was in his most engaging and
invigorating form and I am sure you would have enjoyed it enormously. I
had too, for your delight, the beautiful Eve Curie and my prettiest niece.
I hope you had a hideous evening with Joe and I hope too that you will
lunch or dine another day.
And just to complete this side story, the following telephone message to Donovan
indicates that the latter had endeavored to return the dinner favor: "His Excel-
lency the American Ambassador telephoned Colonel Donovan to say that he
regrets that he will be unable to lunch with him on Friday next, but he is attend-
ing a Red Cross luncheon at Claridge's the same day." 22
The head of the British secret service, Colonel Menzies, has already been
described by the SIS as having acted as Donovan's "mentor" while in Britain.
Menzies' name shows up on two scraps of paper found in Donovan's files-as
do numerous other names on other scraps; one notation is followed by "Sun-
day-11:30, 54 Broadway," the SIS headquarters. Donovan did write to Menzies
after he returned to the States in August and indicated that he was "in touch
with many of your representatives here" and have "checked with them"; but
the context is clearly related to the "harder blasting" which the British were
then taking from the Luftwaffe and the continuing belief of Donovan that the
British would survive. Perhaps the most meaningful comment made by Donovan
was his acknowledgement: "I know that it was due to your thoughtfulness in
opening so many doors that I was able to tell our people in authority the reasons
for my conclusions that gave them confidence in my report." For what it is worth,
Donovan made no such acknowledgement to any of his other English corre-
spondents; and "opening doors" had been Menzies' "main objective" in assisting
Donovan.23
An intelligence official with whom Donovan seems to have developed a more
personal rapport was the Director of Naval Intelligence, Admiral John H. Godfrey.
This contact had been initiated by a conventional letter of introduction from
Godfrey's American counterpart, Admiral Walter S. Anderson to Captain Kirk,
"Telephone message from Lady Cooper to WJD, 25 July; Letters from Kirk to WJD,
25, 27 July; Letters from Lady Cooper to WJD, 27, 29 July; telephone message from Kennedy
to WJD, 31 July 1940; all in Donovan Papers, Vol. 34, QC, p. 37.
Donovan to Menzies, 27 August 1940, Donovan Papers, Vol. 34.
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and then given more substance by Kirk, who had recently developed close re-
lations with Godfrey. The latter met with Donovan during a two-day program
that Kirk had laid on for him in the Admiralty, and Godfrey was to have a hand
in making "detailed arrangements" for Donovan "to consult people conversant
with your special line"-presumably the Fifth Column. The two men met at
Godfrey's home for a lengthy discussion the night before Donovan left for
home; 24 and Donovan told Godfrey what he was going to do when he returned:
his intentions were embodied in a "precis," which Godfrey immediately sent
up the line to the First Sea Lord, the First Lord, and the Prime Minister.
According to this:
Donovan urged the appointment of a `sensible ambassador,' who would
go back and forth across the Atlantic and keep the two countries in touch ...
Donovan took back the suggestion of full collaboration in intelligence and
access for the British to US consular officers' reports, especially from the
French ports and North Africa. He recommended direct liaison between
Godfrey and the American DNI, as well as the starting of direct and secret
communications through special signal systems.25
This is a plausible account of things the two men might have discussed,
but there is no echo of it in any documents.26 A hint of it may be found in the
letter Donovan wrote Godfrey on 27 August when he reported to the DNI on
what he had done for him in regard to destroyers, the bombsight, and "various
items." He wrote: "The other items in our little agenda I am sure are being
cared for." What "items" in what "little agenda'? Queried in 1968 as to whether
"our little agenda" and the "precis" are the same document, Godfrey could only
write: "Alas, I have no copy, but the destroyers and the bombsights were the
most important." 27
In dwelling at some length on these meetings with Menzies and Godfrey,
one runs the risk of distorting their place in the context of Donovan's Journey.
Similar paragraphs of fact, evaluation, and speculation could be written on
Donovan's encounters with Air Commodore J. C. Slessor, Brendan Bracken,
Valentine Williams, Robert Vansittart, Sir Cyril Newall, General Malden,
Geoffrey Cunliffe, Lord Gort, and almost countless others. Indeed, it would
be tedious just to list and title them all.
He met everybody, and while he visited many military installations, espe-
cially air facilities and training establishments, his conversations and meetings
ranged encyclopedically over the full gamut of military, political, economic, and
social factors and problems relevant to the waging of war, in particular, to the
'Anderson to Donovan, 13 July; two letters from Kirk to Donovan, 22 July; the reference
to "your special line" is in Kirk's letter to Donovan, 21 July 1940, ibid.
McLachlan, Room 39, pp. 226-27.
The writer is aware that the Anglo-American exchange of secret information, which
was being developed in 1940-1941, is a much larger subject than his own; and he suspects
that Godfrey, in providing material to McLachlan years after the fact, may have confused
discussions with Donovan and other discussions to which he was privy.
' Letter from Donovan to Godfrey, 27 August 1940, Donovan Papers, Vol. 34. Letter from
Godfrey to the Author, 12 December 1968.
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defense of England against the Nazis. He went to make "a brief survey," but
he covered the waterfront in such catholic fashion that Vansittart seems not
far wrong when he informed the Prime Minister that Donovan's "real object"
was to collect as much information as would be useful in the event of America
coming into the war.
One name more, however, must be mentioned; in view of the British con-
fusion and Kennedy's anger at the outset of this trip, something must be said
of Edgar Ansel Mowrer. At the outset he too had problems; by a combination
of "intrigue, influence, and bluster" he and his wife finally obtained airplane
seats for the flight to England. After he had put himself at the disposal of
Donovan, he proceeded "as a newsman ... to poke my nose into everything and
ask indiscreet questions." He and his wife "visited several defense centers and
shuddered at the lack of military preparations;" they too talked to everybody and
dined with the Churchills at No. 10 Downing Street. Before they left London,
Donovan and Mowrer agreed they would report to Roosevelt that "Britain under
Churchill would not surrender either to ruthless air raids or to an invasion." 28
Donovan left England at 2:00 p.m. on 3 August in a four-motored British
flying boat, the "Clare," which was camouflaged with green and blue patches.
The "Clare's" flight marked the resumption of trans-Atlantic passenger service,
the first such run since the interruption of service in October 1939. The trip
had been arranged by the Chief of the Air Staff, who also threw in some cham-
pagne. Brendan Bracken added some books "to mitigate the tedium of the
journey." Even so, Donovan told Colonel Raymond E. Lee, the U.S. military
attache, that the trip home "was as boring as the Clipper" on the outward flight.
Perhaps the only significant thing about the boring trip is the passenger list,
which showed only two other persons beside Donovan, Mr. C. R. Fairey, an
English airplane manufacturer, and Geoffrey Cunliffe, traveling as an official
of the British Air Ministry. Both the travel arrangements made by the British
and the New York Times account agree on this matter, and thus they undercut
Stephenson's claim to having returned with Donovan.2"
Reporting to Washington
Donovan returned to a round of meetings with top American officials. He
arrived in New York at 7:00 p.m. on Sunday evening, 4 August, and the next
morning he spent an hour with Secretary Knox in Washington.30 That evening
the Secretary had as dinner guests Donovan and Mowrer, as well as Admirals
Stark and Anderson, Assistant Secretary of War Patterson, General Sherman
Miles, James Forrestal, the new undersecretary of the Navy, and John O'Keefe,
Knox's secretary and friend of News days. Both Donovan and Mowrer, Knox
wrote his wife, "were extraordinarily interesting and we had a long evening of
talk-very informative. Both men brought home a great fund of useful informa-
Mowrer, op. cit., pp. 315-17.
" Details on the trip are found in letters from Donovan to J. C. Slessor, 5 August, to
Brendan Bracken and to Sir Cyril Newall, 27 August, and to Lee, 28 August 1940. These and
the Air Ministry's passenger list are in Donovan Papers, Vol. 34. The plane's arrival was
reported in the NYT, 5 August 1940, p. 1, col. 3. WJD was described as "the only passenger"
for N.Y.
"" Letter from Donovan to Slessor, loc. cit.; 6 August 1940, p. 3, col. 4.
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tion." The two were "inclined to think the British can defeat an attempted in-
vasion. They agree morale is high, but say British equipment is deficient" 3'
This emphasis on morale and the need to replace the vast quantities of equip-
ment lost in the Battle of France were among the major points Donovan was
to make in this and other meetings with American officials.
On the evening of 6 August Donovan, along with Assistant Secretary of
War Patterson and his wife, were dinner guests of Secretary and Mrs. Stimson.
In his diary, Stimson noted that Donovan's trip had been "taken on the instance
and at the expense of Frank Knox"; the latter phrase must refer to Knox in his
official capacity. Again, Donovan told "a very interesting story," because, as
Stimson noted, "he had come into contact with all the Chiefs of the British
Army; had been taken all over their countries [sic] and had gone up and down
the Islands, so that he knew everything an outsider could learn." While stressing
British morale, Donovan did see as "the greatest danger in the future" a "letdown"
in morale which could develop if the expected invasion did not materialize and
when "the long boring days of winter set in." He "laid special emphasis" on the
home defense units, the role of women and older men in these units, and their
need for 250,000 Enfield rifles. On a larger scale, the need for destroyers, a subject
then greatly occupying the minds of British and American officials, was pressing.38
In these and the next few days Donovan met with members of both houses
of Congress and most of the cabinet, but, with one exception, no record of these
encounters seems to have been made. He did stress with some congressional
groups concerned with the passage of the controversial conscription bill "the
importance of having training before war is upon them." 33 Otherwise, he would
undoubtedly have only repeated what he had told the Knox and Stimson parties.
The President, at a White House press conference on the 6th, had refused
to discuss Donovan's mission, and this had certainly been standard policy for
everyone from the moment the trip was planned. Three days later, at another
press conference on the eve of an. inspection trip to New England, the President
stated, in answer to a question about Donovan: "Oh, I will tell you who is coming
up with [Secretary Knox] and going to be on the train and going down on the
Potomac: Bill Donovan, so he can tell me what he found on the other side when
he went over." When pressed for "any indication of the nature of Donovan's
mission abroad," he replied: "I cannot, and he won't tell you." 34
What Donovan told the President, after joining him at the Hyde Park rail-
road station on 9 August and in the course of the next two days, must be pieced
together from letters he wrote later in the month to friends in England and from
what he was to tell, a few days hence, a group of Army and Navy officers at a
'Letter from Knox to A. R. Knox, 8 August 1940, Knox Papers, Box 3.
' Stimson Diary, entry for 6 August 1940.
' Letter from Donovan to Lee, 28 August 1940, Donovan Papers, Vol. 34.
sa Letter from Elizabeth B. Drewry, Director of the FDR Library, Hyde Park, to the
author, 22 November 1967.
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SECRET COI and the British
luncheon for him hosted by General Miles: 35 that Britain would withstand a
German invasion, that British morale was excellent, and that the military needs
of the country were both great and urgent.
For his listeners, Donovan, who had studied the British defenses and had
discussed them not only with Britishers who tended to give him an encouraging
view but also with more dispassionate American observers like Kirk, Lee, and
Colonel Carl T. Spaatz, ticked off the factors that would give the British the
edge: the excellent organization of the coastal air command, the dispersal of
British airfields, the camouflage of these fields and the shelters provided for the
planes, the barbed wire and machine gun on the coast, and the various defense
zones well organized behind the coastal defenses. Donovan was reported so
sure the Germans would be frustrated, assuming that they would dare to attack-
which he doubted-"that he was already considering if they could take the
offensive next spring."
These "conclusions," Donovan communicated to the President and all others
with considerable vigor and conviction. In his letters to friends in London, he
repeatedly referred to "the healthy" effect which his report had on the mood
of his listeners. In December, when back in England, for a second visit, he was
quoted on his meeting with the President:
... on his return to Washington ... he had found the Administration in a
mood of extreme depression to which, he remarked sourly, Mr. Kennedy
had himself largely contributed. Without any self-conceit he took credit
to himself for having been instrumental in giving impetus to the Destroyers-
Bases Agreement, saying that he had been at great pains in an interview
with the President, who had at first tended to make the interview a mono-
logue, to dwell upon our excellent prospects of pulling through."
Donovan had come back not only to report on and evaluate the British
prospects, and not only to bolster morale, but also to press at the highest level
For the supplying to the British of the supplies they so badly needed from the
United States. Destroyers topped the list; behind them came the Sperry bomb
sight, flying boats, Flying Fortresses, and many aspects of the critical need of
the British for pilots, air instructors, training aircraft, training facilities, and espe-
cially U.S. government cooperation in solving the nice political and diplomatic
problems involved in extending such aid to a belligerent. On these Royal Air
Force necessities Donovan was to spend much time throughout the autumn.
The destroyers, however, drew most of his attention, for on his return he
found the President, Knox, Stimson, Hull, and numerous other official and
unofficial advisors wrestling agonizingly with the legal, legislative, and po-
litical complexities of the deal. There is no question but what Donovan con-
'These letters were written to Menzies, Godfrey, Bracken, and Newall on 27 August,
and to Ronald Tree and Lee on 28 August 1940, and are in Donovan Papers, Vol. 34. The
luncheon is described in a memorandum from Captain W. D. Puleston to Secretary of the
Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr., in the Morgenthau Diary, FDR Library, Book 301, pp. 153-6,
cited hereafter as Morgenthau Diary and not to be confused with From the Morgenthau
I)iaries.
?' Record of Conversation of T. N. Whitehead with Donovan, 19 December 1940, F.O.
Papers, A 5194/4925/45 (1940) No. 541.
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veyed to all these men the British sense of urgency. When he said he had been
"instrumental in giving impetus" to the agreement, he was making a modest
claim. Lord Lothian cabled London that "Donovan helped a lot" 37
There also seems no question but that he was in touch with Stephenson
on this matter at this time. For the Canadian it was a matter of the highest
priority ever since the request for destroyers had first been communicated to
the U.S. by Churchill on 15 May. On 8 August, Stephenson cabled London that
Donovan was strongly urging the British case; Lothian sent his appreciation
a week later; on 21 August, Stephenson advised London: "Donovan believes
you will have within a few days very favourable news;" on the 22nd Stephenson
announced that "the figure of fifty destroyers had been agreed by the President
and that forty-four were in commission for delivery." That Stephenson and
Donovan were now in close touch seems evident from the telegram Donovan
himself sent to London apparently just hours after Stephenson sent his:
Informed that 50 destroyers were agreed last night. 44 are in com-
mission available for delivery. Present intention all to be delivered to Halifax
beginning so soon as British crews are available. Impression in Navy De-
partment that British crews have not yet sailed.
Knox remarked that there will be a hell of a row in Congress tonight
but die is already cast.38
Did Donovan provide more than an "impetus" to the agreement, which
still had hurdles to leap? Stephenson has said that Donovan also played a role
as a lawyer in this matter which was half constitutional law and half domestic
politics. Lord Louis Mountbatten, speaking many years later, stated: "The great
contribution that General Donovan made as a lawyer was to find a way by
which [the agreement] could be done without having to go to Congress." sa
Members of Donovan's law firm, then known as Donovan, Leisure, Newton and
Lumbard, reportedly recalled writing briefs on the subject.40 None of the litera-
ture mentions a Donovan role here. This firm, however, of which Donovan was
the senior partner and co-founder, and which was then located at Two Wall
Street 41 in New York, was and is one of the city's large and respected firms.
It is therefore not hard to imagine, elusive though proof may be, that Donovan,
so deeply seized with the needs of Britain in the summer of 1940, should com-
mission his subordinates to address themselves to the legal problems which so
largely delayed consummation of the deal.
There was at least one other item of business that Donovan took up with
the President and others: the Fifth Column, the threat on the horizon that played
QC, p. 39.
"For Stephenson's cables, see QC, pp. 38-39. Donovan's cable is in Churchill Papers,
loc. cit.
? Speech given by Admiral Louis Mountbatten, upon presentation to him of the William J.
Donovan Medal, on 21 March 1966, in New York, pp. 4-5, Author's files.
40 Otto C. Doering, Jr., private interview, N.Y.C., 6, 8 October 1969. Doering was a
member of the firm before and after the war and worked closely with Donovan in COI and
OSS.
41 In 1973 the firm, now named Donovan Leisure Newton and Irvine, moved uptown to
30 Rockefeller Plaza.
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so prominent a role in the inception of the trip, a new military-political phe-
nomenon that was agitating many Americans-and not just the easily-frightened.
Donovan told Bracken, Churchill's secretary, that the "Administration was very
anxious that something should be said about fifth columnists and hence the
articles" which he and Mowrer wrote jointly and which Knox, who wrote a
preface for them, had disseminated to the press. Donovan told Menzies: "You
may have noticed that I identifed my name with certain articles that were
appearing. This was done at the instance of the President .. ." 42 The articles
drew more praise from that inveterate letter-writer, Felix Frankfurter, than
from either the State Department or the British Ambassador. Justice Frankfurter
sent Knox a note of praise of Donovan, Mowrer and Knox himself for the public
service they had rendered.43 State, treasuring its own report on the Fifth
Column, which had been prepared by Klemmer at the Ambassador's direction,
described the articles as "very general in character" and as containing little
not already known; moreover, in view of the fine relations between the Embassy
and Whitehall, it did "seem ironical that a newspaper correspondent would be
commissioned to undertake such work." 44 Lord Lothian cabled:
With the exception of the fourth, these articles are rather slight and
I cannot say that they have caused any stir. They certainly hardly justify
Colonel Knox's prefatory claim that they contain the results of Messrs.
Donovan and Mowrer's "careful study, made with every official source
available."
The appropriate rejoinder to this depreciation was made at the Foreign Office
by J. V. Perowne who noted on Lothian's cable: "The importance to us of Colonel
Donovan's visit to London is not to be measured by the `weight' of these articles or
even of the attention they may attract in the U.S. or elsewhere." 45 He did not go
on to specify that "importance," and there is probably no reason to think Lothian
really had to be enlightened. Several days earlier, for instance, a measure of that
"importance" was brought to the attention of London, when Arthur Purvis of
the British Purchasing Commission cabled London that as a result of the welcome
accorded Donovan and because of the extent to which secret information had
been disclosed to him, "Colonel Donovan was working with great energy in our
interest. We now had a firm friend in the Republican camp [with the presiden-
tial election in process] and this was proving of immense value." 46
Donovan has already been quoted as saying that after he had been asked
to go to London ". . . other departments of the Government asked me to get
certain information." These and many other requests of his own he had levied on
the British when in London. The replies had begun to come in even before
" Letters to Bracken and Menzies, loc. cit.
" Letter from Frankfurter to Knox, 27 August 1940, Knox Papers, Box 1.
Letter from J. C. Dunn to Herschel Johnson, 29 September 1940, RG 59, File 841.OON/
10. Klemmer's report, "The Fifth Column in Great Britain," 29 July 1940, was forwarded to
Washington by Kennedy, 1 August 1940, ibid. Even this, however, was described as of "no
great value" by "REM" of State's European division, 2 December 1940, ibid.
Desp. No. 755, 26 August 1940, from Lord Lothian Perowne's note is dated 18 Sep-
tember 1940, F.O. Papers, File No. Missing.
" Tel. from Sir Arthur Salter to Churchill, 17 August 1940, ibid., A 3542/90/45 (1940)
No. 237.
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he had departed for home, but the majority had necessitated special research
and preparation and hence it was late August and September before they arrived.
In the meantime, Donovan, as a middleman, was in touch with the "producers"
in London and the "consumers" in Washington; and he was to spend much time
"disseminating" the finished product: a report on economic controls to Edward
Stettinius of the Advisory Commission to the Council of National. Defense;
answers to questions on armaments sent to Admiral Emory S. Land of the U.S.
Maritime Commission; a report on aluminum control to Stettinius; a report from
the Ministry of Economic Warfare to James Forrestal at the White House; and to
General Miles and Admiral Anderson, the service intelligence chiefs, went
several studies or documents on the British army, propaganda, military actions,
and economic problems.47 In an embryonic way, the soldier-lawyer was already
a "coordinator of information."
Had such an idea occurred to Donovan during and after his trip to London?
To say "Yes" would amount to reading too much into too little. He was to say in
1949 that he "had two main objectives when I visited Britain: (1) to find out
about the 5th column there, (2) to learn whether the British were "falling on
their faces' as everybody said." 48 The latter objective caused him to view the
situation as a totality. He sought to learn what the British were doing, what they
could do, and what they needed if they and the West were to survive. As a
strategist he studied the terrain, the people, the military forces, the economy, the
organization of the government, anything related to defense and offense; and
these he then interpreted as capabilities and requirements and fused them for
both the British and the American governments as an order of priorities. He had
come home with the facts; he gave a lift to morale; and he pushed for badly-
needed supplies.
From the British point of view they had gotten an excellent and encouraging
view of a personable, vigorous, experienced, and influential advisor of the Secre-
tary of the Navy, and friend of the President-and a Republican, if that party hap-
pened to win in the fall! Their satisfaction with Donovan was to be made amply
evident when they learned of his second trip in December. But just before that
happened, they put the stamp of approval on him when Lord Lothian was author-
ized on 28 November "to drop a hint to U.S. authorities that, if Mr. Kennedy is
not returning [from the U.S. as Ambassador], it is to be assumed that appoint-
ment of Colonel Donovan would be welcome." 49
Donovan had not yet carved out a role for himself in the war that was shaping
up for the United States. When he dined with the Stimsons on 6 August, the
Secretary asked him to head one of the training camps then being revived by
the Army. "He said he would not say no" Stimson then observed: "He was deter-
mined to get into the war some way or other and was the same old Bill Donovan
that we have all known and been so fond of." 50
d7 All these documents are in Donovan Papers, Vol. 34.
" "Notes from WJD," 5 April 1949, loc. cit.
6? Minute by J. Balfour re tel. to Lothian 28 November 1940, F.O. Papers, A 4955/605/45
(1940).
64 Stimson Diary, entry for 6 August 1940.
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Donovan soon flew out to Wyoming to handle a lawsuit and then went to
San Francisco and Pearl Harbor on an inspection trip with Secretary Knox. On
returning, he reminded General George C. Marshall, Army Chief of Staff, of the
general's earlier suggestion that he visit some of the army camps and mobili-
zation centers. He then spent the first ten days of October at Forts Benning,
Sam Houston, Sill and Knox. He had already written Vansittart that he had "re-
fused the nomination of Senator from this state, also to take any place with the
government. I intend to go with troops, and as it looks now I shall probably spend
the winter in Alabama training a division." 51
Such was not to be the case, and the explanation is not at hand. Another six
to nine months were to pass before the war and his plans were to fuse in a task and
a position.
In the meantime, Stephenson was busily tackling the functional, organi-
zational, and geographic aspects of the establishment and operation of his own
British Security Coordination (BSC). These considerations kept him in contact
with the FBI. Since, however, they required, from his point of view, a new kind of
American organization as a counterpart, they gave him cause to cultivate Donovan.
Hence activity in the last half of 1940 and early 1941 must now be studied if its
impact on Donovan is to be appreciated.
'' Letters from Donovan to Menzies, 27 August, E. R. Stettinius, 10 October, and Robert
Van Sittart [sic], 26 September 1940, Donovan Papers, Vol. 34.
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Chapter V
STEPHENSON'S BRITISH SECURITY COORDINATION'
When Churchill returned to the British government in September 1939,
as the First Lord of the Admiralty, the Fleet was informed of the event by the
electrifying message: "Winston is back." After he replaced Neville Chamberlain
as Prime Minister on 10 May and reorganized the government on the next day,
the world soon became familiar with the "V for Victory" as the sign that
Churchill was, as Stephenson described him years later, "no mere bold facade
but the very heart of Britain, which was still beating very strongly." 1
What Churchill brought to the scene was a fierce determination to meet
and fight the enemy on any and all fields of battle so that the British would
survive as a free people. The issue was simple but the resultant encounters-
defense of the homeland, withdrawal from Dunkirk, a decision on Greece, pro-
tection of the Suez Canal, see-sawing in the Libyan Desert, hide-and-seek in
the world's shipping lanes, and enough more to fill up 6 volumes, 226 chapters,
and 4,986 pages of Churchill's The Second World War-were kaleidoscopic in
the character of their challenges, requirements, resources, and responses.
When Churchill looked out beyond Dover and Dunkirk, few areas appeared
as important, or offered as much hope and promise, and yet provided as many
frustrations and challenges as the United States and the Western Hemisphere.
Here again, the objective was clear, and perhaps nowhere did Churchill express
it so emphatically as when, in a burst of annoyance with one of his admirals
then engaged in Anglo-American staff talks, he wrote:
Our objective is to get the Americans into the war . . . The first thing
is to get the United States into the war. We can then best settle how to fight
it afterwards. Admiral Bellairs is making such heavy weather over all this
that he may easily turn the United States into a hindrance and not a help
to the main object, namely, the entry of the United States.2
In the meantime, the United States was both a promise and a pain-a
promise because it was the arsenal, the workshop, the bank, the friend, but
a pain because it had to be cajoled, mollified, and suffered while its mood
ripened, its organization took shape, and its contributions were impatiently
awaited. The United States was neutral; its mood was sympathetic but "Keep
it over there" referred to fighting in Europe; its sensitivities-political, economic,
religious, ethnic-were tuned to British as well as Nazi-Fascist actions. This
friendly but touchy hope of salvation was also the kingpin in a wider hemispheric
world of friends and foes, supplies and resources, strategic locations, channels
of communications. If Britain found in this Western Hemisphere so much that
was vital, so also did the Nazis, and hence it was that in 1940-1941 the New
World was a battleground on which political and economic warfare was waged.
'QC, p. 37.
2 Churchill to Sir Dudley Pound, First Sea Lord, 17 February 1941, Churchill Papers,
Box 153, Folder 489/4, Serial M. 192/1.
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Churchill had come to power with a willingness to confront new problems
and challenges with appropriately new and invigorating men, ideas, organiza-
tions, and activities. When the Germans took over much of Western Europe
early in 1940, he had brought into being the Special Operations Executive (SOE)
in order to wage war against the enemy overseas by way of subversion and
sabotage, or, "to set Europe ablaze." 3 He had no intention of setting America
ablaze, at least in the same sense, but he intended to use every workable means
in the book to line it up behind Britain. He had his diplomats, treasury experts,
shipping and purchasing chiefs. Surely he needed an intelligence chief; in terms
of the challenge, there was no adequate British intelligence and security system
in the Western Hemisphere. For this job he picked Stephenson.
The New "Passport Control Officer"
Stephenson's first job, after he and his wife Mary-Mary French Simmons,
the daughter of a Tennessee tobacco exporter-had moved into Vincent Astor's
"broken-down boarding house," was to set up shop as His Majesty's Passport
Control Officer (PCO) in New York. His predecessor, Commander Sir James
Francis Paget, R.N., had his office in the Cunard Building in lower Manhattan's
Exchange Place, in what Stephenson considered "cramped and depressing offices,"
and so he immediately moved the shop uptown, in new and more spacious
quarters on the thirty-sixth floor of Rockefeller Center.4 This move foreshadowed
the imminent transformation of Britain's intelligence operations in the United
States.
Before that transformation could be accomplished, however, the new PCO
also had equally important things to do, all at the same time: conduct high-level
diplomacy, intensify liaison with the FBI, and mount selected "special opera-
tions" against the Nazi-Fascist foe. On the first of these items, Stephenson may
he wrong in the matter of "renewing" an acquiantanceship with Donovan, but
there can be little doubt but that he quickly established and re-established
contact with such influential persons as Tunney, Hoover, Astor, Ernest Cuneo-
whose chain "controlled" Drew Pearson and Walter Winchell-Edward G. Budd,
the steel and rail enterpreneur, Harry B. Lake of the international banking firm
of Ladenburg, Thalmann and Company, as well as Donovan. Stephenson claims
to have had many private meetings with FDR, the first of which was arranged by
Astor. On other occasions he made use of Cuneo, Sherwood and Ambassador
Winant as intermediaries with the President.5
That Stephenson established contact with J. Edgar Hoover must not obscure
the fact that there had already been some liaison between the Bureau and
various British intelligence and security officers. This liaison also ante-dated
the approaches made by Hamish Mitchell in March. Hoover on 31 May 1940-
before Stephenson had really gotten to work-told the Interdepartmental Intel-
ligence Conference that some of the British agents with whom the Bureau
'Quoted in E. H. Cookridge, Set Europe Ablaze (N.Y.: Crowell, 1967), p. 1.
' Paget replaced Commander H. B. Taylor as PCO on 1 August 1937, Aide Memoire from
British Embassy, No. 238, 23 July 1937, RG 59, File 702.4111/1414. For move uptown, see
QC, pp. 28, 31-32, 50.
Stephenson, private interview, Bermuda, 17 November 1969.
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was in contact had "been residing in their present quarters for as long as
twelve years, indicative of the fact that they have been stationed at their
post of duty for a long time." At the same time, he noted that both the Canadian
and British services seemed to be "particularly well organized" and that they
were furnishing "considerable information to the FBI." Mitchell had referred,
in his second approach to the Bureau, to a description of "the setup of the
German organization for developing information in the United States" which
had been sent to the Department of State by the British Embassy.
Shortly after the two approaches of Mitchell, Vincent Astor was telling
the President about his own dealings with Sir James Paget and the difficulty
the State Department was causing. The report is worth quoting at some
length:
British Intelligence in this area is in charge of Sir James Paget, assisted
by a Mr. Walter Bell, who conduct the so-called British Passport Control
Office, although the control of passports occupies but little, if any, of their
time.
Shortly after the "club"'s [sic] formation, it occurred to me that Paget
and Bell might from time to time obtain leads useful to us. I therefore
arranged a meeting with Paget, at which I asked for unofficial British
cooperation, but made it clear that we, for obvious reasons, could not
return the compliment in the sense of turning over to them any of our
confidential information. This somewhat one-sided arrangement was gladly
accepted. This was natural, inasmuch as any success that we might have in
discouraging sabotage, etc., would be to his advantage.
On February 16th, Bell reported to F.B.I. that State Department
officials in Washington had registered a complaint because he and his su-
perior had furnished information to U.S. intelligence units. I was away at
the time, but it appears that Bell continued to give direct information, feeling
that by so doing valuable time would be saved. A week later, however, Paget
was instructed by his government to confine all the contacts of his office
with .U.S. officials to representatives of the State Department. This time
both Paget and Bell stated that, though they greatly regretted this situation,
there was no course left to them but to follow instructions. Mr. Hoover
thereupon went to the State Department, and was there informed that the
action had been taken at the request of Mr. Messersmith, now in his post
as Ambassador to Cuba, and that immediate steps would be taken, through
our embassy in London, to the end that Sir James Paget's orders should be
rescinded. This was in early March and since then there have been no
developments. In consequence, opportunities to obtain useful information
are now probably being lost.
Would it be possible to expedite action by the State ]Department,
provided such action is approved of?
Two days later, Astor was again writing the President:
Apropos of delays in the transmission of news originating in the British
Passport Control Office, and transmitted via the State Department . . . an
unfortunate example came to my attention yesterday. Sir James Paget made
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a report, via the State Department, dated March 6th, which was forwarded
to us on April 17th. It is certainly a bit difficult to conduct an effective
blitzkrieg of our own against malefactors when information becomes stymied
in department files for six weeks.6
Apparently, the complaint brought some action, for by July, many weeks
subsequent to these letters, the FBI seemed satisfied with its liaison with the
British. Hoover was telling the Interdepartmental Conference that the source
of the "German documents" about which Miles had queried him would be
calling on him shortly. Again, he told the Conference, 25 days after Stephenson
landed in New York, that "dealings" with the British "had been extended to a
considerable extent and that the Bureau hoped to possess within the course of
a few days a complete outline of the organization of the British intelligence
service within the Western Hemisphere." Then, there is that period of 14 hours
which "Mr. W. S. Stevenson, Attache of the British Foreign Office at London"
allegedly spent with the Director of the FBI some time in the spring.
While Stephenson was intent upon nourishing the SIS-FBI relationship
through a steady flow of intelligence to the Bureau, the basic objective was to
gather and disseminate intelligence information in order to conduct offensive,
as well as defensive, operations against the enemy. At 43, Stephenson had had
only a short career in that field, but the United States offered him many oppor-
tunities. One of these offered itself while he was still on board the "Britannic:"
he recruited an Italian who rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the British
Army, received the D.S.O. and the M.C. and in the meantime distinguished
himself in special operations in Sicily and Italy. At the same time, there appeared
in New York a German agent named Dr. Gerhard Alois Westrick who-operating
as a commercial counselor with the German Embassy-began propagandizing
American industrialists, selling them on a German victory already won, and
luring them with commercial privileges in an Axis-dominated Europe. Stephen-
son, who may have gotten some lead on Westrick from Vincent Astor, fed the
facts on Westrick to the New York Herald-Tribune; the resultant publicity
caused the public to hound Westrick, and in August, 1940, he left the country
,it the request of the Department of State.7
About the time Westrick was leaving, Stephenson was informing London
of the possibility of organizing an anti-Vichy coup on the island of Martinique,
off the coast of Venezuela, where the Vichy gold reserve of an estimated
$245,000,000 and several warships had been sent for safekeeping. The event was
set for 23 September, but the local forces lost heart and support when the
Anglo-Free French assault on Dakar on that day was beaten off. A more success-
ful operation came off late in the fall when four German ships attempted to
run the British blockade in the Gulf of Mexico. One of Stephenson's men in
Mexico City had passed word of the planned break out, Stephenson passed it
through the FBI to the Navy; and State agreed to the dispatch to the Gulf of
" Letters from Astor to Roosevelt, 18, 20 April 1940, Roosevelt Papers, PSF Astor. Astor's
role in intelligence and his relationship with FDR will be covered in Ch.VIl, as will the
"chub" mentioned by Astor.
QC, pp. 228-29, on the recruitment, and pp. 70-72 on Westrick. The Astor possibility is
suggested by his acquaintance with WSS and by his full account of Westrick in a letter to
FDR, 14 June 1940, Roosevelt Papers, PSF Astor.
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four destroyers. In the dark of night, 15 November 1940, the ships made their
break, but the destroyers approached, trained their searchlights on them, and
panic took over. One ship sank, two were captured, and the fourth was interned
until April 1941 as were twelve Italian ships which had stayed in port."
Building a "British Security Coordination" Office
Earlier in this work, great stress was placed on a marginal note made by
General Donovan; here, equally great stress will be placed on the absence of
any such note in another passage of that same work:
Colonel Donovan and Mr. Stephenson kept in close contact through
the autumn of 1940. During this period Mr. Stephenson continually pressed
his view that some extension of American intelligence organization was
going to be required if the United States Government were to be adequately
informed, whether under peacetime, non-belligerent, or wartime conditions.
(Italics mine.)
This passage went unmarked by the General; the assumption that he read
it and found no fault with it follows from the two-fold fact that it was the
preceding page on which he mentioned not knowing Stephenson until his return
and just 14 lines after the above passage that he dashed a large marginal "No,"
underlined twice, opposite a controversial point on his Balkan trip.
A year before the above passage was written, Donovan had signed a
memorandum recommending Stephenson for the Distinguished Service Medal,
and there Donovan spoke of Stephenson as "the earliest collaborator with and
the chief supporter of the early movement" which led to COI, and as a man
"whose early discussions with the Coordinator were largely instrumental in
bringing about a clearer conception of the need for a properly coordinated
American intelligence service." 9
Stephenson's own account of these "early discussions" is, except for the
date, in line with all this:
From the beginning, that is June 1940, I had discussed and argued
with him [Donovan] the necessity for USG to establish an agency for
conducting the secret activities throughout the world-an agency with
which I could collaborate fully by virtue of being patterned in the matter
of coordinated functions after my own organization. Early he agreed in
principle ...10
The significance of Stephenson's "pressing his view" and "argu[ing] the
necessity" of an American organization "patterned" after "my own organization"
can best be appreciated by first returning to the transformation of the PCO job.
The latter had been accepted by Stephenson only because he saw in it the
possibility of a much larger challenge and contribution to the war effort.
'For the Martinique episode, see QC, pp. 111-12, and pp. 56-58 for the Gulf affair.
'Memorandum from Donovan to Adjutant General, War Department, 13 May 1943, CIA,
W. S. Stephenson 201 File.
"Stephenson, "Early Days of OSS (COI)," p. 7.
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Stephenson gave up the Cunard office, was to change the title of his office to
British Security Coordination (BSC), and proceeded, in effect, to write a new
job description for himself. He did, however, keep his office in New York, not
perhaps because he preferred the city to Washington, but because New York
was the chief port of the country, and the security of supplies was a major
concern. New York was also the headquarters of the British Purchasing Com-
mission, which, under the able leadership of another Canadian, Arthur Purvis,
was engaged in the very difficult business of getting British war supplies, so
badly depleted by Dunkirk, ordered, produced, shipped, and financed. New
York was also the location of the British Information Center, whose activities
related to Stephenson's own interest in Nazi efforts to exploit the non-involvement
and isolationist mood of the country. New York was the center of many political
activities, politically important ethnic and racial groups, and of the commercial
and financial circles in which Stephenson moved easily and in which his new
responsibilities brought him many new ties and opportunities.
While it is not possible to reconstruct with any accuracy the chronology
of transformation, or the order in which certain basic tasks were undertaken
and organizational structures and links formed,1' it is clear that one of the
basic building blocks was his takeover from the British Purchasing Commission
of its responsibility for the physical security of British purchases in the United
States. This job was being done only inadequately at the time because of the
smallness of the staff, the rudimentary coordination with other investigative
and law enforcement agencies, the diffuse character of the plants, railroads,
storage areas, and ports in need of tightened security, and the only partially
known dimensions of the enemy threat to American facilities and British
supplies.
The takeover consisted of absorbing the Commission's Security Officer,
Hamish Mitchell, its Credit Investigation Section, and a Shipping Security
Section. These sections formed the core of Stephenson's new Industrial Security
Division, under the direction of Sir Connop Guthrie, an English businessman
with a good deal of shipping experience. New personnel were brought in from
England and Canada, as well as the United States.12 To Stephenson one of the
most important of these was Colonel Charles H. Ellis, whose services Stephenson
demanded from SIS as a sine qua non for his own acceptance of the PCO post.
Ellis arrived in New York on 7 July 1940 and as a professional intelligence officer
was to serve Stephenson throughout the war as his deputy.13
Another basic step in construction was the development of close liaison with
the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canadian intelligence and immi-
gration services. Stephenson, of course, was a Canadian-born and schooled
there, active in business there before and after the war, and always loyal to it;
but Canada was vital to Stephenson for other reasons. For staff, Canadians, who
The BSC story is yet to be written. Presumably much material lies in the FBI files, and
there must be some in such places as the U.S. Customs, Coast Guard, and the New York City
Police Department. There must be some in Britain, even though the writer was informed by the
SIS that it has no "mass of detailed archives" on BSC.
'Z QC, pp. 61-62.
Stephenson, private interview, 16 November 1969. The date of Ellis' arrival is found
in U.S. INS Form 1-404-A, a copy of which is located in Stephenson's INS file A6 762 816.
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presumably knew better how to deal with Americans, were preferred to Eng-
lishmen. Canada's port of Halifax was a major starting point of convoys heading
across the Atlantic. Canadian intelligence on the identification and movement
of known or suspected spies, saboteurs, and couriers, and disaffected workers,
sailors, cargo handlers, and others was essential to the establishment of a pool of
intelligence without which the security job could not be done. Late in 1941
Canada made it possible for Stephenson to establish near Toronto a training
establishment which was utilized by COI and OSS as well as by Stephenson's
organization.14
Almost equally as important as Canada was Bermuda which was an air and
water link between Europe and the Western Hemisphere. Its importance zoomed
in the summer when the trans-Atlantic Pan American "Clippers" once more
began stopping there.15 These flights enabled British security to exercise a great-
er control over the movement of persons, mail, currency and other smuggled
goods, between Europe and the Western Hemisphere. Bermuda was thus a
strategic location for spotting, frustrating and exploiting Axis movements in
the region.
Here again there took place a significant build-up in the British capa-
bility. A Censorship security officer was sent to the island in August, and then
followed additional personnel to carry out passenger interrogations and the
examination of documents. Because the languages spoken by the trans-Atlan-
tic passengers and crews reflected the diversity of Europe, South America,
Canada, and the United States, a small staff of linguists was set up. Thus was
formed a Travelers Censorship Unit. Examination of the mails formed a major
part of the work done in Bermuda, and for this purpose Stephenson had "hun-
dreds" of "censorettes" brought in from England. Bermuda was so central to BSC
that Stephenson commuted regularly to and from New York.16
The necessities of running an intercontinental intelligence network, to say
nothing of Stephenson's background in radio, electronics, and the films, made
communications one of the first technical capabilities developed by BSC. This
was required as much by the need to track down the Nazis' secret radios in the
Western Hemisphere as by BSC's conduct of its own business. At the height of its
operation, according to Stephenson, the communications division was "by far the
largest of its type in operation-over a million groups a day." Similar capabilities
were developed in the successsful exploitation of Bermuda's mail. censorship.
Stephenson claims that it was his organization that first discovered the Germans'
use of the micro-dot.17
"Charles H. Ellis, "Notes for Documentation" (unpublished manuscript, 1963), p. 20.
This document deals with Anglo-American collaboration in intelligence and security, especially
1940-1941, as it involved Stephenson and BSC. The paper is based chiefly on Ellis' own
personal knowledge and experience but is not a memoir. Cited hereafter as Ellis. For the
Toronto school, see QC, pp. 227-28.
" Ellis, p. 36. New York Times, 23 August 1940, p. 8, col. 6.
10 Ellis, p. 36; Stephenson, private interview, 17 November 1969.
14 Stephenson, "Early Days . . . ," p. 1; and private interview just cited. Stephenson's
claim on the micro-dot was a reference to the Hemisphere Intelligence Conference at the
Office of the Director, FBI, 29 January 1942. At this conference Hoover discussed the dots,
and Stephenson stressed the "highly secret" character of their discovery. See Minutes of the
Conference, NA RG 59, File 800.20200/9.
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The extension of activity from New York to Canada and then to Bermuda
did not stop at that island. There were important posts in the Caribbean, such as
Jamaica and Trinidad, and in South America, which had political regimes, ethnic
minorities, valuable minerals, financial resources, and lines of communication
which lay open to Nazi exploitation. Shortly after the build-up in Bermuda,
intelligence and security officers were sent from London to both Jamaica and
Trinidad, and on those islands local committees were established to make
certain that imperial interests and necessities were sufficiently harmonized with
local and regional officials, systems and interests to make all reasonably happy.',,
Late in 1940 Stephenson took over the SOE responsibilities in Latin America.
SOE in Europe concentrated on tactics to disrupt the German war machine in
occupied Europe and behind the enemy's line: sabotage of industrial facilities,
transportation networks, and lines of communication, as well as deception
and propaganda. In the Western Hemisphere, where the United States was very
sensitive to what the British did in the volatile areas to the south, SOE was
restricted to studying and reporting on Nazi movements among the various Euro-
pean emigre groups and to the cultivation of contacts with leaders among them.
By February and March of 1941 there was a network of agents in Venezuela,
Brazil, Cuba, Columbia, and Peru.19
All the while, liaison with the FBI was growing. The connection with
Stephenson was serving the Bureau's interest because of its own growing concern
with the threat or sabotage and subversion. In October, the Bureau requested
the opinion of the Department of State on a proposal to send an official of the
FBI to London "to study police problems in the time of war." 20 One of Hoover's
assistant directors, Hugh P. Clegg, did go to London about that time. In March
the Director of Postal and Telegraph Censorship told Donovan that he had
"explained to Hoover and Clegg how we run our organization, and Clegg and
Hince have been all over it here [London] ; they have all our confidential docu-
ments." 21 Stephenson's activities in the Caribbean and in Latin America
brought him into touch with Hoover as a result of the latter's new responsibility
for investigating and reporting on activities in South America which threatened
the security of the United States. Hoover's "Special Intelligence Service," which
lead the President's personal approval, had access before the end of 1940 to
British intelligence officers as consultants on technical and operational problems .22
The FBI may or may not have wanted to be the only American link with
Stephenson's organization, but as a matter of fact it was not. Details are lacking,
out on 9 October 1940, the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, General Miles,
sent to his representative in New York, Major Frederick D. Sharp, a memorandum
about "W. S. Stephenson" in which he advised the Major: "The subject, who is
an Englishman, and whose telephone number is Circle 6-8580, will call you up
Ellis, p. 37.
Ellis, p. 96.
30 October 1940, RG 59, File 102.31/168. This document is indexed but "not in the
n Letter from E. S. Herbert to Donovan, 7 March 1941, Donovan Papers, Job No. 65-508,
Box No. 83, Item 6 (Vol. 3), cited hereafter as Donovan Papers, Vol. 3.
This SIS is discussed in Ch. VII.
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in the near future. He will tell you who he is, and you will find the contact of
interest and value." 23 Stephenson had apparently met the General at a meeting
of "a dozen top steel men" which had been called at Stephenson's suggestion
by Edward G. Budd.24
The Army and the Navy, as well as other American establishments, had
long since been alerted to the possibilities of sabotage to American military
installations and subversion of American personnel. With the agreement on the
destroyers and bases there went a natural concern on the part of the military
for the intelligence and security aspects of the new installations that were to be
built on Canadian, Bermudian, Caribbean and South American sites. Also,
as the United States moved towards the convoying of supplies the military
became more concerned with intelligence relating to the Western Hemisphere
and less and less inclined to rely on the FBI as the "sole channel" for the
exchange of military information. Again, Donovan learned in March from the
Postal and Telegraph Censor: "The F.B.I., Navy and Army Departments and the
Attorney General Department [sic] are receiving the products of our Western
Stations through appropriate contacts." Army and Navy officers had also been
to Bermuda to study the British system of censorship.21
In December 1940, when Stephenson travelled to London with Donovan,
Stephenson had his own problems to take up with authorities there, and among
these was the best way to tie together all the geographical extremities of the
Western Hemisphere's intelligence and security centers. Again, details are
lacking, but apparently it was during this visit to London that Stephenson
was made responsible for Bermuda and the Caribbean, and by the beginning
of 1941, "arrangements had been made, at Stephenson's suggestion, to link the
British intelligence network in Latin America with B.S.C. in New York." 26
Before considering the build-up of BSC in the United States, it is well to
stop to take a look at the dimensions of what was taking shape under Stephen-
son's direction. Philosophically, the organization was oriented to offensive, as well
as defensive, operations; and there was not always a nice regard for legality.
As Cuneo remarked, "for the British it was a life and death struggle," and he
and others doubted not that the British were often operating illegally in this
country before Pearl Harbor.27 The territory covered by BSC extended far
beyond the confines of the United States from Canada to South America and
included all the intervening cities and ports-especially Halifax, New York,
Bermuda, Jamaica, Trinidad-which figured in the international movement of
persons, currency, goods, and ideas. This geographical coverage meant that BSC
dealt with all sorts of political entities and systems: the independent and neutral
United States, the Dominion of Canada, British colonies in Bermuda and the
West Indies, and the South American republics. From this fact it followed that
BSC also had to deal with a bewildering number of intelligence and law
enforcement agencies: in the United States, the FBI, Army and Navy Intelligence,
the New York City Police, the Coast Guard, and Customs; in Canada the RCMP
Memorandum from Sherman Miles to Sharp, 9 October 1940, RG 165 File 51-901.
Stephenson, private interview, 23 October 1969.
Cf. n. 21, p. 54, supra.
ee Ellis, p. 38.
"Cuneo, private interview, Washington, 27 November 1968.
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SECRET CO! and the British
and other law enforcement agencies; and elsewhere in the Caribbean and
Latin America similar organizations. One can only allude here to what must
have been a large congeries of services awakening slowly, jealously, suspiciously,
and haphazardly to the security requirements of the emergent hemispheric
situation. Finally, this regional concentration on the movement of persons, goods,
and ideas meant that BSC-intercepting mail, decoding messages, interrogating
passengers, "`vetting" crews and business firms, checking port security, tracking
down enemy radio stations, sending its own traffic-was performing a full range
of intelligence and security functions which had previously been done, when
done at all, by different and specialized agencies.
Rather proudly, Stephenson himself described what happened to his basic
position as a regional representative of the SIS. "My original charter," he said,
"went beyond that and indeed was soon expanded to include representation of
all the numerous and generally covert [British] organizations-nine of them-
also Security and Communications." Because of this last element, he said, BSC
became "the only all-encompassing integrated secret security organization which
had ever existed anywhere, and myself the repository of secret information at
all levels beyond that of any other single individual then involved." 28
BSC Worries the State Department
Certainly BSC had grown sufficiently in the United States by the beginning
of 1941 to come to the attention of the Department of State, which had already
seen fit to keep Sir James Paget in place, had frowned on the approaches of
Ilamish Mitchell, and in the last half of 1940 was disposing of a British effort
to organize, the U.S. being willing, the internal security of the country! 29
In January the Department was informed by the British Embassy of the
official existence of a "Director of British Security Coordination in the United
States." Whether this initiative was taken on its own or whether it had been
promoted by some query from State is not known. On 28 January, nevertheless,
an aide-memoire giving Stephenson's name was handed to R. B. Stewart of the
Division of European Affairs. Stewart did not find the title "particularly reveal-
ing" and asked for clarification. He was told that Stephenson's work was in con-
nection with "anti-sabotage protection at ports and also the protection of
British shipments from American factories to the docks." He had already been
engaged in this work "for some time" as Passport Control Officer. The new
title, Stewart was told, "had come from `your own people' in order to make
his relations with them at ports easier, since his work was obviously broader
than that of a passport control officer." Apparently "your own people" was a
reference to Hoover himself. While Stewart "believed there is no objection to
Mr. Stephenson's activities," he did think State ought to get a detailed report
on what he was doing and the names of the various Americans with whom
he was in contact.30
" Stephenson, "Early Days ... ," p. 1.
' An untold episode is the approach in 1940 of Sir Eric Holt-Wilson, at Lord Swinton's
suggestion, to the U.S. Embassy in London with an offer to help the U.S. establish a security
service.
"'Memorandum by R. B. Stewart, 28 January 1941, RG 59, File 841.01B11/190. For
tloover's "suggestion" of BSC as the title, see QC, p. 52.
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Within a week, State had gotten a report from its Special Agent in Charge
in New York City, which indicated that "the quiet Canadian" was also the
unobtrusive Canadian. His telephone number, Circle 6-8580, was known, but he
had so far refused to make known the whereabouts of his office, and "the utmost
secrecy" cloaked the whole affair. Mr. Stephenson was not known to "any of the
Federal officials or agencies in New York that deal with antisabotage protection"
although Americans had much to do with other British officers on such matters.
It was ascertained, however, that Stephenson would now take over this entire
operation and was now gathering a "staff of liaison officers" who will cooperate
with Federal officials throughout the country. Calls were to be made upon the
staff, however, not on Stephenson personally, because he "will direct the national
efforts of the organization." 31
On 25 February, Hoover informed Berle, "as of possible interest" to him,
that "the British government's Director of Security Coordination in the United
States has appointed officers in New York, Baltimore, Seattle, San Francisco,
Los Angeles, and Houston." 32 Some time in March the Department of justice
wanted to know the position of the State Department "in connection with the
very large increase of the British intelligence service which has recently taken
place." 33
In a memorandum on the subject, Berle wrote a full dress review of the
situation and its dangers and the need for action. He described the service as
"functioning under the headship of a chief attached to the Embassy," a reference,
perhaps, to the British Minister, Sir Ronald Campbell; "but the head of their
field service appears to be a Mr. William S. Stephenson, who is thought to be
registered at the State Department as `Security Coordinator'." Nominally con-
cerned with protection of supplies, Stephenson, wrote Berle, is rapidly develop-
ing "a full size secret police and intelligence service," which has a full string
of "regularly employed secret agents and a much larger number of informers,
etc." Information collected is by no means restricted to ships and munitions,
informal contacts are being established at all echelons of national and local
government, and, said Berle: "I have reason to believe that a good many of the
things done are probably a violation of the espionage acts."
Berle admitted that "granting free rein" to the British might not have
serious significance, but on the other hand, who knows but what the information
collected might fall into the hands of the Germans, that the data might indeed
fall into the hands of a new and hostile British government-in the event of
a British defeat, and that perhaps, just perhaps, the British government might
use the information for extra-curricular meddling in purely American affairs.
"My feeling," wrote Berle, "is that the time has come when we should make
a square issue with the British Government." Let the British tell us what ought
to be done that is not being done, and we will take care of it; and if their
activity is duplicating that of the FBI, then it ought to be stopped for that
reason. In any case, legally they are on "almost impossible ground; they are in
81 Memoranda from R. L. Bannerman, Special Agent, to Mr. Clark, Special Agent in
Charge, N.Y.C., 6 and 10 February 1941, RG 59, File 841.O1B11/191, and 192.
8z Hoover to Berle, 25 February 1941, RG 59, File 841.20211/18. CONF.
author, 22 November 1967.
88 Mentioned in letter from Berle to Welles, 31 March 1941, ibid., No./23. CONF.
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fact spies." Berle thought the entire question should be taken up with the
President and that the British activity should be restricted to protection of ships
and munitions and then only after authorization from and in conjunction with
the FBI.
The final point made by Berle was the usual concern for the embarrassing
consequences should anything go wrong. State would be called upon to explain
why it had tolerated "violations of American laws," and "we should be on very
dubious grounds if we have not taken appropriate steps." 34
At the time he was writing this memorandum, Berle was also learning that
none of the persons engaged in the security coordination work had been regis-
tered with the Department as agents of foreign principals. He was informed
that "in view of all the factors involved, including our desire to be as helpful
as possible to the British in this connection," they had come under the exception
which covered foreigners engaged in "the bona fide trade or commerce of a
foreign principal." 35
Berle then took up this matter in a letter to Hoover who was told that
the Secretary of State thought he should be guided by the Attorney General:
would you submit the question to him? Perhaps he "might want to develop the
question with the President, or in Cabinet." In reply, Hoover returned the
hall to State's court: he had already taken it up with the Attorney General, and
there was, therefore, no further action he could take. He did think that Berle
could take it up with Mr. Hull, and then the Secretary could discuss it with
the Attorney General. "In this manner it may be possible to reach some decision
as to the future policy to be followed." 36
There is no need to follow this matter any further. Suffice it to say that
the problem of harmonizing not just the matter of registration but also all the
activities of the BSC with the requirements of American law, politics, and the
bureaucracy, was to become more acute when COI was established and when
the entry of the U.S. into the war called for radical changes in many spheres of
organization and activity. The problem was to become the subject of a touchy
confrontation in March, 1942, between the British Ambassador, then Lord
Halifax, and Sir Ronald Campbell on one hand, and Berle, Hoover, and the
Attorney General on the other. Berle thought perhaps the British "needed a
different type of man to head" BSC. A few days later at another such conference
involving Halifax, Campbell, Berle, and Biddle, the Ambassador asked the
Attorney General to get Hoover and Stephenson together so that the "two men
might understand each other." By this time, and at this conference, the relation-
ship between Stephenson and Donovan, hitherto an unspoken relevancy, was
brought out.37
" Ibid.
Joseph C. Green, to Berle, 1 April 1941, ibid. No./27.
'Berle to Hoover, 21 April 1941, ibid., No./49; Hoover to Berle, 30 April 1941, ibid.,
No./25. CONF.
Memorandum of Conversation on "Activities of British Intelligence Here," 5 March;
Memorandum of Conversation, 10 March 1942, RG 59, File FW 841.20211/36. In the latter
conversation Lord Halifax expressed the opinion that some of the problems under discussion
had been "cleared" with Donovan. Berle did not understand how Donovan could be involved
in what was essentially a domestic matter.
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This chronicling of BSC's growth in the Western Hemisphere, and especially
in the United States and of its relationship with the government has taken
us well beyond the return of Donovan from London in August 1940 and those
"early discussions" with Stephenson which led to COI. It has been important,
however, in showing (1) the kind of problem that Stephenson must have de-
lineated for himself when he first looked over the passport control post, (2) the
kind of situation-philosophical, geographical, political, jurisdictional, and func-
tional-with which he had to grapple, and (3) the kind of American organiza-
tion he needed as a counterpart in the hemispheric conduct of clandestine, sub-
versive, and offensive operations.
Allen Dulles has said that Donovan, in the years before the outbreak of
World War II, had already been at work "planning the type of intelligence
organization America would need as soon as we became a belligerent." 38 No
evidence was advanced for this proposition, and it is possibly, but not probably,
true. It certainly is inconsistent with Donovan's acceptance of the British state-
ment that Stephenson "continually pressed his view that some extension of
American intelligence organization was going to be required...."
As far as evidence is concerned, Stephenson, operating on the basis of his
own concrete necessities, communicated to Donovan-and not without dif-
ficulty-"une idee directrice" or "the idea of an undertaking or enterprise" to be
realized. When taken up by Donovan, this "directive idea" was passed through the
prism of his own experiences as a lawyer, soldier, military strategist and public
servant, and while differently refracted, was neither dissipated nor dissolved, and
remained basically what Stephenson had in mind.39
Some understanding of the fact of different refraction will be gained when
it is realized that Donovan, in 1940-1941, clearly considered Britain as a
"laboratory" 40 in which the U.S. could study responses to modern warfare which
it more than likely would soon have to adopt and adapt to its own peculiarities.
He had already gotten a "feel" for the Fifth Column phenomenon on his trip
to London; he was to see more and learn more on his next trip-three months
in Britain, the Mediterranean, the Middle East and the Balkans.
" Dulles, op. cit., p. 4.
The terminology and ideas of this paragraph are taken from the work of the French
medical doctor and biologist Claude Bernard and the French jurist Maurice Hauriou as dis-
cussed in Moorehouse F. X, Millar, S. J., "Hauriou, Suarez, and Chief Justice Marshall,"
Thought (March, 1932), pp. 8-9.
`? Cf. n. 36, p. 42, supra.
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Chapter VI
There is as much uncertainty about the origin of Donovan's second trip to
London and his subsequent journey to the Mediterranean, the Balkans, and the
Middle East, as there is about his first trip. There is, however, less uncertainty
about Stephenson's role, and the subject of intelligence and special operations
can be tied down more definitely at both the beginning and the end of the trip.
The "Two Bills"off for London
Who proposed what? And why? Stephenson, who had had "discussions" with
Donovan about the need for a new American intelligence organization, also
had "many discussions on what further needed doing in Europe." Donovan had
been much "impressed with the necessity for the protection of U.S. supplies,
which were then beginning to flow to Europe, and hence for the desirability of
the convoying of such supplies by the U.S. Navy in view of the already extend-
ed commitments of the British Navy." So that Donovan could "collect further
evidence to support his proposals" [for convoying], Stephenson "arranged for
[him] to visit Europe again." 1 Stephenson did make arrangements for the trip,
as will be seen, but it was Donovan who "proposed that he should pay another
visit to London and go on to the Mediterranean." 2 (Italics mine.)
An early story of the trip says that "on the first of December Donovan was
called to Washington. By his own account, the President `asked me if I would go
and make a strategic appreciation from an economic, political, and military
standpoint of the Mediterranean area."' 3 In a later account, Donovan indicated
that he went officially as the representative of his friend, Secretary Knox, but
in reality as the agent of the President:
His mission was to journey to the Middle East, to collect information
on conditions and prospects and, more importantly, to impress on everyone
the resolution of the American Government and people to see the British
through and provide all possible assistance to countries which undertook
to resist Nazi aggression.4
When asked by the President, "he accepted with alacrity." His directive
was apparently "so broad that it did not indicate with any precision where he
was to go." 6 The Mediterranean was the area, for it was here that Britain's posi-
tion was most critical; the Italians had opened hostilities in Libya and had invaded
Greece; the Germans seemed poised for thrusts either through Spain into North
'Cf. n. 41, p. 26, supra.
2 QC, p. 43.
'Read, op. cit., p. 13.
William L. Langer and S. Everett Gleason, The Undeclared War, 1940-1941 (N.Y.:
Harper, 1953), p. 397.
Read, loc. cit.
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Africa or into the Balkans and the Middle East; from Gibraltar to Suez, the land,
the passage-ways, and the waters were problems for the British. Once he had
decided to go to the Mediterranean, it then seemed wise to go to London first in
order to get acquainted with British plans and intentions. The President report-
edly suggested that he should find an occasion en route to confer with General
Maxime Weygand, France's commander-in-chief in Algiers, and "explore with
him the possibilities of some form of Franco-American action in North Africa." 0
This mission is perhaps what Knox and the State Department had in mind when
they asked him to go to "North-West Africa." 7 When he visited with Secretary
Stimson, his itinerary and its purpose made the Secretary's "mouth water":
Donovan was going "to take another look around and see what is really up in
Gibraltar, Malta ... Syria and Egypt-or else it was Greece and Egypt-and
then he hopes to get down into Central Africa and to meet General Smuts of
South Africa, coming up to see him."
"Incidentally," wrote Stimson:
he brought up the question of his own fortunes after he got back in re-
gard to a command post in the Army. I told him of the change of conditions
which have taken place in regard to the 27th Division (and how he could
not interfere) with . . . that Command. Donovan was very nice about
that and said that what he wanted more than anything else would be the
toughest Division of the whole outfit ...8
The news of the trip was first communicated to London by Lord Lothian
who cabled on 27 November that Colonel Knox had asked him if Donovan,
"who has done splendid work for us since he visited England can pay a short
visit to the Middle East front." e Two days later, in London, Foreign Secretary
Halifax wrote Lord Beaverbrook, the Minister for Aircraft Production, that he
had "learnt from a private source in the United States that Colonel Donovan
(now Major-General Donovan) is preparing to pay another visit to England
to be followed by visits to certain places in the Mediterranean and to Casa-
blanca and Dakar." 10 It is difficult to conclude who the "private source" was.
if it was not Donovan himself or Stephenson, and equally mystifying is Lothian's
rather premature promotion of the Colonel. Not until 4 December did Lothian
report that Donovan was going to England; in changing the request for travel
arrangements, the Ambassador noted that Donovan is "one of our best and most
influential friends here with a great deal of influence both with the Service
Departments and the Administration." 11
Ibid.
Tel. from Lothian to F.O., No. 2926, 4 December 1940, F.O. Papers, A 4925/4925/45
(1940) No. 518.
Stirnson Diary, 2 December 1940.
Tel. No. 2829, 27 November 1940, F.O. Papers, A 4925/4925/45 (1940) No. 505.
" ? Letter from Lord Halifax to Lord Beaverbrook, 29 November 1940, A 5059/4925/45
(1940) No. 526.
" Cf. n. 7, supra.
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In London the British were happy at the prospect of his return. Duff Cooper
minuted: "He is a close friend of mine ... I think he was very satisfied with
the arrangements we made on the last occasion." 12 Halifax noted that Donovan
had been very helpful to the British, thanks to the welcome which had been
accorded him earlier; he was so thoroughly reliable that "certain secret informa-
tion" had been released to him. The Army Council considered his visit of "the
greatest importance from the point of view of Army supplies from the United
States of America." Lothian, cabling again on travel plans, hoped no difficulties
would arise "as he is such a valuable champion of our cause and is on the
inside of all pro-British activities." To this the Foreign Office sent assurances
that Donovan was welcome both in London and the Middle East.13
The real test of British acceptance was pinpointed by Sir Archibald Sinclair,
Secretary of State for Air, who agreed that Donovan "is a good friend of ours"
but noted that the favorable impressions he took away were due to the "frank-
ness of our conversations ... We showed him a great deal and took him very
largely into our confidence-I think we have had no reason to regret doing so."
Unless we do so again, he continued, "the effect will be deplorable." The problem,
he said, is that "the Prime Minister and Lord Beaverbrook have recently ex-
pressed strong views against giving the Americans secret information. I think,
therefore, that you should perhaps mention this project to the Prime Minister
and obtain from him directions on how far we should take Colonel Donovan
into our confidence." 14
Britain's intelligence chief in New York stepped in at this point with his
own impressive recommendation, which was communicated to the Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs, Lord Halifax, by Sir Alexander Cadogan:
"C" [Menzies] tells me that Mr. Stephenson, who travelled over with
Colonel Donovan, has impressed upon him that the latter really exercises
a vast degree of influence in the administration. He has Colonel Knox in
his pocket and, as Mr. Stephenson puts it, has more influence with the
President than Colonel House had with Mr. Wilson.
Mr. Stephenson believes that if the Prime Minister were to be com-
pletely frank with Colonel Donovan, the latter would contribute very largely
to our obtaining all that we want of the United States.'-'
The Prime Minister's reaction will be noted shortly. Here only one other
reaction of the British to the trip needs to be mentioned. J. V. Perowne, ob-
viously remembering the confusion attending the announcement of the Mowrer-
Donovan trip, minuted "but we ought to know whether Colonel :Donovan is
' Letter from Cooper to Halifax, 10 December 1940, F.O. Papers, A5059/4925/45 (1940)
No. 531.
'Letters from Halifax to Eden and Sinclair, 5 December 1940, F.O. Papers, A 4925/
4925/45 (1940) Nos. 508, 509; Letter from War Office to Under Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs, ibid., No. 510.
'k Letter from Sinclair to Halifax, 7 December 1940, F.O. Papers, A 5059/4925/45 (1940)
No. 529.
' Letter from Cadogan to Secretary of State, 17 December 1940, F.O. Papers, A 4925/
4925/45 (1940) No. 535.
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coming on behalf of the Secretary of the Navy or the Chicago Tribunel"
[News] 16
This time Stephenson did travel with Donovan; London was told: "Mr.
Stephenson, Passport Control Officer at New York, will be the fourth in the
same plane to Lisbon and both he and Colonel Donovan are most anxious that
it should be arranged for them to travel together from Lisbon to London." In
London arrangements were made "to see that Mr. Stephenson obtains accom-
modation on the Lisbon-London aeroplane with Colonel Donovan." Lisbon, in
turn, was notified of the importance of the visitor: "he is most friendly and
useful to this country. Stephenson, Passport Control Officer at New York is ac-
companying D[onovan]." 17
Together they left from Baltimore for Bermuda on 6 December on what the
press called a "secret mission tied to France." Donovan was described as travel-
ing "incognito . . . with two others, one a Frenchman," one Desgarges, whom
rumor connected with a possible approach to Weygand. Donovan was said to
be traveling under the name of "Donald Williams," even though his luggage bore
his own initials. The third member of the party was a "Mr. O'Connell." Years
later Stephenson insisted that he was "Williams," and anyhow, "O'Connell" fitted
Donovan's background rather than his ownl 18
In Bermuda, the schedule called for a change to the Atlantic Clipper which
had taken off from LaGuardia and was to make a short stop in Bermuda. The
weather in the Azores was so foul, according to Stephenson, that "the waves of
Horta" kept th@ travelers waiting at Bermuda for eight days. Despite their im-
patience and the high level travel resources that normally could be called upon,
the travelers had to wait upon the waves. One can only assume that some of
the intervening time must have been spent by Stephenson showing Donovan
quite a bit of BSC's Bermudian operation, especially some of the intricacies of
intercepting the mail.
The Prime Minister let it be known that he wanted to see Donovan as soon
as he arrived.'9 He landed on 16 December, and two days later the two lunched
at No. 10 Downing Street.20 Donovan told Churchill there was a need for a
"study on the economic, political and military factors to see if there could not
be developed a type of doctrine that would be common to both countries."
Churchill, as Donovan described the encounter shortly after returning to the
U.S., seized upon the idea and gave him as traveling companion "the best man in
the Cabinet Secretariat," Lt. Col. Vivian Dykes of the Royal Engineers, "who
has been present at meetings of the joint Board and combined arms." Churchill
also gave Donovan all the studies that had been done on the Mediterranean
'"Notation on cover folder of F.O. Papers, A 4925/4925/45 (1940).
Tels. from Lothian to F.O., and from F.O. to UK Embassy, Lisbon, 5 December 1940,
ibid., Nos. 519 and 517. Arrangements were made by Sinclair's private secretary.
"New York Times, 7 December 1940, p. 1, col. 2, Stephenson, private interview, 17
November 1969.
" Notation by J. Balfour; cf. note 16, supra.
"New York Times, 19 December 1940, p. 5, col. 2.
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and Middle East situation, studies which, Donovan noted, covered all the parts
but did not include "a comprehensive view combining all points as part of one
strategic front." 21
Whether or not Churchill needed Stephenson's urging to be frank with
Donovan, the Prime Minister was just that. A "book" message to the field ordered
that "every facility" be afforded Colonel Donovan, who has "great influence
with the President" and who "has been taken fully into our confidence." The
message makes clear that the trip was financed by the SIS: "Colonel Dykes has
been told to draw on His Majesty's Embassy (or Legation) for funds which
should be charged to the funds of the Assistant to the Oriental Secretary (or the
Passport Control Officer) ." 22
There is some argument about another message which was allegedly sent
at Stephenson's dictation by the Director of Naval Intelligence, Admiral Godfrey,
to Admiral Andrew Cunningham, the Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean
Fleet. Godfrey has denied Stephenson's description of its sending. Nevertheless,
the sentiments and the endorsement certainly reflected Stephenson's attitude:
Donovan exercises controlling influence over Knox, strong influence
over Stimson, friendly advisory influence over President and Hull ... Being
a Republican, a Catholic and of Irish descent, he has following of the
strongest opposition of the Administration . . . It was Donovan who was
responsible for getting us the destroyers, the bomb-sight and other urgent
requirements . . . There is no doubt that we can achieve infinitely more
through Donovan than through any other individual . . . He is very recep-
tive and should be made fully aware of our requirements and deficiencies
and can be trusted to represent our needs in the right quarters and in the
right way in the U.S.A.23
The day after he lunched with Churchill, Donovan had a long conversation
at the Foreign Office where he made it clear that his "primary object" was to
obtain a coherent picture on the spot of the British position in the Near East
and Mediterranean. He had stopped in London first in order to get acquainted
with Britain's plans and intentions and to study "the whole picture of our war
effort, with particular reference to the Atlantic." As he saw it, the British were
taking a "severe plastering" on the seas, and American policy ought to be aimed
at remedying this situation. He told his interlocutors that he would make a
report to the American people who attach "great value" to a verbal rather
than a written report.24
Before leaving London, he publicly declared that on returning from his
first visit he had reported that the British people were "resolute and courageous."
Now he would add, he said, that they were "confident." Aside from admitting
21 Speech given by Donovan to officers of the War Department 17 [20] March 1941,
OSS Records, Job No. 62-271, Box 29, Folder 8, p. 2, cited hereafter as "WD Speech." The
date on the text is 17 March; Donovan did not return until the 18th, and he did address Army
officers on 20 March.
Q' Tel. No. 1608, 24 December 1940, F.O. Papers, A 5194/4925/45 (1940) No. 543.
23 QC, p. 44. Godfrey stated in a letter to the writer, 12 December 1968: "I had
nothing to do with D[onovan]'s Mediterranean trip and sent nothing to Cunningham."
1' Cf, n. 36, p. 42, supra.
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that his trip was official, he evaded questions about its purpose, saying only:
"I accept as the truth that shipping is the most urgent war problem facing
Britain now." 25
Back home, on 27 December, a sharp reader might have noticed a nine-line
item at the bottom of the page that Donovan had left London the day before
"for an undisclosed destination ... Friends said that Colonel Donovan had not
left for Ireland, the United States, or the Continent, but was making a `private
trip.- 26 Again, however, a delay was encountered, and four days' waiting at
Plymouth gave him a good chance to see some of the training of a unit of
commandos about which he got quite excited and was to write a long paper
to Secretary Knox.27
Donovan Sees Everything
This is not the place to write a detailed account of Donovan's journey,
which must be reckoned one of the most extended, varied, and important trips
taken to scenes of World War II action by any American, certainly up to that
time.28 He had left Baltimore on 6 December and was not to return home
until 18 March. In that time he traveled from Portugal to Britain, and then he
was off to Gibraltar and Malta, to Cairo, which he reached on 7 January, to the
Western Desert of Libya, back to Cairo and off to Athens, Sofia, Belgrade, then
back to Greece and the Albanian front, next to Turkey, Cyprus and Palestine,
back again to Cairo and soon off to Baghdad, in Cairo once again, and then
began a homeward journey which still had him stopping at Gibraltar, Malta,
Spain, Portugal, and Ireland, and back to England again before finally heading
for the States. (See Figure 5.)
As befitting a representative of the President and one who had the full
confidence of the Prime Minister, Donovan saw everybody, everybody, that is,
except General Franco, who was "very busy," and General Weygand, because
the Germans made it clear they did not want Donovan on French-controlled
territory.29 Otherwise, Donovan saw and talked at great lenght with King Farouk
of Egypt, King George and Premier Metaxas of Greece, King Boris of Bulgaria,
Prince Regent Paul of Yugoslavia, his chief ministers and several generals, the
Mufti Hai Amin al Husseini, Foreign Minister Suiier in Spain-whom he treated
exactly "as if he was a German," 30 and Premier de Valera in Ireland. He saw
no end of British generals and admirals, including Wavell, Dill, Wilson, Cun-
ningham, and Tedder.
' New York Times, 21 December 1940, p. 1, col. 4.
Ibid., 27 December 1940, p. 2, col. 5.
' "WD Speech," p. 2.
a" Col. Dykes kept an excellent diary, 60 pages, typewritten, single-spaced. It is a docu-
ment that, properly edited, could stand on its own as a source-book on World War II.
Donovan Papers, Vol. 3, cited hereafter as Dykes Diary.
"On Franco, see tel. from U.S. Ambassador Weddell to Hull, No. 162, 1 March 1941,
RG 59, File 740.00118 E.W., 1939/142. On Weygand, see paraphrase of tel. from U.S.
Embassy, Vichy, France, No. 151, 3 February 1941, CNO Files, A 8-2/EF13. See also Dykes
Diary, p.. 37, "The Germans evidently dislike the very strong line he has been taking on our
behalf in the Balkans recently."
a' Dykes Diary, p. 58.
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Wherever he went he busied himself with what was on peoples' minds. In
Gibraltar, preparing defenses was the order of the day; the thinking was that
the Germans could not take the Rock, but control of Spain would deny Britain
the use of the harbor. In Malta, he found praiseworthy the defense efforts being
put forth by "an old sapper," General Dobbie, "a Cromwellian soldier who goes
around carrying a Bible in one hand but a damn good sharp sword in the other."
In Libya and Egypt he was impressed by the quality of Britain's military lead-
ership: Wavell, whose model is General Allenby, who writes well, and has "an
excellent force with him," General "Jumbo" Wilson, a big, husky fellow with
a fine eye for ground;" a corps commander named O'Connor, "an active, driving
kind of fellow, which was evidenced by the way he pulled off that final advance
on Benghazi;" and Admiral Somerville, "who was the fellow who did the firing
at Oran and [is] really a high class man." 31 In Cairo he had a long talk with
Brigadier Shearer, the deputy chief of military intelligence, who showed him
"some of his Intelligence Establishments ('Y' and 'M')." 32 In Palestine he was
surprised to see how quickly "the Jewish boys got on to the rhythm of the
drill, whereas the Arabs, "being more dull by nature, had quite a time trying to
keep step." In Iraq he talked with the Mufti and others, all of whom wanted
to talk with him in order to get arms. "They were a little discouraged on that
when we finished our talk." 33
It was the Balkan world, along with the problem of supplies for Britain,
and protection of the supply line, that preoccupied him. In Greece, his talks
with the leaders covered Greek preparations, strategy, and tactics for the resist-
ance they were determined to offer to any German advance. They covered also
the supplies needed by the Greek Army: anti-aircraft guns, mountain guns with
ammunition, Ford trucks, donkeys eleven hands high, uniforms, shoes, and socks.
His visit to the Albanian front impressed upon him the ruggedness of the Greek
soldier, his simple but eloquent emphasis on liberty, and especially, the fact
that he was making his fight "with a rifle, a rock, and a mule." 34 In Athens,
and everywhere he went, he delivered his own message that Britain was fight-
ing, that America would support the democracies, and that the President him-
self was being given "overwhelming support" in this regard.
Bulgaria and Yugoslavia were critical points because of their exposed posi-
tion vis-a-vis German moves to the southeast. At Sofia he had a celebrated hour
and a half meeting with King Boris in which that monarch, already secretly
committed to Hitler, merely smiled when Donovan, endeavoring to ascertain
the Bulgarian attitude, summarized it as meaning that the Bulgars would delay
a German passage as long as possible, then permit it under pressure, but not
participate with the Nazis. Sofia also provided Donovan's celebrated loss of
his wallet and passport, which were snitched from him either while he was
conversing with the King or back in his hotel room when the lights were un-
accountably turned off.35 While the theft was subsequently the subject of many
"WD Speech," pp. 2-4.
" Dykes Diary, p. 15. "Y" referred to a naval wireless interception organization, and
"M" was an SOE school.
" "W.D. Speech," pp. 8-9.
u Ibid., p. 7.
' Ibid., p. 4. With him at the time was "one of the British security fellows" whom U.S.
Minister Earle wanted him to see.
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jokes, it had no serious consequences, even though the British quickly picked
up a report that secret documents of theirs had been lifted from him; and there
followed the usual flurry of telegrams reflecting "acute concern." 36
Yugoslavia gave him a good opportunity to appreciate all the imponderables
of the critical Balkan situation. Would Grmany intensify political and economic
pressures or attack? Against whom? Where? When? To what exent? The Yugo-
slavs, he was certain, would not permit German passage, but would they in-
tervene if the Germans moved to and through Bulgaria? "While not without
hope," Donovan was "impressed with the weaknesses and divisions of the Bel-
grade regime." 37 Yugoslavia provided him with another celebrated event, this
time alleged responsibility for the anti-Nazi coup pulled off in Belgrade shortly
after he left the country. Donovan wrote "No" to this charge, and Langer and
Gleason concluded: "There is no evidence ... to show that either American or
British influence played an important part in this dramatic overturn." Even
so, the occasion was grist for the Nazi propaganda mill.38
The Balkan situation was the cause of the high point of Donovan's trip,
namely, his meetings in Cairo with British leaders as they wrestled with the
question of whether and how to help Greece resist a German onslaught. The
British consulted him as a representative of the President, as someone who was
passionately interested in their welfare, and as a clear-sighted strategist, as one
who had been on the ground, talked with the leaders, understood the issues
and fully appreciated the consequences of action and inaction. He was on his
way to the Sudan when a message from Foreign Secretary Eden asked him to
wait in Cairo for the arrival of himself [Eden] and General Dill, Chief of the
Imperial General Staff.39 On the day they were to arrive, Donovan had dinner
alone with General Wavell, who then outlined what he intended to tell Eden
and Dill.40 Donovan favored British help to Greece and had been a vigorous
supporter of the British effort, in vain as it turned out, to form a Balkan
alliance to forestall a German move. He was present with the British leaders
when the decision was taken to send not only supplies but British soldiers back
on to the continent to help their Greek ally. Not unappreciative of the value of
his support, they asked him to go to London to present his study of the Medi-
terranean before the Council of War.41
That study had just been written by Donovan and is one of two long papers
that he sent to Washington. The first of these papers was "the substance of
information that I have obtained from a great many different kinds of people."
"The telegrams are in RG 165, File 2257-ZZ-331, Nos. 2-4. Actually it was not a joke
at the time; Dykes wrote: ". . . when I returned I found him [Donovan] looking as worried
as I have even seen him ... we made a frantic search through all his bags ... ," Also, this
time on the lighter side, the Bulgarian authorities were so understanding that crossing the
border without a passport was "easier" than with one, Dykes Diary, p. 27.
84 Langer and Gleason, op. cit., p. 398.
" Ibid., p. 408. Donovan's "No" is written opposite the statement: "There is no doubt
that it was entirely due to the line he took in Yugoslavia that General Simovic was persuaded
to eject the then pro-German Government . . . ," which appears in "British Relations with
OSS," loc. cit.
"Paraphrase of Tel. No. 82, 20 February 1941, from U.S. Legation, Cairo. CNO Files
A 8-2/EF13.
'? "WD Speech," p. 9.
41 Tel. No. 87, 22 February 1941, from U.S. Legation, Cairo, CNO Files, A 8-2/EF13.
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The report summarized major attitudes about the likely course of the war; the
main idea" he found throughout the Near East was the belief that Germany,
to achieve a decisive victory, had to invade and conquer Britain. This entailed
destruction of the British position in the Near East and the maintenance of the
Nazis' own position in Southeastern Europe, and Donovan then outlined the
various options that lay at hand for the Germans.42
His Mediterranean study was a different kind of paper in that it not only
discussed possible and probable developments but prefaced them with a brief
outline of his theory of the Mediterranean as a "No Man's Land," and supple-
mented them with his own strong advocacy of American support of a Balkan
alliance. The Mediterranean, he had decided since his trip in July, was not so
much the east-west line of communications that was traditional in British think-
ing as it was now "a no man's land between two lines on a strategic front
running from Spain to the Black Sea. Germany holds the northern or European
line except at the two ends. Britain has gained control of much of the southern
or African line." It was now up to Britain, he argued, to work from inside the
Mediterranean, to gain control of that sea, to retain her salient in Greece, and
to hold on to the Balkans, while keeping Germany out of Spain, as well as North
Africa, at the other end of the "no man's land." Arguing and urging like a
lawyer in court, he declared the President should lend his name, which held
such appeal in the area, and his support to a league of Greece, Turkey, Yugo-
slavia, and, if possible, Bulgaria, against the Nazis.4-1 This was not to be, but
that is another story, as is the painful consequences of the decision on Greece.
His visit to the Iberian Peninsula enabled him to contrast the economic
campaign needed there with the military campaign called for at the eastern
end of the Mediterranean. Ever concerned with the socio-economic aspects of
warfare, Donovan found that the only way of keeping the Germans out of
Spain was to ship in food. He had talked with Dr. Alexis Carrel, then studying
the effects of near-starvation in Spain, who told him the Spaniard was living on
800 of the 1800 calories that an ordinary human required.44
Throughout his travels, Donovan had met and talked with several military
and naval intelligence people, just, it must be stressed, as he had talked with
all kinds of specialists in the fields of strategy, tactics, aircraft, ordnance, trans-
portation, training, health, and anything that pertained to the winning of the
war. What contact, however, did he have with such outfits as SIS and SOE?
The former was paying the bill for his travels, and Dykes regularly contacted
the Passport Control Officer. In Athens this was a man named "Edge." In Sofia
Donovan "met Smith-Ross, our P.C.O. there, and brought him back for a talk
in the hotel." In Belgrade Dykes had "a long talk with Lethbridge the
P.C.O.... and discussed with MacDonald the D. organization which was ap-
parently in a very bad state in Grand's time but now shows some signs of
improvement. This corroborates what Alec Ross told me in Belgrade." Back in
' Tel. No. 24, 7 February 1941, from U.S. Embassy, Ankara, ibid.
"Tel. No. 81, 20 February 1941, from U.S. Legation, Cairo, ibid. Dykes Diary, pp. 48-52
shows that Dykes wrote the first draft of this appreciation, and Donovan "redraft[ed] it in
his own words."
" "WD Speech," p. 10.
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Athens, Dykes had "a long talk with Forbes ... about our C. and D. organiza-
tion in the Balkans with which he is profoundly dissatisfied like everyone else
I have talked to in these parts." In Madrid Dykes "went round to Walsh, Pass-
port Control Officer, to send off two cables for D[onovan] and get a :little money
to buy a picnic lunch for myself and D." It is not too much to conclude that
Dykes and all these people must have contributed significantly, at the bidding
of Churchill, Stephenson, and Menzies, to Donovan's education in secret intel-
ligence and special operations.45
Deeper into Intelligence
Before Donovan returned to London, he had been the subject of some Cairo-
London cable traffic. Eden, still deep in making the decision on Greece, took
time out on 22 February to suggest to the Prime Minister that on the return
of Donovan to London "we show him every attention and express our gratitude
in anyway possible." Eden particularly thought that Donovan would appreciate
it, "and it would strengthen his hand when he gets home," if Churchill agreed
to send a message to the President, through Lord Halifax, Ambassador in
Washington, thanking both the President for sending Donovan and the latter
for the "judgment and energy . . . the real service" he had rendered to "this
country and our cause." 46
Meanwhile, another telegram from Cairo suggested that some "priming"
of American correspondents in London might help to get "full publicity" out
of the access given Donovan and the use he made of it.47 On both matters,
Balfour at the Foreign Office had words of caution. Donovan, he said, had
come as the "personal emissary" of Knox, not of the President; indeed, while
he had the confidence of the President, he was not one of his intimate associates.
"We have, moreover, heard from the Embassy in Washington that Mr. Cordell
Hull is slightly jealous of Colonel Donovan." Balfour thought a message of ap-
preciation could be sent to Halifax, who could then send it on to Knox, who,
in turn, could decide on sending it to the President. As for the press, Balfour
pointed out that Donovan "is himself determined to do everything to promote
our cause" but has made it clear that he will handle the press in his own way.
He did not want to see American correspondents before seeing FUR lest they
misrepresent the strong position he had taken in support of the British in the
Near East. Balfour cautioned that Britain did not want to make it appear that
Donovan was taking a stronger line than the U.S. might wish.48
" Dykes Diary, pp. 20, 26, 28, 34, and 59. Grand was Lt. Col. (later Maj.-Gen.) Laurence
D. Grand, who headed the SIS division D (Subversion), which became part of SOE. Division
C handled espionage.
"Eden to Churchill, Tel. No. 361, 22 February 1941. F.O. Papers, A 1728/183/45 (1941).
4? Tel. No. 359, n.d., ibid., A 1154/183/45 (1941). The following appears in Dykes Diary,
p. 52: "(On 21 February) ... I also drafted another telegram, as from Eden, to the Foreign
Office regarding the publicity arrangements necessary for D. on his return to England. We
had discussed these at considerable length, and he had pointed out to me that it was necessary
that he should get a 'build up' in the American Press if his report was to carry full weight."
The last sentence, beginning "We had discussed" was heavily blacked out with a pencil.
" For Balfour's comments, see Tel. No. 359, supra.
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On 25 February, a Foreign Office minute indicated that "some time ago"
Ambassador Halifax was told to convey Britain's thanks to Knox, because
I)onovan was his emissary. "But if Colonel Donovan himself would like a mes-
sage of appreciation sent to the President, we should be only too glad to send
it. We could confirm that this would meet his wishes when he arrives." The
'rime Minister, at the end of January, had sent a letter of congratulations to
Donovan. The last available item on this suggestion is Sir Alexander Cadogan's
recommendation that the matter be taken up with Donovan when he arrives,
because he "is a person with whom we can discuss matters with entire frank-
ness. ' 49
Donovan had planned on returning to London even before Eden, Dill, and
Wavell had asked him to do so; Eden, indeed, had politely made such a visit
a pre-condition for letting the Colonel go to the Middle East front.50 Donovan
.rot back to England "just at the time that Eden and Dill had worked things
out in the East, and it (the decision to aid Greece] was put up to the War
Cabinet. They asked me to go before the joint Board, made up of the Rep-
resentatives of the different arms and the economists from the Ministry of Eco-
nomic Warfare . . . I then went to luncheon with the War Cabinet and with
the Chiefs of Staff." 51 What he told them is not known; but, given half a chance,
he must have outlined his Mediterranean strategy, and surely he endorsed the
decision to send troops into Greece. Several days later he described that step
to American officers as "a very daring and audacious thing," calculated to make
he Germans pay for everything they took.52
Once back in England, however, he found other items of war dumped on
his doorstep, and these were items which linked him more closely to Stephenson's
kind of activity.
Some of this, the commandos, he has seen while waiting at Plymouth. He
had seen much more of highly specialized guerrilla units training and operat-
ing in Libya. He was greatly impressed by the employment of parachutists who
had been trained in England, then based briefly in Malta, and finally dropped
into Italy in order to destroy an aqueduct. "The net effect was that all through
Italy was spread this fear of the British parachutists coming into the country." 53
In London he was thoroughly briefed on the organization and operation of
the Special Operations Executive. He had a meeting with its head, Sir Frank
Jelson, who in response to his request for "a few brief details," sent Dykes a
note on the SOE training schools, a short description of "our Board of Direc-
tors-so to speak," and a "brief outline of system adopted in this country" for
special operations .54 Nelson said the Board was composed mainly of business-
The F.O. minute and Cadogan's comment are found in Eden's Tel. No. 361, supra.
Letter from Eden to Halifax, 5 December 1940, ibid., A 5059/4925/45 (1940) No. 521.
"WD Speech," pp. 10-11.
Ibid., p. 11.
Ibid., p. 8.
s' Letter from Nelson to Dykes, 11 March 1941, with attachments on "the system" and
on the "Special Training Schools," Donovan Papers, Job. No. 65-508, Box 83, Item 5 (Vol. 2)
gated hereafter as Donovan Papers, Vol. 2.
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Col and the British
men; this `Brain Trust" met every morning for an hour to consider projects,
which were then turned over to the Intelligence and Planning Department and
then to the Director of Training and Operations.
The special training schools, some of which he visited, were conducted by
SOE's M Section. They trained foreigners as either "desperadoes" for specific
raids or sabotage in their own or other countries, or as "organizers and agents"
to be sent to enemy-occupied countries to organize Fifth Column activities. De-
pending on which category an individual fell into, his training varied from four
weeks to indefinite. The "desperadoes" went to "Depots" where the unfit were
weeded out and then to "Para-military schools;" the others continued on to "Fin-
ishing Schools" where they were trained in security organization in hostile ter-
ritory, the use of agents, propaganda-whispering campaigns, rumors, etc., "po-
litical training"-anti-Nazi underground political movements, and "organization
of subversive warfare."
In describing the "system" Nelson's aide memoire covered organization,
collaboration of the Foreign Office, secret funds, cooperation of the military
services, and training. He listed some of the assistance currently needed: diplo-
matic bag facilities, secret W/T facilities, civilians to be infiltrated to spread
anti-Axis propaganda, interference with Axis export trade with South America,
and-of particular interest to Donovan and the U.S.-the recruitment of foreign
elements in the U.S. and South America who could be sent back to enemy ter-
ritories, and the intensification of counterespionage in the Western Hemisphere
and the Far East.
Another person Donovan met was the Director of Postal and Telegraph
Censorship Department, Ministry of Information, Mr. E. S. Herbert. Much of
his work must have been covered by Stephenson when he and Donovan were
sweating out the "waves of Horta," because, as has been pointed out, Bermuda
was a vital mail and communication link between the hemispheres. What Herbert
now gave Donovan was information on his major problems with the U.S. The
first concerned efforts to obtain the State Department's assistance "in getting
as much control as possible of enemy communications with the Americas." This
involved the routing of American planes and ships in such a way as to bring
the communications under British control. The other problem related to "prep-
aration for cooperation of British and U.S. censorships in the event of U.S.
entering the war." On this point Herbert outlined the basic requirements of a
mail censorship system and referred to what had been shown or told to Hoover
and Clegg of the FBI and to Army and Navy officers."
A third person close to Stephenson's field, Lord Swinton of the Security
Executive, also had business with Donovan. The problem that concerned Swinton
was the effort of the Nazis to get Allied and neutral seamen to desert their
ships in U.S. ports and thus seriously hamper the British shipping program.
What Swinton wanted was some means of preventing seamen, when arriving
in the States, from claiming the pay due them and deserting, even though they
had signed up for a return voyage. "It would be a great help if discipline and
" Letter from Herbert to Donovan, 7 March 1941, with 3 attachments: "Note for Colonel
Donovan;" Aide Meinoire, 2 December 1940; "Mail Communication with the Western
Hemisphere," ibid.
S
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the observance of contracts of service could be enforced by ... United States
courts." 6e
Donovan had been away from home for three and a half months of exacting
travel, inspection, consultation, and exhortation. On 19 March he came home full
of news and views and with a long list of "things to do." Without anticipating
this subject (See Chapter VIII), one must note here some of the impact of this
trip on his thinking about intelligence and the "directive idea" that Stephenson
had "continually pressed upon him" and "argued" with him.
Less than three weeks after he had returned, he had said and done enough
to give rise to this report which General Sherman Miles, Assistant Chief of Staff
for Intelligence, sent to General Marshall, the Chief of Staff:
In great confidence O.N.I. tells me that there is considerable reason
to believe that there is a movement on foot, fostered by Col. Donovan, to
establish a super agency controlling all intelligence. This would mean that
such an agency, no doubt under Col. Donovan, would collect, collate, and
possibly even evaluate all military intelligence which we now gather from
foreign countries. From the point of view of the War Department, such a
move would appear to be very disadvantageous, if not calamitous.17
This report is the earliest document found which links the name of Donovan
with such a plan; and however much one may take issue with words and lines,
with facts and intentions, it is clear that ONI and Miles had hold of a very
important truth, a very real possibility, and-from their point of view-a very
real danger.
'Co appreciate the cleverness of the move which this knowledge prompted
Miles to recommend to Marshall, one must first see what was happening in MID,
ONI, and the FBI, for it was a problem of theirs which soon caused Roosevelt
to look for a coordinator of intelligence.
Letter from Swinton to Donovan, 7 March 1941, ibid.
Memorandum from Miles to Marshall on "Coordinator for the Three Intelligence
Agencies of the Government," 8 April 1941, National Archives, Record Group 319 (Records of
the Army Staff), File 310.11. This Group will be cited hereafter as RG 319.
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Chapter VII
ROOSEVELT AND THE INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES
So far in this narrative, attention has been focused on Stephenson's need
for the establishment of an American counterpart to his BSC, and on Donovan's
growing familiarity with the British and the newer challenges and responses
of modern warfare. Meanwhile, President Roosevelt and the investigative agencies
had been grappling with the new threats to American security posed by Axis
warfare. The FBI, the Army's Military Intelligence Division, the Navy's Office
of Naval Intelligence, and the Department of State felt themselves in control
of the situation, and their activity and attitude constituted a large share of the
domestic climate within which both Stephenson and Donovan had to work.
FDR Brings the Agencies Together
The President apparently took the first step in the coordination of intelli-
gence, in the context of pre- and post-World War II developments, when on
26 June 1939, in a well-known order, he told the "directors" of the FBI, MID,
and ONI "to function as a committee to coordinate their activities." He told
them that they were to control and handle "the investigation of all espionage,
counterespionage, and sabotage matters," and that no other U.S. investigative
agency was to be so involved. These other agencies were to be told to "refer
immediately" to the nearest FBI office "any data, information, or material that
may come to their notice bearing directly or indirectly on espionage, counter-
espionage, or sabotage." This memorandum was sent to State, Treasury, Com-
merce, and the Postmaster General, as well as to War, Navy, and the Attorney
General.'
The engine that was supposed to make this system operate was the Assistant
Secretary of State for Administration, who, at the time, was George S. Messersmith.
Aside from being a career officer of stature and experience, he had most re-
cently served the President in the field of coordination by successfully incor-
porating the foreign services of Agriculture and Commerce with that of State.
Some time in the mid-fifties, Messersmith dictated a memoir on how he came
to be asked by the President "to coordinate the activities of the investigating
agencies" of the government.2
It happened "some time towards the middle of 1939." Messersmith con-
nected it with the visit in June of the British King and Queen. Presumably it
occurred before the issuance of the President's memorandum. In any case, Sec-
retary Hull relayed the President's request to him. FDR "had been concerned ...
for a long time with the duplication of activities between the investigating
I Memorandum from FDR to Secretaries of State, Treasury, War, Navy, and Commerce,
and to Attorney General and Postmaster General, 26 June 1939, CNO Files, (SC) A8-1/
(A and N).
'Memoirs; George S. Messersmith Papers, Newark, Del., University of Delaware Library,
Box IX, Vol. III, Folder No. 5. Messersmith died in 1960; mid-fifties, as date of dictation, is
suggested by internal evidence.
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agencies" of the government; he found that the three agencies often followed
the same matter at the same time and were "constantly crossing each other's
tracks." The duplication, the President felt, was costly as well as wasteful, and
in these serious times, it was essential that we have the best possible information.
The President made clear that he wanted not elimination but coordination
of these agencies' activities. "The President was of the opinion," recalled Messer-
smith, that "if the heads of these agencies, under the leadership of one person,
coordinated their activities through regular contact, the efficiency of performance
would be greatly increased." For personal reasons Messersmith did not want
to undertake the job; he was also deterred from doing so because of the "zealous"
way in which these agencies protected their interests and because of the "further
peculiarity [that] no one trusted the other." He was "extremely doubtful" that
anything could be accomplished, but the President, not unmindful of the diffi-
culties or the long hours Messersmith was already working, nevertheless wanted
him to make "at least an effort to see what could be done."
The Assistant Secretary then discussed the matter separately with each
agency head, then invited them to dinner and a conference. The Director of the
FBI did not appear. The others listened respectfully to Messersmith's elabora-
tion of the President's initiative, but the "atmosphere was cold and formal. The
antagonisms were not personal . . . They represented the attitudes of their re-
spective agencies." Without Hoover, moreover, the meeting was useless, and
another meeting was set for the following week. This time Hoover appeared,
thanks, according to Messersmith, to a personal Presidential directive. This time
also "the atmosphere eased up a good deal," and agreement was reached on
Messersmith's plan which called for regular weekly meetings. Through the months
that followed, there was established "an effective machinery of exchange of
information, allocation of work; and this constant close contact ... in itself was.
of course, of inestimable value." All realized the wisdom of the President's di-
rective. In retrospect Messersmith emphasized his belief that this initiative was
the "original idea which finally led to the formation of the Central Intelligence
Agency."
Whatever the accuracy of the above account, especially in its details and
its emphasis on Messersmith's role, it is clear that the FBI, MID, and ONI com-
menced regular meetings in which the Assistant Secretary of State, at first Messer-
smith, and then, when he went to Cuba as Ambassador, his successor Adolph
A. Berle, acted not exactly as the chairman but more as an overseer and link
to the President. Their meetings went under the heading of the "Interdepart-
mental Intelligence Conference," which, throughout 1939-1941, was chaired by
Hoover, whose office kept and distributed minutes to MID, ONI, and State. It
was to this group that Hoover reported the desire of the British Purchasing
Commission "to set up an intelligence unit in the U.S." The first significant or-
ganizational outgrowth of the IIC was the development in June 1940 of a "Special
Intelligence Service," which was run for all three agencies by the FBI, and
which was to be the first cause of friction between General Miles of MID and
Hoover.
The idea of the service was the result of efforts of the Conference members
to work out a delimitation of the responsibilities of each of the agencies in the
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light of the President's directive of June 1939.-1 Apparently there was little diffi-
culty on the basic delimitation: to the FBI was assigned responsibility for in-
vestigation of cases-of espionage, counterespionage, sabotage, and subversive
activities-involving civilians in the U.S. and its territories excepting the Panama
Canal Zone, Guam, Samoa, and the Philippines. MID was to handle the Military
Establishment, including its civilians, and to cover the Canal, the Republic of
Panama, and the Philippines; ONI was to have comparable duty with regard
to Guam and American Samoa. What gave the Conference difficulty was the
coverage of these cases outside the U.S. and its territories.4
On 31 May Hoover pointed out that until recently the Bureau had not ex-
tended its activities into foreign countries. "He explained confidentially that
upon the instructions of the President the Bureau was arranging to detail men
to Mexico City and Havana, but that this was the limit of the Bureau's operations
in foreign countries." Who then was to be responsible for the investigation of
subversive activities directed from foreign countries? "It was the consensus ...
that a decision should be reached as to the identification" of the agency which
should handle this work. Miles thought State's opinion ought to be solicited and
an immediate decision" requested from Mr. Berle.-5
At the meeting on 3 June there was undertaken a discussion of "a special
Intelligence Service" possibly to function at this time only in the Western Hemi-
sphere. Admiral Anderson of ONI had pointed out at the previous meeting that
"Naval attaches are never allowed to maintain paid informants," s and on this
occasion Miles emphasized that the attaches were not to be compromised. The
Conference agreed that trends in South America, especially Colombia and Vene-
zuela, had to be watched very closely. Berle stated that if MID and ONI wanted
the FBI to establish a "Special Intelligence Service" on the east coast of South
America, State would cooperate. Anderson thought War and Navy ought to
be allowed specifically to request the FBI to undertake activities in foreign
countries, and Hoover said the Bureau could undertake any work abroad re-
quested by State. Anderson, after other subjects had been discussed, returned
to the subject of an SIS and stated that the "Navy was anxious to cooperate in
setting up a foreign intelligence service," and that it ought to be done immediately,
especially in Mexico and South America, A subcommittee was established.7
A report, written on 6 June, skirted the question of who should run the
service and contented itself with describing a service whose government con-
nection should be well hidden, whose Chief should operate under business cover
and maintain his office in a "metropolitan industrial center, preferably New
York City," and whose operatives-men of honesty, integrity, and patriotism-
should not be known to one another and should be able "to meet and develop
' Memorandum of Agreement on "Coordination of FBI, ONI, and MID," signed by Brig.
Gen. Sherman Miles, Rear Admiral Walter S. Anderson, and J. Edgar Hoover, 5 June 1940,
CNO Files, (SC) A8-5.
' Ibid. The signers found inadequate the section on cases directed from foreign countries
and hence agreed to "study" the matter.
'IIC Minutes, 31 May 1940, RG 165, File 9794-186A/2. CONF.
'Ibid. CONF.
'ICC Minutes, 3 June 1940, ibid., File 9794-186A/3. CONF.
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as sources of information nationals of the country in which they are to operate." e
This proposal was endorsed by the group on 11 June when all agreed that the
approval of the President had to be obtained before any other organizing activity
was undertaken.9
With Miles in his office, Secretary Berle telephoned the President and
laid before him the IIC's request for his decision on which of the three-FBI.
MID, and ONI-should run the proposed foreign intelligence unit. "The Presi-
(tent said that he wished that the field should he divided. The FBI should he
responsible for foreign intelligence work in the Western Hemisphere, on the
request of the State Department." MID and ONI should cover the rest of the
world as needed.10 With this decision in hand, Hoover notified the Conference
on 2 July that Assistant FBI Director P. E. Foxworth had been placed in charge
of the SIS and that the Bureau would augment its undercover staffs in Mexico
and Cuba but did not contemplate stationing intelligence officers in Canada
or Greenland at that time.11
Disagreement, however, was close at hand. On 23 July General Miles indi-
cated to Hoover and Anderson his concern upon learning, from conversations
between his officers and Foxworth and Clegg of the Bureau, that the operations
of the SIS were to be "encyclopedic in scope." Miles thought the President's de-
cision related to the identity of the agency to run the SIS and not to the scope
of its work. This, he thought, ought to be restricted to gathering data on sub-
versive activities, especially those aimed at the United States.12
The subject was aired at the meeting on 26 July. Anderson thought there
should be no restrictions on the SIS. Hoover insisted he had no intention of
running into conflict with MID or ONI in the matter. Miles repeated his posi-
tion, explaining that if the operations were "encyclopedic in scope," the opera-
tives would not be able to gather that particular brand of information which
the services, by their nature, could not obtain. Presumably agreement was
reached on a combination of emphasis on subversive activities and no restric-
tions on operations of the SIS. In conclusion, Hoover indicated his willingness
to let War or Navy run the SIS if either so desired.13
Miles, however, was not happy with the situation. He and Hoover went
over the same ground in August.14 As late as 12 October Miles brought it up
again "at the risk of being thought repetitious on this point." The SIS should
stick to subversive activities; there is no need for its people to try to get what
Memorandum and Report on "Special Intelligence Service," 6 June 1940, ibid., File
')794-186A/4.
ICC, Minutes. 11 June 1940, ibid. CONF.
Memorandum from Berle to Miles, Anderson, and Hoover, 24 June 1940, ibid., File
;3794-186B/2, 7.
" ICC, Minutes, 2 July 1940, ibid., File 9794-186A/7. CONF.
" Memorandum from Miles to Anderson and Iloover, 23 July 1940, CNO Files, citation
missing, SECRET.
"I ICC, Minutes, meeting of 26 July, dated 29 July 1940, RG 165, File 9794-186A/12.
t:ONF.
" Letters from Hoover to Miles, 3 August, and Miles to Hoover, 7 August 1940, ibid.,
Vile 9794-186B/4; and Hoover to Miles, 15 August 1940, ibid., File 9794-186B/5.
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the attaches "are supposed and potentially equipped to get-factual military
data concerning the numbers, equipment, organization, training, etc. of the
armies to which they are accredited." 15 Meanwhile, a bigger case of MID-FBI
friction was in the making, this time in New York City.
FBI and MID: A Storm Breaks Out
On 1 July Miles had advised General Marshall, Chief of Staff, that there
was "an immediate necessity to build up our intelligence system covering the
Western Hemisphere." He explained that there was a great deal of information
on the hemisphere available in the New York offices of the many large firms
engaged in foreign trade, but that it was not available in Washington. Just as
a New York office of MID proved useful in the last war, so also, he thought,
it was useful now. It should not be a part of the G-2 office of the Second Corps
Area, because it had to serve MID directly.
Miles proposed that the office be established by a Lt. Col. William C. Crane,
who had already looked over the situation in New York, and that Crane run
it until he had time to select and train a reserve officer as a replacement. This
proposal was approved by Secretary Stimson on 6 July; 16 the office was opened
on 30 July. About September it was taken over by Major Frederick D. Sharp,
who was soon to be at the center of a Miles-Hoover clash. Sharp, incidentally,
was also the gentleman who was informed by Miles in October 1940 that he
was soon to be called upon by W. S. Stephenson, "an Englishman . . . whose
telephone number is Circle 6-8580."
Either reflecting or anticipating trouble, Miles sent Sharp a page and a
half of guidance on the "function and scope" of the New York office. Its primary
purpose was "to establish direct liaison with such business firms or individuals
as may be of use to the M.I.D. in the procurement of information from abroad,"
and the information desired was to be military, political, geographic, and eco-
nomic in character. "Occasionally," Miles wrote, "information . . . on subversive
activity in foreign countries" might be sought; but the office was not to seek
information on such activity in the U.S., nor conduct any investigation of such
activity. Any information that it did receive on this subject was to be transmitted
immediately to the FBI, to MID, and, where necessary, to the G-2 of the Second
Corps Area or the District Intelligence Office of the Third Naval District. Finally,
the office had to use its discretion in deciding whether information on subversive
activities within the U.S., emanating from contacts of the New York Office, be
sent direct to the natural recipient-which was desirable-or be sent via the
New York office.17
About the middle of January 1941 Sharp's contacts with American firms
in New York were running into conflict with the FBI, which was similarly en-
gaged in gathering information from firms with personnel or facilities in South
America. Business firms were complaining, MID was told by E. A. Tamm and
" Two letters from Miles to Hoover, 12 October, and one from Hoover to Miles, 10
October 1940, ibid., File 9794-186B (no separate filing).
10 Memorandum from Miles to Marshall, 1 July 1940, ibid., File 10153-407/1.
" Memorandum from Miles to Sharp on "Function and Scope of New York Office, M.I.D.,"
2 November 1940, ibid.
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Foxworth of the FBI, that they were giving the same information to more than
one agency of the government.18 A sub-committee of the IIC then endeavored
to work out a written agreement and "operational procedure" to obviate the
criticisms of the business houses. The essence of this procedure was that Major
Sharp would clear with the FBI before making any contact with a firm. Miles,
however, rejected the idea on the ground that the FBI simply was insufficiently
manned to provide Sharp with the kind of service he needed.
Miles then sought a meeting with Hoover in order to settle the matter, but
Hoover was so busy with Congressional hearings in the week of 27 January that
this was not possible. The matter of a meeting was mentioned to Tamm again
on 6 February, and on that day he relayed to Miles' representative, Lt. Col. J. A.
Lester, waiting in an outer room, Hoover's answer that he "could not see how
anything could be accomplished by a discussion as there is no basis for a dis-
cussion." Hoover indicated that nothing could be accomplished as long as MID
insisted on going beyond the Presidential directive of 24 June, that MID had
to stop operating in the SIS field, and that if Miles wanted the June directive
changed, he would have to take the initiative. Tamm further stated that when
the "storm broke" about the operation of MID in the SIS field, Hoover had
gone to the Attorney General saying he did not want the SIS responsibility and
was willing to give it to MID, ONI, or both.19
The Attorney General was not the only top official now involved in the
hassle. On 12 February Stimson wrote in his diary:
I also was much troubled to hear that Edgar Hoover has been making
trouble at the White House over General Miles-my G-2-and Marshall
is much troubled over it too as Hoover, apparently instead of coming to
me, goes to the White House with his complaints and poisons the mind of
the President and I am going to have a show down to it if I know the
reason why. [sic] 20
The next day Marshall went to Stimson "in great perturbation" because of a
message he had received from the White House through General "Pa" Watson,
secretary to the President, asking who General Miles' successor would be!
Stimson told Marshall to tell Watson that he, Stimson, was now handling the
matter, and then he began "to hustle around" to get the facts so that he was
"armed and thoroughly heeled" when he did handle it.21.
In the meantime Hoover had sent Miles a list of charges against MID. These
pertained not only to the operation of Sharp's office, but also to MID activity
which Hoover charged would extend "subversive coverage of the military estab-
lishment into civilian plants and life," to alleged MID dissatisfaction with the
" Memorandum from 1. A. Lester to Miles on "Coordination with FBI regards Major
"harp's office in New York," ibid., File 9794-186B/8. CONF.
All above, ibid.
Stinson Diary, 12 February 1941. On 14 October 1940, Stimson had written: "General
Miles came to me with reports of trouble with Edgar Hoover, who seems to be a good deal
of a prima donna and has taken offense at some very innocent actions of Miles. It only shows
how many little unnecessary troubles we have to keep the great machine from going into
friction and trouble."
` Ibid., 13 February 1941.
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FBI's form of coverage in industrial plants, and to MID efforts, according to
Hoover, to acquire information on subversion in plants directly from the plant
authorities themselves.22 This letter was taken by Marshall to Stimson, whose
account of what happened follows:
(the letter) was a very childish, petulant statement which seemed more
like a spoiled child than a responsible officer, calling attention to all sorts
of little things which ought to have been the subject of mutual collaboration
and a telephone call rather than a formal letter. This same letter had been
sent to the Bureau of the Budget and probably had gone to the President.
I went over it carefully with one of the Assistants of G-2 and got a state-
ment made of the respects in which the letter was erroneous--and there
were many of them. And then I called up Bob Jackson, the Attorney General,
and told him of my situation and asked him if he would meet me and talk
it over. He was very nice about it and said he would come that afternoon
and asked me to have Knox in, as he wanted to talk about a similar matter
with him, so at 4:30 he and Knox and I met and went over this whole
matter. I was much relieved by Jackson's attitude. He told me that he had
found Hoover a most difficult person to deal with; that he quarrelled with
all of Jackson's predecessors as Attorney Generals [sic] but, however had
not yet quarrelled with him. We agreed that we must make another effort
to establish a proper collaboration and cooperation in a matter which was
likely to be most serious and of public import at any time. If there are
quarrels between the three Federal Agencies which the people are relying
on to protect them against sabotage, just as we are entering on this great
development of munitions, we are likely to have a great deal of trouble. Well,
the cooperation of my two colleagues was so good that I felt very much
relieved and am looking forward to my interview with the President with
more hope.23
Apparently Stimson did not or was not able to get in touch with the President,
but the intervention of higher authorities seems to have had the usual stabilizing
effect. Miles took strong exception to some language and ideas in a proposed
outline of operational procedures and denied that business firms had been com-
plaining about duplication but concluded that "M.I.D. would be glad to co-
operate with F.B.I. and O.N.I. in. the New York Area (which is the crux of the
subject under discussion) to the extent of free exchange of information and con-
sultation on contacts." He added the two important provisos, however, that the
three agencies had to maintain offices so located as to facilitate the work and
"that such cooperation is on the basis of equality and implies no recognition
of the primacy of any agency in responsibility, function or operation." 24
This seems to have been the basis on which the disagreement was papered
over, for thereafter there were regular meetings in New York of the local rep-
resentatives of the FBI, MID, and of ONI, whose representative, Wallace B.
Phillips will be discussed shortly, and of the Army and Navy district offices.
22 These charges and MID's answers are found in "Charges Contained in Letter of
February 10, 1941," RG 319, File 310.11.
2a Stimson Diary, 13 February 1941.
'A draft of comment by or for Miles on an FBI memorandum of 3 March 1941, RG 319,
File 310.11.
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SECRET C01 and the British
A meeting on 7 March may have been the first of these. On 10 March, Sharp,
writing to Miles, referred to "the meeting in the F.B.I. office between the various
branches of the service." Those present included D. E. Sackett, head of the New
York office of the FBI, Captain Roscoe C. MacFall, the ONI chief, Colonel
Frank Ross, G-2 from Governors Island, and "Mr. Soucy, head of the Baltimore
Office, F.B.I. (who, it is understood, will hereafter be in close liaison with Mr.
Phillips and myself), and four other members of the F.B.I. from cities adjacent
to New York."
Upon Sackett's request, Sharp outlined the work of his office, the informa-
tion sought, and named some of his contacts. He explained that, operating under
a directive, he had made preliminary arrangements with Pan American Airways
and American Export Lines to meet incoming planes and boats in order to inter-
view arrivals from foreign countries. He assured the group he was doing noth-
ing in the subversive field other than forwarding whatever information came
unsolicited to him. He also explained a program of reviewing manuscripts and
magazines for "certain static information" of interest to the War Department.
Finally, in response to his pointed queries, the group assured him that his ac-
tivity did not duplicate or interfere with their work .2.1
If this local interdepartmental intelligence conference thought it now had
control of the situation, it had another thought coming. Just as President Roosevelt
had installed an engine, in the person of Assistant Secretary Messersmith, into
the IIC in Washington, so also was he about to install-to everyone's surprise-
an engine in the New York local, and this in the person of Commander Vincent
Astor, U.S.N.R.26 To see how this happened, it is first necessary to see what
the Navy was doing in New York throughout this changing and somewhat
turbulent period.
More Trouble: ONI and Vincent Astor
Admiral Anderson, like Hoover and Miles, was very much aware of the
need for getting not only more information but also more sources of information.
The international situation had obvious grim implications for the Navy at home
and abroad. Anderson had been a vigorous advocate of the establishment of the
SIS, especially in South America. At the time of its authorization, he had told
the IIC that he had already commenced a program of sending out retired officers
to seaports in order to get acquainted with shipping operations, industrial con-
ditions, and important persons who could supply needed information in times
of emergency.27
Anderson went even further and established his own SIS, but years later
was to remark that "it never got off the ground, because it was taken over by
Donovan's outfit." 28 Actually it did get off the ground, although it did not go
Letter from Sharp to Miles, 10 March 1941, RG 165, File 10153-423/5.
In June, 1940, Roosevelt wrote Stark that he had asked Astor "to coordinate the Intelli-
gence work in the New York area," but the origin and ramifications of this assignment are not
known. He appears to have been coordinating between the FBI and British intelligence, but
apparently had no formal connection with the other IIC agencies in New York until March
1941, when Roosevelt named him "Area Controller" of the New York area.
"' IIC, Minutes, Meeting of 25 June, dated 1 July 1940, RG 165, File 9794-186A/4, CONF.
`" Rear Admiral Walter S. Anderson, private interview, New York City, 7 October 1969.
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far; and it was not "taken over" by Donovan so much as it was accepted by him
when the military decided late in 1941 that the new COI should run the "under-
cover" or "secret" intelligence service.29 In any case, Anderson, in December
1949, hired Mr. Wallace B. Phillips, a civilian, to work as his Special Assistant
in the development of an undercover intelligence service.30
Phillips was an American businessman long resident in London and active
in American circles there. He had been in the American Red Cross in 1940 when
its representative there was David K. E. Bruce, who was to play a leading role
in COI and OSS affairs in London. Phillips was authorized by Anderson, who
wrote of this to Miles, to establish an office in New York as a "representative
of the Director of Naval Intelligence in matters relating to its Foreign Intelli-
gence Service." Since Phillips' work in the domestic field was strictly con-
fined to its relevancy to his "primary duties" in the foreign field, Ander-
son thought it would be desirable for Phillips to be in close contact with
Sharp. They had already, in fact, been in contact, and Phillips had learned that
Sharp had space for him in his office and was willing to take him in. Would
the Assistant Chief of Staff agree to this arrangement? 31
Miles, a day later, was "glad" to oblige:32 By 6 February Phillips, now de-
scribed as "a representative of the Special Intelligence Service of the Division
of Naval Intelligence," had two offices: one with Sharp at 1270 Sixth Avenue,
and the other with the District Intelligence Office of the Third Naval District.33
Miles next informed G-2 in New York, Colonel Ross, that "Mr. Wallace
Phillips, whom I knew as one of the leading American businessmen in London,
is now doing some important work for the Navy Department, and plans to have
an office in cooperation with Major Sharp." Ross was informed that he would
be called on by Phillips who could be relied on "implicitly." 34
There was bound to be some confusion about activity. When Sharp ex-
plained to the local intelligence group on 7 March that he was interviewing new
arrivals from foreign countries, Captain MacFall of ONI said that Phillips "also
had this type of project under consideration." Phillips informed Sharp that that
was so, and that the two of them should work to avoid "possible overlapping." 36
But Miles had learned differently from Anderson's successor as DNI, Captain
Alan Kirk, who had been Naval Attache in London during Donovan's first
trip. According to Kirk, it was MacFall who was to contact incoming
travelers and Phillips was to work "solely with special agents in the field." Miles
instructed Sharp accordingly,36 and that disposed of any possible conflict be-
'Memoranda: from Miles to Marshall 5 September 1941, RC 319, File 310.11; from Stark
to Knox, 25 September 1941, CNO Files, (SC) A8-5.
"Anderson to Miles, 11 December 1940, RG 165, File 10153-413/1, CONE.
ai Ibid.
3x Miles to Anderson, 12 December 1940, ibid., File 10153-413/2. CONF.
'Anderson to District Intelligence Officer, Third Naval District (N.Y.), 3 January 1941,
ibid., File 10153-413/3. CONF.
Miles to Col. Frank K. Ross, 15 January 1941, ibid., File 10153-413/5. CONF.
86 Minutes of Conference of ONI, G-2, and FBI, N.Y.C., 7 March 1941, with "Additions
to Major Sharp's Remarks," ibid., File 10153-423/1.
" Miles to Sharp, 13 March 1941, ibid., File 10153-423/2.
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SECRET COI and the British
tween MID and ONI. However, Phillips was soon to run into real opposition
from a new quarter, Vincent Astor, and while it takes us ahead of the story,
it is better to consider this Astor episode before reviewing Astor's appointment
as "area controller" for New York.
As far back as January, when Phillips had barely gotten to work, Astor
was making an inquiry at the White House about him and his activity.37 As soon
as Astor got a handle on his new assignment, he wrote the following, in long
hand, to the President, then at Hyde Park:
One might suppose that I would leave you in peace while trying to
get a rest in Hyde Park. However, here is a situation which I do not feel
justified in keeping from you, for if it went wrong I believe it could result
in a real scandal and be just what the isolationists would like.
The situation concerns a
Mr. Wallace Phillips
who has lived most of his life-at least since the last war-in England.
lie claims to be very rich and to be great friends of Churchill and
most of his war cabinet. Mr. P. apparently offered his services to British
Intelligence, was turned down, and came to this country last autumn.
Admiral Anderson then gave him a job in O.N.I. on a "$1 a year" basis
and without a commission.
About two months ago, the #1 man in British Intelligence came to me
and F.B.I. with the following story-Sir William Wiseman 38 had approached
him and requested that he be taken back into the British service, in which
event he could supply valuable information obtained from a Mr. Phillips
who claimed that he
(a) had frequent contacts with you. [The President]
(b) was a great friend of Edgar Hoover who gave him the run
of F.B.I. files.
(c) had access to M.I.D., O.N.I. and F.B.I. files in New York.
(a) and (b) I found to be untrue. (c) was largely true until ten
clays ago when I made some changes.
I'hillips of course had made a very bad blunder in going to Wiseman,
who is not now well regarded by the British, so I decided to keep aware
of Phillips. For various reasons this proved almost impossible until ten
clays ago when you enlarged my responsibilities.39
Vincent Astor to Miss Marguerite Lehand, 31 January 1941, Roosevelt Papers, PSF
Vincent Astor.
" Sir William Wiseman had been British intelligence chief in the U.S. in World War I.
Ills World War II activities, which brought him in touch with Stephenson, Astor, and Admiral
Godfrey, and which involved him with the FBI and the State Department, especially in the
}Fritz Weidemann - Princess Hohenlohe case, have never been investigated.
' These are discussed below.
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UI anci tis SECRET
Since then I have discovered the following from P. himself.
(a) He has entire charge of expenditures of the Navy's "Secret"
fund (about $100,000).
(b) He alone selects agents to be sent abroad.
(c) He refuses to allow F.B.I. to check these men.
(d) In my opinion he pays his agents exorbitantly ($4000-$6000
per year, plus $10 per day, plus travel expenses).
What worries me is that all this is being done by a man who has no
commission but only an appointment from a former Director of O.N.I.
I doubt if any dollar a year man should have authority to pay out secret
funds, no matter how able he might be, and that would be especially true
if he had lived most of his life in England and boasted of his English
government friends.
Furthermore, in my opinion for what it's worth, Mr. P. is unreliable in
his statements, indiscreet, and a social climber, which is a dangerous combination
for one in his position.
I have reported the whole matter to Admiral Andrews (3rd Dist) who is
just as worried as am I.
We took some action last Monday which didn't work. Before we try
something new, I would like more than anything your advice, if only just
5 minutes worth. So, would you let me drive up to Hyde Park tomorrow
(Monday) morning arriving at absolutely any time you say? I promise by
all that's holy not to stay a moment longer than you wish.
Signing it "Respectfully, Vincent," he added a P.S.:
If Grace [Tully] could send me a message back by the car that brings
this, or call me at home, of course I'd appreciate it. I shall be home all
evening at Regent 7-2176 (italics in the original) .40
Two days later, and there is no indication as to whether he did or did not
see the President on Monday, he wrote much of the same to Captain Kirk in
Washington. He referred to the fact that Admiral Andrews had sent Captain
MacFall to Washington the preceding week; and presumably this is the "action"
which "didn't work." What he particularly stressed with Kirk was the very
real possibility that some newsman would get hold of the story, and as a
publisher (of Newsweek), Astor assured Kirk that only the publisher's right
to hire and fire could discourage an editor from printing the story.4
On 10 May Admiral Andrews took the problem of Phillips to Admiral Stark,
the Chief of Naval Operations. Phillips, he wrote, "is not the man in any way for
this job and his services should be discontinued at once;" and if he had to
have a successor, Andrews had available "a man of higher caliber, of better
"Astor to Roosevelt, 20 April 1941, Roosevelt Papers, loc. cit.
"Astor to Kirk, 22 April 1941, ibid.
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SECRET COI and the British
attributes to fill the job," although he did not name him.42 In reply, Stark
informed Andrews that "you should know that ONI, with the approval and
knowledge of the Secretary and others, is attempting to create what we call
here `a Special Intelligence Service'." Stark went on to defend the loyalty,
patriotism, and integrity of Phillips, and concluded that "Colonel Knox has
determined to continue Mr. Phillips on duty." 43
With that the Phillips question was disposed of. What makes Phillips partic-
ularly interesting to future COI developments is that he and his group of 13
agents constituted the first COI personnel specifically organized for secret in-
telligence work abroad. This group was moved into COI about 15 October 1941
and Phillips was asked to prepare his recommendations as to how undercover
work abroad should he organized.
Now to return to Astor and how he became "Area Controller for the New
York Area" as FDR's solution to the problem of coordinating intelligence, at
least in New York.
Astor is Put in Charge
Long before the spring of 1941 Vincent Astor-multimillionaire, real estate
investor, magazine publisher, ardent yachtsman, and neighbor of the Roose-
velts-had been on the friendliest of terms with the President of the United
States. They had first met as boys, when Franklin was at Hyde Park and Vincent
just up Route 9 at Rhinebeck. They were brought together largely because
Roosevelt's half-brother James served as one of the executors of the estate of
Vincent Astor's father. After FDR's crippling illness, the Astor swimming pool
was made available to him. The friendship, however, lay dormant until Roose-
velt became Governor of New York in 1928, and Astor then became his enthu-
siastic supporter, and undoubtedly contributed generously to his campaigns.
As President-elect, FDR took his first cruise on Astor's well-known, luxurious
yacht, the "Nourmahal," and took several more in following years.44 The yacht
gave rise to "the Nourmahal club" about which there are scattered items in the
Astor-Roosevelt papers but not enough to give a clear picture of either the
membership or the major purpose. Yachting was a bond between FDR and Astor,
and just as importantly, perhaps, yachting also brought Astor and ONI into close
contact over the years. He had turned the "Nourmahal" over to the Navy in both
wars;45 but in between them he piloted it around the West Indies, along the
Ecuadorean coast, and among Pacific Islands, often after consultation with ONI
and FDR. In 1938, for instance, he wrote FDR that he would be coming to Wash-
ington to see him and also to talk to ONI about a "planned voyage ... in the
vicinity of the Marshall Islands. If that is practicable, it should prove interest-
jng." 4s
" Rear Admiral Adolphus Andrews to Stark, 10 May 1941, CNO Files, A 8-5.
"Stark to Andrews, 20 May 1941, ibid.
" These details found in letter from Astor to Roosevelt, 23 June 1937, referring to forth-
+_,oming New Yorker Magazine "Profile" of Astor. The remark on campaign contributions is
the author's judgment.
New York Times, 4 February 1959, p. 1, col. 3.
Astor to Roosevelt, 13 January 1938, Roosevelt Papers, loc. cit.
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Business also provided a link with FDR. In this respect, Astor began, some-
where along the line, acting like a one-man intelligence unit for the President.
On 5 February 1940 he sent FDR a long list of individual Russian payments
made to various U.S. manufacturers as shown by Amtorg's weekly drawings on
the Chase National Bank.47 In April he was reporting to the President the possi-
bility of obtaining "valuable information" as the result of a recent Japanese
approach to Chase's Winthrop Aldrich; all that was needed was the "cooperation
and encouragement" of the Department of State. At the same time he was com-
plaining to FDR, as has been mentioned, that State had quashed FBI contacts
with the British intelligence chief, Sir James Paget.48
In May-June 1940 he played a major role in a case, whose lineaments are not
clear, which involved facilitating the return to the U.S. of the wife and mother-
in-law of Carl L. Norden, inventor of the bomb sight. Apparently an FBI agent
was to accompany Norden to Europe on the "S.S. Washington," a vessel owned
or controlled by Astor, but there was some fear that Norden and the agent would
be taken off the vessel by British authorities at Gibraltar. Astor wrote FDR that
he had told Hoover the President "wished" him to send the agent with Norden
and "to go ahead" and do it. Astor also arranged for "an FBI code book to be put
aboard in the custody of the Captain's safe." Furthermore, he let State know
that the President was "interested" in the issuance of a passport, whether
Norden's or the agent's is not clear. Finally Astor reported to the President how
he had held up the sailing of the "Washington" pending "the arrival of a fake bag
to go aboard right after our agent," and how this ruse fooled the newsmen who
were inquiring about the ship's delay 49
No sooner was this accomplished than Astor was asking FDR about having his
naval aide, Captain Callaghan, arrange for him, Astor, to see Admiral Stark. He
realized that Stark "may be cross on account of the Norden incident, . . . and
therefore put off seeing me. I hope he doesn't for there is so much to be done,
and maybe not too much time." 50 At the end of June Roosevelt sent Stark a
memo advising him that Astor would be in to see him: "I simply wanted to let you
know that I have requested him to coordinate the Intelligence work in the New
York area and, of course, want him given every assistance." He spoke highly of
Astor's "wide knowledge of men and affairs in connection with general Intelli-
gence work. Please pass this on to Walter Anderson." 51
The DNI promptly had Astor called back into service on an inactive status.
When navy personnel balked on doing that, Anderson simply said the President
wanted it done. Period.52 Astor reported to the President late in December that
orders had been issued "which will make it possible for me to do a job in
Bermuda," 53 where, incidentally, he had a fine home and was well know in the
island's yachting circles. Early in February he was telling Assistant Secretary
"Astor to Roosevelt, 5 February 1940, ibid.
"Astor to FDR, 18 April 1940, ibid..
'Astor to FDR, 14 May 1940; another letter, undated, ibid.
60 Astor to FDR, 1 June 1940, ibid.
61 FDR to Stark, 26 June 1940, ibid., PPF 40.
"Anderson, loc. cit.
88 Astor to FDR, 26 December 1940, Roosevelt Papers, PSF Astor.
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of State Berle, at the direction of the President, that he had three things on his
mind: first, passport control between the U.S. and Bermuda, now that a U.S. base
was being built there, ought to be instituted immediately; second, one or two
l'BI agents ought to be put in the construction gang at work on the base;
and, third, he was "worried about the entire intelligence situation" and wanted
to talk with Berle about it on another occasion. Secretarv Berle concluded his
memorandum of conversation with: "I gather that he is reporting directly to the
President." 54
This was on 7 February, and it was then that the Miles-Hoover clash was
spilling over into the offices of the Secretary of War, the Attorney General, and
the President. On 8 March, Astor, as often happened, had lunch at the White
House; and later that afternoon, he, Berle, and Kirk met with the President and
discussed the subject of Astor-already intelligence coordinator in New York-
,getting new authority for resolving the situation in the city.'' On 12 March Kirk
sent Callaghan a draft of an order that had been approved by Berle, Two days
later this was sent to FDR, who, on 19 March telegraphed his approval from
i ayetteville, North Carolina.56 New York had a newly strengthened coordinator
of intelligence just like that.
The directive indicated that "all intelligence and investigational activities
undertaken in the New York Area" by FBI, MID, ONI, and State "shall be coordi-
uiated through a single agency-to be known as the Area Controller." The Con-
iroller was to act as a "clearinghouse for problems," and was to "assign priorities
and responsibility for the various problems" that the agency representatives were
to lay before him. Hopefully, this new system would coordinate the agencies'
activities and eliminate duplication.57
The directive also indicated that it had been issued "with the concurrence
of the Departments concerned," but General Miles was quick to point out to
General Marshall: "It is not known who gave the concurrence of the War De-
partment." He said that he had heard "rumors of the possibility of such a step
being taken," but he knew very little of the background.58 Stimson did not learn
of it until 25 March when he noted: "This was news to me, and I am in a good
deal of doubt as to whether it is a good piece of good administration or bad
administration." 59 The rest of March was taken up with Miles, Hoover, Kirk, and
Astor working out the guidelines under which the agencies were now to operate
in New York. On 3 April Astor felt able to inform FDR: "The position of `Con-
'roller' of certain activities in the New York area . . . is now practically estab-
lished." 80
" Memorandum of Conversation by Berle, 7 February 1941, in State Decimal File, Pass-
port office, File No. 138 Emergency Program/1459.
"' White House Usher's Diary; and note from Kirk to Callaghan, 12 March 1941, Roosevelt
Papers, PSF Astor.
"'Memoranda or notes of 14, 19, and 20 March 1941, ibid.
'-'The directive was undated and unaddressed and forwarded to Miles by Berle in an
undated letter and received by Miles on 22 March 1941, RG 319, File 310.11, CONF.
Miles to Marshall, 24 March 1941, ibid., CONF.
Stinson Diary, 25 March 1941.
Astor to FDR, 3 April 1941, Roosevelt Papers, PSF Astor.
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There is no need here to follow later developments of the New York situation
or the role of Astor therein except to note some comments made months later by
Major Sharp, who had, of course, been an early, active participant in the weekly
meetings that were now chaired by Astor. In August 1942, he was telling an
MID official of the New York set-up: "these conferences are a bore ... a great
waste of time. However ... Astor must have a job . . . Vincent Astor, for your
information, stands very close to the great white father, so proceed but with
caution." 61 Three months later, he was going over much of the same ground with
another high MID official and gave him this assessment of the early period:
... there was a definite need for some sort of coordination during the
early days of this office-from September until about December 1940. At
that time there was a great deal of misapprehension and misconception as
to the sometimes overlapping directives of all the intelligence agencies in
the New York field. This confusion was entirely straightened out, however,
among ourselves, prior to the advent of the Area Controller. General Miles
stated to me privately and confidentially that this thing had been forced
upon him and that it was up to me to exercise the utmost diplomacy and
tact in getting along with the Area Controller, and avoiding any possibility
of having it said that General Miles' organization was not cooperating, This
I have done so far.62
G-2 Again: How to Control Donovan
However jaundiced Sharp's view of the Astor position, it seems clear from
hind sight that the New York situation was a clear, if unnecessary, reminder
to the President of the unfinished character of the assignment he had given
George Messersmith two years earlier, Hence, he returned to the problem-
and many other more pressing ones-after ten days of cruising on the "U.S.S.
Potomac" and just two weeks after he made Astor "Area Controller."
He had an IIC in Washington run by an Assistant Secretary of State and a
junior IIC in New York run by an "Area Controller," but, as he told the Cabinet
on 4 April, he wanted something more:
The discussion of the conflict of the three intelligence agencies of the
Government came up, viz: MID, ONI, and FBI, and all parties to the
discussion seemed to admit that a certain amount of twilight zone was
inevitable and the problem was the solution of that without friction. The
President suggested that he recollected that in France the jurisdiction was
subdivided into three parts:
(1) G-2 Military Intelligence.
(2) The civilian agency for prosecution, the "Surete."
(3) Over the twilight zone area, a joint board.
He also stated that the twilight zone was covered and disputes were
settled in Great Britain by a gentleman known as "Mr. X," whose identity
"Sharp to Col. W. W. Cox, 1 August 1942, RG 319, File 310.11.
"Sharp to Brig. Gen. Hayes A. Kroner, 6 November 1942, ibid.
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was kept a complete secret. He asked if our agencies would not confer as to
the institution of a similar solution for our country in case we got into
war.e3
When this report of the President's wish reached General Miles, it very
quickly, if not immediately, brought to mind the name of Colonel Donovan,
for it was on this occasion, on 8 April that he warned General Marshall that
lie had learned "in great confidence" from ONI that Donovan was fostering a
movement to set up a "super agency" to control all intelligence.
just as quickly he offered his recommendation for warding off this "dis-
advantageous, if not calamitous" prospect. Indeed, he had already "consulted
both F.B.I. and O.N.I. on this matter," and they apparently concurred in his
belief that "Col. Wm [sic] Donovan's name should be proposed to the President
as the coordinator between the three intelligence agencies in any conflict which
may arise within the field of counter subversion (prevention of sabotage and
espionage)." He went on to say that the proposal of Donovan for the position
the President had in mind "should ... clearly indicate a limitation of his field
of activities to counter subversion." This was the only field, he explained, in
which "conflicts between the three intelligence agencies can arise;" and even
here, he added, there has been "very little real conflict"-thanks to the agree-
ment of the last summer which "I drafted."
Miles then attached to his memorandum the draft of a letter to be sent to
the President, after it had been concurred in by the Secretary of War and the
Attorney General. This embodied his nomination of Donovan for what amounted
to an "Area Controller" on the national level. The letter suggested to the
President that "the instructions under which the referee would act . . . be
carefully drawn, in the first instance by the three intelligence agencies for the
approval of the three Cabinet officers and for submission to you." He explained
that the agencies' qualification for drawing up these instructions had already
been manifested by their successful negotiation of the 1940 agreement whereby,
he said, "the twilight zone" had been reduced as much as it could be.84
As will be shown, this particular proposal never did reach the President.
Whether it would have been acceptable to him is conjectural. Certainly as far as
Donovan personally was concerned, it would have been laughed out of court.
In any case, with the linking of Donovan's name to the President's request of
4 April, the fat was really in the fire.
Stimson Diary, "Notes after Cabinet Meeting, April 4, 1941."
"'Miles to Marshall, 8 April 1941, RG 319, File 310.11, CONF,
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Chapter VIII
A GREEN LIGHT ON COI
Donovan's account of the establishment of COI is succinct, but it is also
devoid of enlightening detail and not without some confusion.
In September 1943, he wrote:
Five months prior to the outbreak of war, a Committee of Cabinet
members was appointed by the President to enquire into the matter [of
an independent intelligence service]. That committee consulted with the
writer of this paper who studied the problem, and prepared a report with
certain recommendations which were accepted and put into effect by
Presidential order.1
Two months later, he told a War College audience:
When I came back, I found that there had been a committee of the
Cabinet appointed to look into the intelligence situation . . . so that a
Cabinet committee had been appointed to enquire into it. They talked with
me and I made certain suggestions. As a result of that, there was set up
what was called the Coordinator of Information.2
The element of time is not clear in these accounts. "Five months prior to
the outbreak of war"-i.e., about 7 June -a committee was formed; on the other
hand, "When I came back"-18 March-"I found . . . a committee had been
appointed." There is no explanation of why the committee consulted him. Nor,
interestingly enough, is anything said about the President. To try to straighten
out the time, as well as reconstruct the event, one must begin with Donovan's
return home on 18 March.
On that date Knox informed the White House by phone that Donovan
had landed in New York, and General Edwin "Pa" Watson then asked the
President whether he wanted to see Donovan before they left the next day on
their cruise on the "U.S.S. Potomac." Knox was told the President would see
Donovan for 15 minutes the next morning, Wednesday, the 19th.' Knox, of
course, accompanied Donovan to the White House; also present was Harry
Hopkins, and the "15 minutes" apparently ran from 9:30 to 10:30.4 What did
they talk about? Aside from small and unrelated talk-and that could have
1 Memorandum from Donovan to Maj. Gen. Walter B. Smith, 17 September 1943, Author's
Files.
'William J. Donovan, "Office of Strategic Services." A lecture delivered at the Army
and Navy Staff College, Wash., D.C., 1 November 1943, OSS Records, Director's Office,
Op 125, Box 27, Folder 1.
'Roosevelt Papers, PPF 6558 Donovan.
'Composite Presidential Diary.
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been considerable,5 the emphasis, with or without Hopkins present, must have
been on the Balkan situation, the British problem in Greece, and the very
pressing question of shipping-with which Donovan himself, as will be seen
shortly, was both deeply and personally involved. The presence of Hopkins,
whom Sherwood described as "the recognized and designated representative
of the President in all considerations of production, transportation, raw materials,
priorities, allocation, etc.," 6 strongly suggests that shipping and supplies must
have taken up much of the hour. It has been said that when Donovan "reported
[to the President] on his mission to the Mediterranean," he "suggested the
creation of a new agency" to carry out these five special functions: open, or
"white," propaganda, "secret, or `black,' psychological-political warfare," sabotage
and guerrilla warfare, special intelligence, and strategic planning.? In the time
at hand, Donovan could hardly have gone into these subjects in any detail.
The President left town that afternoon by train-and it was from North
Carolina that he sent back his approval of Astor for the New York job-and set
sail from Florida the next day for a cruise which kept him away from Washing-
ton until the morning of 1 April. During his vacation "the President ... studiously
avoided doing any more official work than was absolutely necessary." 8 Did he
see Donovan between his return and the Cabinet meeting on 4 April? There
is no evidence on the point, and one is left wondering whether Donovan figured
at all in the President's mind when he discussed the friction among the investiga-
a-ive agencies.
While the President was relaxing-fishing, fixing up his stamps, playing
poker, enjoying cocktails and dinner with Watson, Ickes, Hopkins, Jackson,
Dr. McIntire, and Steve Early-Donovan was caught up in the Washington
whirl of briefings and getting things done. He had already been with Knox.
Next he was at the War Department visiting Stimson; "We talked for an hour,
or an hour and a half, and it was very interesting," noted the Secretary. Donovan
has "played quite an important part diplomatically in the situation during his
Trip, and he and I stood over the map for a long time talking only in the way
in which two old friends who are both interested in military affairs can do it."
Donovan's talk, while it did not develop anything new, observed the Secretary,
"was rather encouraging to me and he looks at the whole situation just as I do.
lie thinks we should begin now to convoy the British shipping-the situation
which is the blackest spot now in the big panorama of action." 9
The next morning, at Stimson's invitation, he addressed "the Officers of
our Department" and gave them the account of the trip to which reference has
been made in Chapter VI. He concluded with strong emphasis on shipping as
"the dominant point" on which the British had to decide whether to cut down
on food or on the munitions of war. If they allowed their food stocks to be
"As usual," wrote Ickes of another occasion, "[FDR] did a great deal of talking about
unrelated matters," The Secret Diary, p. 533. Similarily, Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins,
n. 265, referred to the usual "wildly irrelevant" talk at meetings with 'Roosevelt.
Sherwood, op. cit., p. 282.
'Wallace R. Deuel, "History of the OSS," Donovan Papers, Job. No. 62-271, Box 29,
Folder 5, p. 103.
Ickes, op. cit., p. 470.
Stimson Diary, 19 March 1941.
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depleted, "the food situation for England will be a very serious one in the early
winter of this year." For the United States this situation posed the question of
allowing our supplies "to go down the drain" or of protecting them en route.:to
In the meantime, Donovan was so wrapped up in this problem that Henry
Morgenthau thought he had taken over Hopkins' responsibilities while Harry
was cruising in the Bahamas. That is what the Secretary of the Treasury told his
staff at a meeting on 20 March. Philip Young heard it differently; he "understood
Donovan to say this morning he was just taking over on this Middle Eastern
list which he had, not on the broader problem." The Secretary countered: "Well,
certainly when Donovan left here, I gathered from him that the matter is en-
tirely in his hands," and so Morganthau ordered that he be given all the help
he needed.
At this point, the Secretary paid fitting tribute to the Colonel:
He is the first man I have talked to that I would be willing to really
back. I saw what he did last summer. But what I said still holds true. Any-
thing you can do to help him, because he certainly is-[sic] he has been for
a week actually in the trenches up in Albania. He was down in Libya when
they took that last town, whatever the last town was. He was with Wavell
for over a week. He was with Eden in Cairo. He has been twice in England.
He has been in Spain and he has been in Portugal. I think he knows more
about the situation than anybody I have talked to by about a thousand
percent. And he is not discouraged.
To all this Harry Dexter White commented: "That is all good preparation
for Washington." When asked to explain, he replied: "I mean, he ought to be at
home in all the fighting that is going on." To this the Secretary said: "Well, he
is a fighter, don't worry." 11
On 22 March Donovan told General Marshall that he had gotten on well
with the G-2 of Wavell's forces, and.this officer had suggested that he would
be happy to explain their intelligence procedure to an American intelligence
officer. Marshall then relayed this information to General Miles with the sug-
gestion that he get in touch with Donovan. To this Miles replied that Donovan
had given "me the same information." 12 Donovan also had already had "a long
talk ... with officers of this Division." 1,1
On 25 March Donovan accompanied Secretary Knox to a two-hour meeting
with Stimson, Marshall, and Stark, on the one hand, and a British delegation of
Admiral R. M. Bellairs, Captain Victor Danckwerts, General E. L. Morris, and
Air Commodore J. C. Slessor, on the other. These were the officers then in the
United States for a very secret, prolonged round of Anglo-American staff talks.
On this occasion, they had, according to Stimson, a "rather effective and inter-
esting" discussion of escort duty, the British food shortage, and methods of
convoy. 14
1? Ibid., 20 March 1941; "WD Speech," p. 14.
The Henry Morgenthau, Jr., Diary, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Book 384, pp. 23-25.
'a Marshall to Miles, 22 March; and. Miles' reply, undated, RG 165, File 2257-22-341.
13 Memorandum from Miles to Marshall, "Joint Intelligence Committee," 15 April 1941,
RG 319, File 350.05, CONF.
14 Stimson Diary, 25 March 1941.
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About the same time, Donovan received help from Archibald MacLeish
of the Library of Congress on the speech that he was to give to the nation on
a nationwide hookup of the three networks on 26 March.' He gave the people
essentially the same country-by-country report he had given the officers of the
War Department; but more importantly from the point of view of those who
favored strong action in support of Britain, he argued vigorously that America
was not actually threatened only because Britain was not beaten. He warned
that aiding Britain meant making certain that the goods we made available
actually got there. With obvious reference to the controversial point of escort
duty and convoys, he asked, "are we going to deliver the goods?" re
He had any number of odd jobs to take care of for other people. Britain's
Director of Postal and Telegraph Censorship had given him a problem to take
up with the State Department. So also Lord Swinton had asked him to do some-
thing about the subversion of British crews in the U.S. In Ankara he picked up
three items to take up with the Navy: sending Turkish officers to Annapolis for
some training; stationing a Navy radio man in Istanbul or Ankara in order to
receive daily State Department releases; and accrediting the Naval attache in
Turkey to Greece also. In Madrid he was asked to do something about strength-
ening the naval attache system in Spain and Portugal. In London he was asked
to urge "Mr. Hoover's F.B.I. [to] get after" one Isidore Lazarus, alias Lee Lane,
a Rumanian Jew then in prison in the U.S., and get from him the story of his
collaboration with top Nazis and of his "fleecing" of Jews who wanted to leave
Germany.17
That the President's committee consulted him is not suprising. He had
studied the Fifth Column and written on it. He had talked with Britain's intelli-
gence chiefs and seen some of their problems, their operations, and their training
establishments. He had seen commandos, guerrillas, and parachutists. He had
collected more raw intelligence from more sources in more places than perhaps
anyone on the scene, and he continually related all this data to strategy and
tactics, to the problem at hand, to defense and victory. Perhaps the committee of
Cabinet members "consulted" him, but his very activity invited that consultation.
The "consultation" took place at one of those meals, this time a luncheon,",
which Donovan was in the habit of hosting as a standard way of doing business.
This probably occurred shortly after his return, although the opening quotation
in this Chapter seems to link it closely with his report of 10 June. Other than
holding this meeting, the committee seems to have been a casual thing. The
President never mentioned it again or called for a report. There is no mention
of it in either the Stimson papers or The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes.
One exception to these assertions will be noted shortly.
After Stimson passed his notes on the 4 April Cabinet meeting to Marshall,
the latter passed them on to Miles with the suggestion that he prepare a study
for the Secretary "in case the question again arose." 19 It was this suggestion which
'" Letter from MacLeish to Donovan, 24 March 1941, Donovan Papers, Vol. 3.
"New York Times, 26 March 1941, p. 1, col. 4.
"The Ankara, Madrid, and London items are in Donovan Papers, Vol. 2.
Deuel, op. cit., p. 107.
Cf. note 64, p. 90, supra.
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brought forth Miles' proposal of 8 April to make Donovan coordinator in counter-
subversion cases. This was sent on to Stimson. A note, apparently written by
John J. McCloy, reminded Stimson that he had read Miles' report but had "not
acted on it" and suggested that it be brought up at the Cabinet meeting on 25
April.211 Nothing came of this.
One member of the committee specifically consulted Donovan, and not sur-
prisingly that was Knox. For the Secretary, Donovan wrote a four-page document
which is significant in that it is Donovan's first paper on intelligence, at least the
first that has been found. The purpose was to describe "the instrumentality
through which the British Government gathers its intelligence." He laid down
basic principles which should guide in the establishment and operation of such
an organization in the United States: first, it should be above party; second, it
should be controlled by the President; third, it should have its own secret funds;
fourth, it should not take over the duties of MID, ONI, and/or FBI; fifth its func-
tions should include sole charge of intelligence work abroad, the coordination of
the activities of the military and naval attaches abroad, and classification and
interpretation of all intelligence for the President; and lastly, the organization
should have an advisory committee of the secretaries of War, Navy, State, Treas-
ury, and the Attorney General.
Having outlined these principles, Donovan then added the reminder that
he had been speaking of intelligence in the narrow sense. Modern war, he said,
operates on more fronts than battle fronts. Here he referred specifically to com-
munications in the sense of "the interception and inspection (commonly and
erroneously called censorship) of mail and cables; the interception of radio
communication; the use of propaganda; and the direction of subversive opera-
tions." To this list he added the covering line: "On all of these factors I have
obtained first hand information which I think better not to set down here." He
finally returned, at much greater length, to a description of the British system,
which he broke down into two parts: the production sections corresponding
to such departments of government as Foreign Office, War Office, and Home
Office, and the distribution sections, which organized intelligence work abroad.21
Thus by the end of April the subject had been formally treated by Donovan,
but also by that time it seemed to have died on the vine. The reasons will explain
the role of Stephenson at this time.
Contrary to what Miles seemed to say or imply, Donovan personally had
no desire to run a new organization, unless it were a commando or guerrilla
organization. He still wanted to lead troops, and, fresh from Grecian and Libyan
fronts, he felt the desire strongly. Stephenson has insisted that Donovan stoutly
resisted the idea that he himself should run the organization which Stephenson
envisaged as an American counterpart to his own BSC. Those who knew Donovan
well insist that he never would have asked for anything like that for himself.22
" Henry L. Stimson. Correspondence, Yale University, Sterling Memorial Library, Box 385.
21 Donovan to Knox, 26 April 1941, Donovan Papers, Job. No. 66-595, Box 1, Folder 22.
" Cf. note 46, p. 101, infra. Also, Doering, loc. cit. has said Donovan would have pushed
the idea of COI but not himself.
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The committee may well have felt that the situation which provoked the
President's query on 4 April had been resolved. Stimson, for instance, was sitting
on Miles' memorandum. On 12 May, the Secretary and Jackson discussed the
state of relations between G-2 and the FBI, and both agreed that there was no
longer any friction between Miles and Hoover. Stimson added that in that case
he was not going to replace Miles, who, he thought, was doing "very good work
in all the organizational duties" of MID, and Jackson agreed with that con-
clusion. On 20 May he told the President the same thing, and the President
agreed with his decision to keep Miles.23
For his part, the President never seems to have been really seized of the
problem. He saw it as a problem of reducing "the twilight zone," whereas what
Stephenson had in mind was an organization to conduct world-wide, offensive,
clandestine operations, and what Donovan had in mind was even larger in con-
ception, an organization that would include operations, the coordination of
intelligence, and even strategic planning. When Miles and Hoover were pacified,
the President had to be sold the new idea of a "coordinator."
The President's position, in the spring of 1941, was also greatly conditioned
by other factors and problems which seized him and his Cabinet officers. In
truth, some of the Cabinet thought he was not sufficiently seized of the problems.
When Stimson and Jackson were agreeing that relations between G-2 and the
FBI had improved, they were also agreeing, along with Knox and Ickes who
were present, on "the general apprehension on our part about the indecision and
lack of leadership of the whole war movement-the whole crisis." 24
That crisis was the worsening position of Britain, the President's indecision,
and the confused mood of the people. Britain had suffered military reverses in
the Middle East, and following the passage of Lend-Lease the Germans struck
hard at merchant shipping. The President seemed to do nothing: he had been on
a cruise; he had then been incapacitated by a lingering low-grade infection; if
he was not ill, he was inaccessible except, grumbled Ickes, to Harry Hopkins;
and to the country he was enigmatic, especially when his press conference of
28 May deflated the sense of direction and action given just the night before
by his declaration of an unlimited national emergency. For Roosevelt, leadership
was a question of timing, and he preferred his own sense of timing to that of
others; more important, perhaps, was his apparent judgment against provocative
acts which, in his opinion could only worsen the total situation.25 Whatever the
reason, despair gripped many; if he had had a voice that could influence people,
Ickes would have quit the Cabinet and taken to the airwavcs.2G
The President's interest in a "referee" for the intelligence agencies was also
but a small aspect of the larger problem of readying the government for defense
and-if and when it came-war. The Reorganization Act of 1939, two years
in the making, had set up the Executive Office of the President and thereby
given FDR "the administrative flexibility essential in time of crisis." 27 With the
outbreak of war, and especially after the end of the "phoney war," the President
Stirasan Diary, 12, 20 May 1941.
Ibid., 12 May 1941.
Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War, 1940-1941, pp. 514-15.
"'Ickes, op. cit., p. 510.
"U.S., Bureau of the Budget, The United States at War (Washington: G.P.O., 1946) p. 15.
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began establishing those "war agencies" which were to number 136 before the
war was over. Of these, 32 were established before COL" What this meant in the
doing was the confused and controversial delimitation of new problems, new
jurisdictions, and new channels of coordination, as well as the selection of the
right people to run them. What else did Harry Dexter White have in mind when
he spoke of "all the fighting that is going on"?
The President had just scored a great victory on 8 March when, after two
months of furious national debate, the Senate finally passed the momentous
Lend-Lease Act, but it was to be weeks before the new Administrator, Harry
Hopkins, had an agency to back him up and months before the Lend-Lease
Administration was actually set up. In the meantime, the activist members of
the Cabinet-Stimson, Ickes, and Knox-had been agitating and meeting to
"do something" about countering the Fifth Column at home, building up the
"morale" of the population, and encouraging home defense. The day the President
spoke of the "twilight zone" he met with Bureau of the Budget officials on
the executive order setting up the "so-called home defense activities," and the
President, who had Mayor LaGuardia in mind, said he wanted at its head
someone "who would attract attention as a good ballyhoo artist and speech-
maker." Smith of the Budget, who noted the President was talking about details,
pointed out that what was needed was "some leadership in the Federal govern-
ment for this whole field." 29
This subject brought up the name of Donovan. On 17 April, the Budget
people discussed the draft order for civil defense with FDR a second time.
They "tossed in some names from a list that we had made up. The only name
that clicked to some extent with the President was that of Bill Donovan." 30
Later that same day, at the Cabinet meeting, Stimson again brought up "the
question df a bureau for constructive counterespionage work," and Donovan
was mentioned as a possibility along with Frank Bane, Edgar Ansel Mowrer,
Max Gardner, Ambassador Bullitt, and LaGuardia. Finally, Vice President Wal-
lace was asked to act as temporary chairman of the bureau.31 Eventually, on
20 May, the Office of Civil Defense was established with LaGuardia at its head.
Without going into all the details of the other problems and organizational
activities gripping the President and his Cabinet, suffice it to say that Donovan's
plan was not high on their list at this time. The same is not necessarily true,
however, of MID, ONI, and the FBI, which were still seized of the implications
of the 4 April request of the President, Donovan's plan, and a new proposal
for a joint Intelligence Committee.
Opposition to a Coordinator
On 27 March, a week after Donovan's return, the former military attache
in London, Colonel (now Brigadier General) Lee prepared, at Marshall's direc-
tion, a proposal for the establishment of a "Joint Intelligence Committee." Gen.
Lee's proposal was born of his experience in London where he saw the mounting
pile of information flowing out of the city into Washington and the incoming
Za Ibid., pp. 521-535, for a complete list of these agencies and their dates of establishment.
Harold D. Smith Papers, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Conferences with the President,
1941-1942, Vol. 13, 4 April 1941.
"Ibid., 17 April 1941.
81 Stimson Diary, 17 April 1941.
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requests from Washington for information on the developing situation. Lee saw
clearly that some new mechanism for the coordination of information was neces-
sary, and he thought a JIC was the solution.32
His proposal was forwarded to Marshall by Miles with a covering memo-
randum. The gist of this was that Miles agreed with Lee's definition of the
problem; he referred to the fact, for instance, that MID had never seen the
cables that Donovan had sent in; but he thought Lee's proposal would erect
an organization that would dwarf anything in existence and would simply com-
pound rather than solve the problem. Hence he proposed instead that the
agencies concerned with this problem get together and work out some solution.
He therefore drafted for the Secretary a letter to be sent to eight agencies:
State, Treasury, Navy, Commerce, Office of Emergency Management, Admin-
istrator for Export Control, Office of Production Management, and the Maritime
Commission.33
Meetings were held on 5, 19 and 26 May. Discussion centered on information
coming from the British Empire, and the proposal was made that each agency
set up a "clearing house" for the exchange of information. The representative
From State reported to Under Secretary Welles that he thought MID was
engaged in "a fishing expedition," and "several other representatives" agreed with
him. In other words, MID was satisfied with the present system of liaison but
wanted it extended "to see if it could obtain additional and more expeditious
information" from the other agencies.34
The recommendations that issued from these meetings and were drafted
and re-drafted throughout June are a masterly example of taking much time
to do nothing. In forwarding the second draft, Miles, on 17 June, rather apolo-
getically admitted that what was being proposed, while "a distinct improvement,"
was the maximum that now could be attained. With obvious reference to Dono-
van, he wrote: "There is, I understand, some advocacy of much more radical
steps . . . to correct the present lack of systematic liaison between the various
agencies." 35 The recommendations, which were finally agreed upon by the com-
mittee on 7 July, established a system whereby each agency retained complete
control of its own information, released whatever it wanted, designated one or
more offices within the agency as the "clearing house" for exchange with
other agencies, and agreed on the definition of "Secret," "Confidential," and
"Restricted." 38
Just to complete the record, Lee's original proposal of a joint Intelligence
Committee was not completely lost in the shuffle of paper that produced this
agreement. On 12 June the British Military Mission in Washington established
a local JIC to correspond to the JIC in London; W. S. Stephenson was one of
the seven members on the committee.37 On 23 June Admiral Stark forwarded
,2 Memorandum from Brig. Gen. Raymond E. Lee to Marshall, 27 March 1941, RG 319,
rile :350.05.
' Cf. n. 13, p. 93, supra. The letter is dated 15 April 1941.
" Memorandum from George A. Gordon to Welles, 22 May 1941, RG 59, File 102.2/3434.
' Letter from Miles to each member of the committee, 17 June 1941, RG 319, File
:350.05, CONF.
"Letter from Miles to each committee member, 7 July 1941, ibid.
"British Military Mission in Washington, "Formation of a Joint Intelligence Committee
(Washington)," 12 June 1941, CNO Files, (SC) A8-2/EF13.
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Man the ritis
to Knox a detailed report on the London JIC: "translating this British set-up
into our own organization would make such a JIC responsible, in effect, to the
Joint Board." On 14 July Miles and Kirk recommended the establishment of a
JIC 38 in a move calculated "to forestall intrusion into such privileged matters
by the President's Coordinator of Information, `Wild Bill' Donovan." 39
Meanwhile, the IIC was busily defending its garrison. On 15 May Miles,
Hoover, and Kirk signed a report on their joint coverage of,"the field of espionage,
sabotage, counterespionage, subversive activities, and violations of the Neu-
trality Act." At their meeting on 21 May it was agreed the report would be
sent to the President, and so the next day it was forwarded to "Pa" Watson by
Hoover in the belief that the President "would be interested in the carefully
coordinated program presently being carried out" by MID, ONI, and the FBI.',
That same day Miles wrote Marshall that the IIC had agreed that a co-
ordinator for the three services was not needed, that such an officer, if not re-
stricted to the role of "referee," would be a "positive detriment" to the services'
work, and that
there is every reason to believe that a coordinator named by the President
would attempt to operate in the entire field of intelligence. This would
mean that he would to a large extent control the collection and evaluation
of military and naval intelligence required by the two armed services, a
highly undesirable state of affairs.
Miles recommended therefore that "no steps be taken in this matter unless the
President again revives his project," and that if he does revive it, then it should
be "discouraged" by the three Cabinet officers concerned. Finally, if worst comes
to worst, then the coordinator must have no control over military information and
must be restricted to the role of referee in countersubversion cases.41
Just to make certain that their position was clear, the three signed another
joint memorandum on 29 May. Their review of two years' work under the di-
rective of 26 June 1939 left them with the "considered opinion" that "coordination
between the three Services is working satisfactorily. The inevitable `twilight
zone' . . . has been progressively narrowed . . ." They further agreed that the
"useful role" of a coordinator could only apply to "the now almost non-existent"
cases of a conflict of authority in the countersubversive field. Moreover, they
stressed that a coordinator would get in the way of the agencies' separate
activities that lie outside "the scope of their coordinated activities." Their con-
cluding sentence was unequivocal: "The appointment of a Coordinator of the
three Intelligence Services is unnecessary and would entail great complication in,
if not serious detriment to the National Service, [sic] while offering only neg-
ligible advantages." 42
"The recommendations were made in separate letters of 14 July and are cited in a
memorandum from the joint Planning Committee to the Joint Board, 10 September 1941, ibid.,
(SC)A8-1(A and N), CONF.
3o Ludwell L. Montague, "Intelligence Service, 1940-1950," Memorandum for Record.
CIA, 1 December 1969, p. 6.
'All in this paragraph is found in RG 319, File 310.11, CONF.
" Miles to Marshall, 22 May 1941, ibid., CONF.
"Report on Coordination of the three Intelligence Services [FBI, MID, and ONI],"
29 May 1941, CNO Files, A3-1/A8-5(5-29), CONF.
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Stephenson "Manoeuvres"
They were not tilting with a windmill. On 5 May Stephenson had cabled
Menzies that he had been "attempting to manoeuvre Donovan into accepting
the job of co-ordinating all U.S. intelligence." SIS has described this telegram
as "the first actual reference" to Stephenson's efforts in this direction.43
Years later, Sir William recalled that "in April of 1941" Roosevelt had begun
to give some thought to expanding American secret activities, but "no decision
was made for some time despite various pressures." Stephenson said he had
"enlisted the help of several avenues of influence at the White House. Winant
and Sherwood were the most persistent and effective, I think. There were others
who kept the subject alive. Vincent Astor is one who comes to mind." 44
At the same time, Stephenson was encountering opposition from certain
London quarters which were animated by "a certain aura of suspicion under-
standably associated with old established organizations whose lifeblood is the
Undiluted quintessence of cynicism," These circles, in the SIS, would have been
"horrified" had they known the extent to which "I was supplying our friend with
secret information to build up his candidacy for the position I wanted to see
him achieve here." To counter this attitude he had to enlist the help of Churchill
and rely on the continuing assistance of General H. L. Ismay and Sir Desmond
Morton in the Prime Minister's "immediate entourage." Subsequently:
Our friend began to send up to the Summit papers designed to stress
the lack and need of establishing undercover services equivalent to I [Secret
Intelligence], O[perations], and PWE[Political Warfare Executive], Eco-
nomic Warfare, external CE [Counterespionage] and other related ac-
tivities. Of course my staff produced the material for these papers and
they were usually sent up in practically the original form. There was always
only one objective so far as he was concerned which was: `I must garner
all I can from any source which might he of help to my country in what
t see so clearly lies ahead of it.' (Italics mine. )45
Stephenson recalled, however, that Donovan was not initially taken with
the idea of directing "the new agency that we envisaged;" and it was not "by
SIS, op. cit. paras. 10 and 12. The telegram is in QC, p. 152.
""Early Days . . . " pp. 7-8.
' Ibid., p. 8. Until the writer read and pondered the italicized portion of this quotation,
he remained puzzled by the stylistic dichotomy of Donovan's 26 April memorandum to Knox.
Following are sample paragraphs which suggest separate authorship:
I think it should be read with these considerations in mind. Intelligence operations
should not be controlled by party exigencies. It is one of the most vital means of national
defense. As such, it should he headed by someone appointed by the President directly
responsible to him and to no one else. It should have a fund solely for the purpose of
foreign investigation and the expenditures under this fund should be secret and made
solely at the discretion of the President.
Reports received from representatives abroad go first to Central Registry, when, after
going through the processes of carding and attachment of files, they are stamped with the
cumber of the Production section concerned and passed to it, a copy of each report (sub-
uuitted in quadruplicate) being passed to the D. section to whom the reporting representa-
tive belongs. (This is done in order that the D. section can keep a record of representatives'
activities; all correspondence other than reports goes direct to D. sections.)
Surely Donovan did not write the second paragraph!
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any means a foregone conclusion that he would be offered the appointment."
As late as 1969 Sir William observed that Donovan "wouldn't reach for the job,
felt he shouldn't seek it, any more than he did for the New York governorship
in 1946. Donovan was a proud man. But he was a natural for the job." As far
as Stephenson was concerned, Donovan had unique qualifications: the confidence
of the President, Hull, Stimson, and Knox; some understanding of the conduct
of secret activities; the vision and drive to build an organization; and a demon-
strated willingness to cooperate with BSC.46
What, in fact, was Donovan himself doing in this matter during April and
May? He had had the Cabinet committee for lunch. He had sent a paper to Knox.
He has been quoted as saying, in regard to plans for an intelligence agency: "I
talked to anybody who would listen," and the name cited as an example is
Ambassador Winant, who, however, did not return to the U.S. for a visit until
the first days of June. The record is sparse.
Stephenson has said that "our friend" was sending papers "to the Summit"
on the need for undercover organizations; he had sent to Knox his paper of
26 April; on 10 June, apparently on request, he sent Roosevelt his very important
recommendation for the establishment of COI; but not until 3 July did he send
his long paper on the British Commandos. Other than these papers, it is difficult
to know what papers Stephenson had in mind.
An interesting but somewhat puzzling account of Donovan's activity in
April and May has been made by one historian of Britain's economic blockade
of the Axis and reminds one of Miles' description of the movement being fostered
by the Colonel: according to this historian, Donovan "was preparing far-reaching
.plans that would give him control over the administration of economic warfare,
secret service, and political and psychological warfare." Donovan was also de-
scribed as proceeding with a comprehensive plan of his own; and "many of the
draft memoranda designed by Colonel Donovan to become presidential orders
setting up a new emergency agency were shown to Mr. Hall" who headed the
Embassy's economic warfare department. This last sentence with its "draft memo-
randa," "presidential orders," and consultations with Hall-if it has any sub-
stance-is either a repeat of Stephenson's papers heading for the "Summit" or
a clue to undiscovered documents.47
Despite Stephenson's "manoeuvering" and whatever Donovan was doing,
nothing much was accomplished in May. On 9 May Vincent Astor sent to FDR
a clipping from the Herald-Tribune in which Major George Fielding Eliot decried
the lack of real coordination among the FBI, G-2, and ONI in regard to thwarting
enemy agents and Fifth Columnists and called for the establishment of "a really
efficient counterespionage service." What is needed, Eliot argued, is "a special
intelligence service to act as co-ordinator, responsible directly to the President,
acting with his own authority, and provided with personnel to conduct investi-
gations of its own when necessary." Eliot also called for "a competent, intelligent,
well-trained espionage service as distinct from sabotage, for work in enemy
"Ibid. The observation of 1969 is in Stephenson, private interview, 13 February 1969.
" William N. Medlicott, The Economic Blockade, of the History of the Second World
War, United Kingdom Civil Series, ed, by W. K. Hancock (London: H.M.S.O., 1952), Vol. II,
p. 502.
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countries." The emphasis above was provided by Astor who told the President
that Eliot's article "would seem to indicate that anonymity can be attained, at
least for a while. We may not be very brilliant up here," he went on, "but I do
guarantee that, in spite of what Major Eliot may think, there is co-ordination,
very little friction, and, incidentally, lots of hard work, too." That Astor thought
his operation was what Eliot had in mind is indicative of the distance that was
still to be traveled.48
A more pertinent letter was written two weeks later by Secretary Knox,
and it takes us hack to the "hero in search of a role." To Justice Frankfurter,
who could always be relied upon to help Roosevelt fill empty slots, Knox un-
burdened himself:
Frankly and privately, I am a little disappointed that the Administra-
tion is not making better use of Bill Donovan's services. He has made such
tremendous sacrifices and contributed in such an outstanding way, that it
seems strange to me that some very important job is not assigned to him. I am
,getting to be a little sensitive about urging him because it looks as if I were
trying to find something for him to do, which is not the case. I am impelled
solely by the conviction that his services are of the highest possible value
to the country in this crisis.49
Surely Knox intended Frankfurter to do something about the situation, but
alasl there is no indication he did. The situation was to change radically in ten
clays, but Winant, not Frankfurter, will be seen to be the engine of change.
[n the meantime, Donovan was one of millions who were given new hope
by Roosevelt's proclamation on 27 May of an unlimited national emergency. "My
dear Mr. President," he wrote FRD, "permit me to say that your speech was
superb and hit right on the button." This evoked a handwritten note, possibly
from General Watson and at the President's request, telling Steve Early to
"prep[are] a little line to Bill." 50
It must have been while Donovan's letter was in the mail or on the Presi-
dent's desk that the President and Henry Morgenthau were actually talking about
a job for Donovan-Administrator for the State of New York for the Defense
Savings Program. On 2 June, the Secretary told Harold Graves, one of his officials,
that the President, who had been in Hyde Park since the 29th, "said try Donovan
first, but he didn't think he would take it ... Farley second and third, Swope."
Morgenthau then directed: "I tell you what to do. You take Donovan and if he
turns you down, I'd like to do Farley myself." 51
'T'hree days later Donovan was informed by mail that "the President has
suggested that we should draft you to serve" as Administrator. "This," said the
Secretary's letter, "would be a full-time job," and he agreed "enthusiastically"
with the President, who thought the job would present "an unusual opportunity
for public service in these critical times." 52 In 1969 Stephenson observed that
" Letter from Astor to Roosevelt, 9 May 1941, Roosevelt Papers, PSF Astor. Eliot's article
appeared on 8 May.
Letter from Knox to Frankfurter, 22 May 1941, Knox Papers, Correspondence, Box 1.
Letter from Donovan to FDR, 28 May 1941, Roosevelt Papers, PPF 6558 Donovan.
Transcript of telephone conversation, 2 June 1941, Morgenthau Diary, Book 403, p. 85.
Letter from Morgenthau to Donovan, 5 June 1941, ibid., Book 405, p. 204.
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he could have gotten "a dozen men on Wall Street to handle that job but only
Donovan could handle the COI job." Stephenson thought that it probably was
the Secretary, and not the President, who suggested Donovan, and at the latter's
suggestion Stephenson talked with Morgenthau.53
The job offer was to hang fire for two weeks, much to the impatience of
the Secretary, for Stephenson's "manoeuvering" and Donovan's "talking," unpro-
ductive in May, were about to register triumph in June. Stephenson has been
quoted as naming Sherwood, Winant, and Astor as three men through whom
he worked on the President. These three certainly had both influence with and
access to the President. Astor was at the White House on 24 April and 5 June.
On 16 June, Donovan was reported "trying to sell [Astor] on the idea [of com-
bining FBI, MID, and ONI] so that he in turn would sell it to the President." 64
Astor's position, however, is a little cloudy: when Stephenson recalled that
"Vincent Astor is one who comes to mind," his dictation, subsequently scratched
out, went on: "but he leaned toward the Hoover camp." There is no question
but that Astor was a firm supporter of the Bureau at this time, and he may have
had ambivalent feelings towards the projected organization. Stephenson's memoir,
however, does leave Astor as one through whom he worked.55
Sherwood was in even a better position than Astor to push the new organiza-
tion, and he had some personal interest in seeing it come to fruition. On 16 June
Sherwood wrote Morgenthau: "I'm waiting on the anxious seat for materialization
of the job I want most to do." 56 The same day he was sending Donovan a list
of names of people "for the work we discussed . . . yesterday evening at your
home." These included Edmond Taylor, Douglas Miller, E. A. Mowrer, H. R.
Knickerbocker, and Raymond Gram Swing, and clearly they were talking about
radio propaganda, or what came to be the Foreign Information Service in the
new COI. Certainly Sherwood had Winant in mind, when he also wrote: "Yester-
day evening at your house was a wonderfully interesting one. I saw the Am-
bassador again today, He's a honey." 57
Sherwood, who had only lately become a Presidential speechwriter and
a valued one at that, had also become a frequent overnight guest at the White
House. He and Mrs. Sherwood were house guests for three days beginning
23 April; he was there again for three days on 7 May; and while the speech of
27 May was being drafted he was there for six days; he left the day before
Roosevelt took off for Hyde Park. Sherwood apparently was not at the White
House, however, in the important first half of June.',"
Stephenson, private interview, 23 October 1969.
Letter from Sharp to Miles, 18 June 1941, RG 165, File 10153-423. The rest of the quo-
tation is: "I heard the other day that Col. Wild Bill Donovan is behind a movement to com-
bine MID, ONI, and FBI ... That Sec'ty Knox was for the plan: That Mr. Hoover was dead
against it."
"Early Days .. ," p. 7.
Letter from Sherwood to Morgenthau, 16 June 1941, Morgenthau Diary, Book 410,
p. 221.
67 Letter from Sherwood to Donovan, 16 June 1941, Exhibits Illustrating the History of
OSS, Vol. III.
68 White House Usher's Diary.
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The former governor of New Hampshire, Ambassador Winant, is apparently
the man whose arrival on the scene brought things to a head. A confidant of
the President, Winant returned from his London Ambassadorial post, which he
had taken in February as Kennedy's successor, talked with the President at
llyde Park, and was invited to stay at the White House. FDR returned at 8:45
on the 3rd, and met with Winant from 11:40 to 12:45.59
This was the first of at least five scheduled meetings that Winant had with
the President. They met again the next day, had breakfast together on the 6th;
they lunched on the 12th, and on the 15th Winant and Hopkins had lunch with
the President in his bedroom.60 Winant's role has been stressed by Stephenson,
and Donovan is apparently the source of the observation that Winant "went
to the White House and urged the President to adopt the Colonel's plan-and
to make the Colonel himself responsible for carrying it out." 61 It is worth em-
phasizing at this point that the Ambassador, who was spending so much time
with the President and whose autobiography makes clear he saw everybody else
in Washington at the time, was also at Donovan's home, surely for dinner, when
COI was being born.
Some time in these first ten days of June-while Morgenthau was awaiting
l )onovan's answer on the bond job, Donovan was asked by the President to
submit his recommendations on the organization he had in mind. This Donovan
did on 10 June in a well-known memorandum 62 in which he argued the inade-
quacy of existing machinery for "analyzing, comprehending and appraising"
such information as was available on enemy intentions and resources, both eco-
nomic and military. His recommendation was the establishment of "a central
enemy intelligence organization which would itself collect, either directly or
through existing departments of Government, at home and abroad, pertinent
information" on "potential enemies," their armed forces, economic organization,
supply channels, troop and popular morale, and their foreign relations. (Italics
mine.) As an example of the situation and his solution, he cited the need for
bringing together all the information, scattered throughout the government,
"upon which economic warfare could be determined." This and other informa-
lion should be analyzed not only by Army and Navy officers but also by research
scholars and others professionally trained as economists, psychologists, technicians
and students of finance.
Donovan cited the need for developing psychological warfare against the
enelny, and in this field he said radio was the most powerful weapon. True it
was not perfected as a weapon, but this could be realized by planning, and
planning required information. Finally he sketched briefly the layout of the
organization: a "Coordinator of Strategic Information," responsible to the Presi-
dent, assisted by an advisory panel of the heads of the FBI, MID, ONI, and other
"" [bid., and John G. Winant, Letter from Grosvenor Square (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1947), p. 195.
Usher's Diary and Composite Presidential Diary.
Deuel, op. cit., p. 108.
For a fuller account of this memorandum and ensuing developments, see Troy, "Dono-
van's Original Marching Orders," Studies in Intelligence XVII/2.
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government departments, and drawing "much of the personnel" from the Army,
Navy, and other branches of government.83
At this point two other persons get into the act: two Britishers whom Stephen-
son and his deputy Ellis consider would-be usurpers of their own claim to having
taken "the first steps" to "establish a contact with the President, Mr. Hoover,
and with Donovan for collaboration in security and intelligence matters." 84 These
two were Admiral Godfrey of Naval Intelligence, with whom Donovan "got along
famously," 6:' and the Admiral's aide, Commander Ian Fleming, of future James
Bond fame, whom Donovan had met during his recent trip. They had arrived
in the United States on 25 May on a secret mission; the Admiral, in mufti, had
alighted from the "Dixie Clipper" only to run directly into photographers' flash-
bulbs, meant, however, not for him but for the well-known but not necessarily-
given the time-more newsworthy Mme. Elsa Schiaparelli.66
Godfrey had come as representative of all the British services with a special
mission to press upon the U.S. the integration of the intelligence services. He
stayed in New York, how long is not known, at Donovan's apartment.67 His
story is that he had been getting nowhere with the services until finally Stephen-
son, bringing in Sir William Wiseman, suggested he had to tell his need to the
President. This was arranged through Wiseman asking Sulzberger of the New
York Times to lay it on with Mrs. Roosevelt: His meeting with the President
took place at a White House dinner party on the evening of 10 June. Driving
home, he "felt doubtful if he'd really made his point, but within three weeks"
Donovan had "$3,000,000 to play with as head of a new department." 68
At the time Godfrey apparently was not aware of Stephenson's own activity
in relation to Donovan: "Godfrey's view now is that he and Fleming overrated
at the time their part in briefing and boosting Big Bill, while underrating the
skillful preparatory work done by Little Bill Stephenson." 69 Fleming's part
allegedly centers on his drafting of the memorandum of 10 June. In 1957 Fleming
wrote: "in 1941 I spent some time with [Donovan] in his home writing the
original charter of the OSS;" and in 1962 he referred to "my memorandum to
Bill on how to create an American Secret Service, . . . the cornerstone of the
future OSS." 70
Fleming did write two memoranda for Donovan .at this time. The second
of these, dated 27 June, can by no means be called "the original charter of the
OSS," but it certainly can be described as a memorandum "on how to create
A photostat of the original of this memorandum is in U.S. Bureau of the Budget, Records,
Folder 211. The original has not been located.
" Letter from Col, Charles H. Ellis to the author, 13 November 1969, Author's files. This
writer talked about the matter with Ellis and Stephenson at the same time, 11 February 1969.
Ellis is particularly unhappy that promised changes in Room 39 were never made.
" David K. E. Bruce, private interview, Washington, 11 December 1969.
" John Pearson, The Life of Ian Fleming (N.Y.: McGraw-Hill, 1966), pp. 96-97; New
York Times, 26 May 1941, p. 8, col. 3.
" Adm. Godfrey, private interview, 4 November 1969.
?8 McLachlan, op. cit., p. 229; Usher's Diary.
?? McLachlan, p. 234.
'0 Pearson, op. cit., p. 101. The first quotation is from Fleming's Letter to Col. Rex Apple-
gate, written in March 1957; the second is in a letter to Cornelius Ryan, 8 May 1962.
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an American Secret Service." Actually, while it is a most interesting document,
none of its specific suggestions was implemented by Donovan.71
`[his second document referred parenthetically to "my previous memo,"
but this has so far not been recovered. Is this what Fleming claims to have
written in Donovan's home? Certainly Donovan was the type of person to ask
people to put their thoughts on paper, and there is nothing implausible about
his soliciting help from Fleming. One who knew Donovan well has asserted
that however much he welcomed others' ideas and drafts, Donovan always
wrote his own important papers; and in any case he would never have sent to
the President such an important document as "the original charter" of OSS had
it been written by someone else, and a Britisher at that! 7.
The days from 10 to 18 June were days of waiting. On the 11th, Grace Tully
sent word to General Watson that the President "wants to see Ben Cohen before
he goes back to England. He will be here longer than the Ambassador. Also
Bill Donovan." 73 In the light of the meeting on 18 June it seems reasonable to
conclude that FDR wanted to see Cohen and Donovan together about COI. On
13 June, Morgenthau, sweating about his war bond job, told Graves that Donovan,
who was coming to see him, wanted "to tell me something about the President
first." On the 17th the Secretary was telling his secretary, Mrs. Klotz, to remind
him to call up Donovan: "I want to have him give me a yes or no on whether
he is going to take the chairmanship in New York State. I am not going to wait
any longer." At 9:10 that morning the following conversation took place:
Morgenthau: Hello.
Donovan . Good morning, Henry.
M : Bill?
D : Yeah.
M : I hope you won't think I'm unduly restless.
D : Oh, no.
M : But we have to get started in New York.
D : Well, look Henry, I'm down here today because I'm
supposed to have a date this morning .. .
M . uh uh
D : That's the reason you haven't heard from me.
M . I see.
D : I'll get a hold of you just as soon as I get through, Henry.
D : I sent word by Frank the other day because I thought
that was the quickest.
M . Frank?
D . Frank Knox.
Ian Fleming, "Memorandum to Colonel Donovan," 27 June 1941, OSS Records, Wash-
Dir-Off-OP 125.
- Doering, loc. cit.
"` Memorandum from Miss Roberta Barrows to Gen. Watson, Roosevelt Papers, PPF 6558
Donovan.
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M : He didn't tell me anything.
D : Oh that God-
I told him to tell you, but I haven't seen him yet.
M : No, he never said anything.
D : Well, I thought that was the quickest way of getting it
to you.
M : He must have forgot.
D : I'm sorry, Henry, because I was trying to get that
word to you.
M : Good, well, you think between now and sunset?
D : Oh, even if I don't hear, I will call you.74
Donovan did not call, either before or after sunset. He clearly had other
things on his mind.
The next day at 12:30 Donovan, Cohen, and Knox met with the President.
He "accepted in totem" [sic] what Donovan had proposed. The deed was done
when Roosevelt wrote in a large hand on the cover sheet of Donovan's 10 June
memorandum: "Please set this up confidentially with Ben Cohen-Military-not
O.E.M." 75
The "confidentially" presumably meant that Donovan would have access
to the President's secret funds. "Military" meant that it was to be established
by virtue of the President's authority as Commander-in-Chief and that Donovan
would be commissioned a general. "Not O.E.M." kept it out of the Office of
Emergency Management and thus ensured Donovan secrecy of operations.
Several weeks later Donovan wrote to his friend and new representative
in London, William D. Whitney:
It is sufficient to say that I told the President that I did not want to
do it and that I would do it only on three conditions:
1. That I would report only to him.
2. That his secret funds would be available.
3. That all the departments of the government would be instructed
to give me what I wanted.76
When Donovan left the White House, with much hard work ahead of him,
he had little time to think of the impatient Morgenthau, but the chief of British
intelligence could not have been far from his thoughts.
'? The 13 June conversation is in Morgenthau Diary, Book 408, p. 4; the note to Mrs.
Klotz is in Book 413, p. 14; and the conversation with Donovan is in Book 409, pp. 151-52,
' The appointment appears in the Composite Presidential Diary. The "in totem" is from
a transcribed telephone . conversation with Morgenthau, from his Diary, Book 411, pp. 67-71.
For FDR's note, see n. 63, p. 105, supra.
" Letter from Donovan to Whitney, 19 August 1941, OSS Records, Job No. 62-271, Box
29, Folder 8.
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At 4 P.M. Morgenthau finally got hold of Donovan's secretary, a Mr. Mahar,
who told the Treasury Secretary: "Well, I guess he must have forgot about it
today while he was here ... He must have forgot about it because I was with
him all the time and almost till the time he got on the plane." Morgenthau,
wanting "a yes or no," asked Mahar to have Donovan call him that night. A day
later "Donovan telephoned Mrs. Klotz evening of 6/18/41 and said he could
not take the position." 77
In the meantime Donovan must have been closeted with Stephenson. On
that very day, the latter proudly cabled London:
Donovan saw President to-day and after long discussion wherein all
points were agreed, he accepted appointment. He will be co-ordinator of
all forms [of] intelligence including offensive operations equivalent S02
[probably SOE]. He will hold rank of Major General and will be respon-
sible only to the President. Donovan accuses me of having "intrigued and
driven" him into appointment. You can imagine how relieved I am after
three months of battle and jockeying for position in Washington that our
roan is in a position of such importance to our efforts.78
Lest the skeptic question the authenticity of this telegram, one must state
that The Quiet Canadian is the only unclassified source in which any mention
of the 18 June meeting has ever been found. In classified documents it showed
up only in the working papers of the Bureau of the Budget as it went about
drafting the formal notice which was issued on 11 July 1941. Finally, as of 18
June Colonel Donovan was to become Major General Donovan, but the unhappy
military managed to spike the promotion.
The citation accompanying the award to Stephenson of the Medal for Merit
reads in part:
Sir William, as Director of British Security Coordination . . . gave
timely and invaluable aid to the American war effort . . . in the field of
intelligence and special operations. At every step in the creation of these
instrumentalities Sir William contributed assistance and counsel of great
value both to the government of the United States and to the entire allied
cause. In a duty of great responsibility he worked tirelessly and effectively
to advance the efficiency and competence of American organizations which
provided for the American Government . . . the same strategic services
furnished to the British Government by British organizations of similar
nature. (Italics mine.) 79
"At every step" can be taken literally.
" Morgenthau Diary, Book 413, p. 14.
Letter from SIS to the Author, 22 May 1968, No. YP/81/1 (c/WH). QC, p. 153.
The medal was awarded to Stephenson by Donovan, for President Truman, on 30
November 1946. The text of the citation and a photograph of the award ceremony appeared
in the New York Times, 1 December 1946, p. 54, col. 3.
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Chapter IX
The deed was done when Roosevelt scribbled his instructions to the Bureau
of the Budget.
Three weeks later, on 11 July, the Coordinator of Information was offi-
cially established. A year later on 13 June, COI was reconstituted as the Office
of Strategic Services, a supporting agency of the joint Chiefs of Staff. On 1
October 1945 OSS was abolished, but some branches, salvaged by the State
and War departments, provided the foundation in 1946 for the Central In-
telligence Group which gave way in 1947 to the present Central Intelligence
Agency. All this, however, is another and much longer story.
This paper has simply been concerned with the role of the British in the
events that led to that meeting on 18 June 1941 at the White House. Credit has
always been given the British for their assistance in the organization and operation
of COI and OSS. This paper has extended that credit for assistance to the
conception and establishment of COI. Stephenson has, in fact, spoken of BSC as
"the parent" of COL'
That the British were happy in 1941 with their offspring is unblushingly
evident in this extraordinary assessment written by Desmond Morton:
Another most secret fact of which the Prime Minister is aware but not
the other persons concerned, [sic] is that to all intents and purposes U.S.
Security is being run for them at the President's request by the British. A
British officer sits in Washington with Mr. Edgar Hoover and General [sic]
Bill Donovan for this purpose and reports regularly to the President. It is
of course essential that this fact should not be known in view of the furious
uproar it would cause if known to the Isolationists.2
This paper has also been "an essay on origins." These, even when pushed
hard, are most always elusive. Few passages so aptly exemplify the miscon-
ceptions that can arise-even among the informed-on the ultimate Why of
things as does this comment, also from Morton:
In point of fact ... I am assured by those concerned that the setting
up of O.C.I. [Office of the Coordinator of Information] was almost en-
tirely in the nature of camouflage for American secret activities.3
"'Early Days .. ," p. 12.
2 Memorandum from Morton to Col. E. I. Jacob, 18 September 1941, Churchill Papers,
Box 145, Folder 463, Item 2. This comment was brought on by Admiral Stark's wish "to take
over the Security System in the West Indies ..." The answer, in short, was his cooperation
in maintaining physical security was welcome but control of the "internal domestic security
of our Colonies" was out of the question.
3 Letter from Morton to Sir David Scott, 1 April 1942, F.O. Papers, A 3874/2487/45
(1942). Morton had been asked to comment on a British paper, "U.S. Information Services,"
written by George F. Todd, 7 December 1941.
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What Morton failed to appreciate was that he was referring simply to the
British motive in bringing COI into being. That was, at best, only half the story.
The other half was the American motive in setting up an organization which
was not just a "cover" but was truly, as events were to show, a viable mecha-
nism for the coordination of strategic intelligence.
Another way of putting the same thing is to stress that this paper has been
the story of the fruitful but equal collaboration, in the institutionalization of a
complex idea, of Stephenson and Donovan, "The Two Bills."
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Archives
1. Great Britain. Cabinet Office. Historical Section. Winston Churchill (Premier Three)
Papers.
2. Great Britain. Foreign and Commonwealth Office. American Department. Telegrams
and Papers, 1940-1942.
3. U.S. Bureau of the Budget. Records of OSS, Units 209-213.
4. U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. OSS Records.
5. U.S. National Archives. Record Group 59, General Records of Department of State.
Telegrams and Memoranda, 1940-1942.
6. U.S. National Archives. Record Group 165, War Department General Staff. Military
Intelligence Division. Correspondence, Minutes, and Memoranda, 1940-1942.
7. U.S. National Archives. Archives Branch, Washington National Records Center, Suit-
land, Md. Record Group 165, War Department General Staff. Military Intelligence
Division. Correspondence and Memoranda 1940-1942.
8. U.S. Secretary of the Navy. Chief of Naval Operations. Central Files (CLASSIFIED).
Telegrams and Memoranda, 1940-1942.
Papers
9. William J. Donovan Papers, Central Intelligence Agency, Washington, D.C.
10. Cordell Hull Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
11. Alan C. Kirk Papers, Washington Navy Yard, Washington, D.C.
12. George S. Messersmith Papers, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware.
13. The Henry Morgenthau, Jr. Diary, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N.Y.
14. Frank Knox Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
15. Franklin D. Roosevelt Papers, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N.Y.
16. Harold D. Smith Papers, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N.Y.
17. Carl T. Spaatz Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
18. Henry L. Stimson Papers, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University, New Haven,
Connecticut.
Letters, to the Author from:
19. Bard, Ralph A., Sr., 6 January 1968.
20. Cuneo, Ernest, 13 November 1968.
21. Donovan, Mrs. William J., 20 May 1968.
22. Drewry, Elizabeth B., 22 November 1967.
23. Ellis, Col. Charles H., 13 November 1969, 10 December 1969.
24. Godfrey, Rear-Admiral John H. (Ret.), 12 December 1968.
25. Landon, Alfred M., 20 June 1969, 8 July 1969.
26. Leisure, George S.,. 31 March 1969.
27. Stephenson, Sir William S., 16 November 1968.
28. Tunney, Gene, 6, 18 August 1969, 8 September 1969.
Interviews
29. Anderson, Admiral Walter Stratton (Ret.), New York City, 12 February 1968,
7 October 1969.
30. Bannerman, R. L., Washington, D.C., 3 October 1969.
31. Bergen, Admiral John H. (Ret. ), New York City, 8 October 1969.
32. Berle, Adolf A., Jr., New York City, 7 October 1969.
33. Bruce, David K. E., Washington, D.C., 11 December 1969.
34. Cavendish-Bentinck, Victor F. W., London, England, 13 November 1969.
35. Cohen, Benjamin V., Washington, D.C., 8 September 1969.
36. Cuneo, Ernest L., Washington, D.C., 27 November 1968, 1 October 1969.
37. Doering, Otto C., Jr., New York City, 6 October 1969, 8 October 1969.
38. Goodfellow, Col. M. Preston, Washington, D.C., 19 August 1969.
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Interviews
39. Godfrey, Rear-Admiral John H. (Ret.), Eastbourne, England, 4 November 1969.
40. Lake, Harry B., New York City, 27 March 1969.
41. Leisure, George S., New York City, 27 March 1969.
42. Lyon, Frederick B., Washington, D.C., 5 December 1969.
43. Murphy, James R., Washington, D.C., 10 January 1969.
44. Spaatz, Gen. Carl T. (Ret. USAF), Chevy Chase, Maryland, 11 June 1969.
45. Stephenson, Sir William S., Bermuda, 11-15 February 1969, 23 October 1969, 17-18
November 1969.
Miscellaneous
46. British SIS, Two letters to the Author: No. YP/81/1 (C/WH), 22 May 1968; No.
YP/81/1 (Historian) 10 November 1969. Also, private interview with the SIS
Historian, 13 November 1989. SECRET.
47. Ellis, Charles Howard. Notes for Documentation [MS on Anglo-American Collabora-
tion on Security and Intelligence in World War 111. Typescript, ca. 1963. Pp. 190.
48. Montague, Ludwell L. "Intelligence Service, 1940-1950." Memorandum for Record.
CIA, Typescript 1969. Pp. 68. CONFIDENTIAL.
49. Mountbatten, Lord Louis. Speech given upon Presentation to him of the William J.
Donovan Medal, 21 March 1966, in New York. Typescript. Pp. 13.
50. Stephenson, Sir William S. "Early Days of OSS (COI)." OSS Records, ca. 1960.
'typescript. Pp. 19.
51. Stephenson, Sir William S. "The Two Bills." Transcript of CBC interview by Shaun
Herron: others participating: Earl Mountbatten of Burma, Ernest Cuneo, Col.
Charles H. Ellis. Bermuda: Island Press, 1968. Pp. 7.
52. Albion, Robert G. and Connery, Robert H. Forrestal and the Navy. N.Y.: Columbia
Univ. Press, 1962. Pp. 359.
53. Alsop, Stewart, and Braden, Thomas. Sub Rosa: The OSS and American Espionage,
2d ed. N.Y.: Harcourt, Bruce and World, 1964. Pp. 264.
54. Ashley. Maurice P. Churchill as Historian. N.Y.: Scribner's, 1968. Pp. 246.
55. Blum, John Morton, ed. From the Diaries of Henry Morgenthau, Jr. Vol. II: Years
of Urgency, 1938-1941. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965. Pp. 443.
56. Brown, J. J. The Inventors: Great Ideas in Canadian Enterprise. The Canadian
Illustrated Library, Toronto, Canada: McClelland and Stewart, 1967. Pp. 128.
57. Brownlow, Louis. A Passion for Anonymity: The Autobiography of Louis Brownlow.
Chicago: University of Chicago, 1958. Pp. 500.
58. Butler, J. R. M. Lord Lothian (Philip Kerr). London: MacMillan, 1980. Pp. 385.
59. Chadwin, Mark Lincoln. The Hawks of World War II. Chapel Hill: Univ. of No.
Carolina, 1968. Pp. 310.
60. Cookridge, E. H. Set Europe Ablaze. N.Y.: Crowell, 1967. Pp. 410.
61. Colvin, Ian. Vansittart in Office. London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1965. Pp. 360.
62. Cooper, Duff, Viscount Norwich. Old Men Forget: The Autobiography of Duff
Cooper. N.Y.: Dutton, 1954. Pp. 399.
63. Dalton, Hugh. The Fateful Years: Memoirs 1931-1945. London: Muller, 1957.
Pp. 493.
64. Deacon, Richard. A History of the British Secret Service. London: Frederick Muller,
1969. Pp. 440.
65. Edwin, Frederick, The Earl of Birkenhead. Halifax: The Life of Lord Halifax.
London: Hamilton, 1965. Pp. 626.
66. Farley, James A. Jim Farley's Story: The Roosevelt Years. N.Y.: Whittlesey House,
1948. Pp. 388.
67. Goodhart, Philip L. Fifty Ships That Saved the World. London: Heinemann, 1965.
Pp. 267.
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C1 and
68. Gretton, Vice-Admiral Sir Peter. Former Naval Person: Winston Churchill and the
Royal Navy. London: Cassell, 1968. Pp. 338.
69. Hyde, H. Montgomery. The Quiet Canadian: The Secret Service Story of Sir William
S. Stephenson, with a Foreword by the Hon. David Bruce. London: Hamilton, 1962.
Pp. 255.
70. Ickes, Harold L. The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes. Vol. II: The Inside Struggle,
1936-1941. Vol. III: The Lowering Clouds, 1939-1941. N.Y.: Simon and Schuster,
1954. Pp. 759, 695.
71. Janeway, Eliot. The Struggle for Survival: A Chronicle of Economic Mobilization in
World War II. Vol. 53 of The Chronicles of America Series. Edited by Allan Nevins,
New Haven: Yale, 1951. Pp. 382.
72. Kirkpatrick, Lyman B., Jr. The Real CIA. N.Y.: MacMillan, 1968. Pp. 312.
73. Krock, Arthur. Memoirs: Sixty Years on the Firing Line. N.Y.: Funk and Wagnalls,
1968. Pp. 508.
74. Langer, William L., and Gleason, S. Everett. The World Crisis and American Foreign
Policy. Vol. I: The Challenge to Isolation, 1937-1940. Vol. II: The Undeclared War,
1940-1941. N.Y.: Harper, 1952, 1953. Pp. 794, 963.
75. Maschwitz, Eric. No Chip on My Shoulder. London: Herbert Jenkins, 1957. Pp. 208.
76. Mayer, George H. The Republican Party 1854-1966. 2nd ed.; N.Y.: Oxford, 1967.
Pp. 604.
77. McCoy, Donald R. Landon of Kansas. Lincoln, Neb.: Univ. of Nebraska, 1966.
Pp. 607.
78. McLachlan, Donald. Room 39: A Study in Naval Intelligence. N.Y.: Atheneum,
1968. Pp. 438.
79. Medlicott, William N. The Economic Blockade. 2 Vols. Part of History of The Second
World War. United Kingdom Civil Series, ed. by Sir Keith Hancock. London:
H.M.S.O., 1959. Pp. 727, 732.
80. Morison, Elting E. Turmoil and Tradition: A Study of the Life and Times of Henry
L. Stimson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1960. Pp. 686.
81. Moscow, Warren. Roosevelt and Wilkie. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1968.
Pp. 210.
82. Mowrer, Edgar Ansel. Triumph and Turmoil: A Personal History of Our Times. N.Y,:
Weybright, 1968. Pp. 454.
83. Overstreet, Harry, and Overstreet, Bonaro. The FBI in Our Open Society. N.Y.:
Norton, 1969. Pp. 400.
84. Pawle, Gerald. The War and Colonel Warden. N.Y.: Knopf, 1963. Pp. 422.
85. Pearson, John. The Life of Ian Fleming. N.Y.: McGraw-Hill, 1966. Pp. 338.
86. Philby, Kim [Harold Adrian Russell. My Silent War, with an Introduction by
Graham Greene. London: MacGibbon and Kee, 1968. Pp. 164.
87. Richards, Denis, The Royal Air Force 1939-1945. Vol. 1: The Fight at Odds. London:
H.M.S.O., 1953. Pp. 430.
88. Sherwood, Robert. Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History. Rev. ed.: N.Y.:
Harper, 1950. Pp. 1002.
89. Strong, Maj.-Gen. Sir Kenneth. Intelligence at the Top: The Recollections of an
Intelligence Officer. London: Cassell, 1968. Pp. 271.
90. U.S. Bureau of the Budget. The United States at War. Washington: G.P.O., 1946.
Pp. 555.
91. U.S. Congress, House Committee on Military Affairs. Selective Compulsory Military
Training and Service. Hearings on H.R. 10132, July 10, 11, 24, 25, 26, 30, 31.
August 2, 12, 13 and 14, 1940. Washington: G.P.O., 1940. Pp. 655.
92. U.S. Congress, Senate. Committee on Military Affairs. Compulsory Military Training
and Service, Hearings on S 4164, July 3, 5, 10, 11 and 12, 1940. Washington:
G.P.O., 1940. Pp. 400.
93. Vansittart, Lord Robert Gilbert. The Mist Procession. London: Hutchinson of
London, 1958. Pp. 568.
94. Whalen, Richard J. The Founding Father. N.Y.: The New American Library, 1964.
Pp. 541.
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95. Wheatley, Ronald. Operation Sea Lion: German Plans for the Invasion of England
1939-42. Oxford: Clarendon, 1958. Pp. 201.
96. Whitehouse, Arch. Heroes of the Sunlit Sky. N.Y.: Doubleday, 1967. Pp. 384.
97. Winant, John Gilbert. Letter from Grosvenor Square. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
1947. Pp. 279.
Miscellaneous
98. Auxier, George W. "Historical Manuscript File: Materials on the History of Military
Intelligence in the U.S., 1884-1944." Washington: Office of the Chief of Military
History, U.S. Department of the Army, n.d. Typescript. SECRET.
99. Bidwell, Bruce C. "History of the Military Intelligence Division, Department of the
Army General Staff." 7 Vols. Washington: Office of the Chief of Military History,
U.S. Department of the Army, n.d. Offset copy. SECRET
100. Bouverie, Col. fnu [probably Pleydell-Bouverie, Lt. Col. Bartholomew]. "British
Relations with OSS." CIA, OSS Records. Mimeographed copy, 1944. Pp. 12.
SECRET.
101. Claussen, Martin P. Memorandum on "Who Thought up CIA?" CIA, 2 August 1967.
Pp. 3. "Outline of Reorganization of U.S. Intelligence, 1937-1941." Rev., 1 August
1967. Pp. 5.
102. Darling, Arthur B. "Origins of Central Intelligence." Studies in Intelligence (Sum-
mer 1964). VIII, 3, pp. 55-94. CONFIDENTIAL.
1.03. Deuel, Wallace R. "History of the OSS," CIA, OSS Records. Typescript, 1944.
SECRET.
104. Hammond, Paul Y. "The Secretaryships of War and Navy: A Study of Civilian
Control of the Military." Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. Harvard University, 1953.
l'p. 402.
105. Lobdell, George Henry. "A Biography of Frank Knox." Unpublished Ph.D. disserta-
tion. University of Illinois, 1954. Pp. 365.
106. Read, Conyers. "Pre-COI Period." CIA, OSS Records. Typescript, n.d. Unclassified.
107. Sutphen, Harold J. "The Anglo-American Destroyers-Bases Agreement, Sept. 1940."
Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. Tufts University, 1967. Pages unknown.
108. Troy, Thomas F. "An Inventory of Papers at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library of
William J. Donovan, of the Coordinator of Information, and of the Office of Strategic
Services." CIA. Typescript, 15 February 1968. Pp. 7. CONFIDENTIAL.
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