No, we usually wore what the locals wore to fit in. Many a day blue jeans and t-shirts fit the mode. Our hair was longer than military standards and we only had to military up when we had an awards ceremony with a VIP. That meant months could go by and we were long-haired and grudge. Excellent cover in overseas locations!!
FM
By CHARLES T. PINCK and DAN PINCK
McLean, Va.
FOR those who have been around long enough, the debate over the
reorganization of the United States intelligence community has a
familiar air. The issues and arguments are similar to those hashed out
in 1942 during the creation of America's first "central intelligence"
agency: the Office of Strategic Services, or the O.S.S. As policy makers
move ahead with reforms, they should consider the lessons that can be
drawn from the past.
Before America entered World War II, the intelligence being given to
President Franklin D. Roosevelt was incomplete and poorly analyzed by
several independent agencies. These included the Office of Naval
Intelligence; the Army's intelligence agency, called G2; the Federal
Bureau of Investigation; and the intelligence services at the State
Department. Much like today's bureaucracies, these agencies did not
share information well. But unlike today, there was no centralized
intelligence effort focused on foreign threats.
Enter William J. Donovan, known as Wild Bill, who was a World War I
Medal of Honor winner, Wall Street lawyer, former United States attorney
in Buffalo and 1932 Republican candidate for governor of New York.
Although a member of the opposition party, Donovan got along well with
Roosevelt, and the men shared an unfashionable belief that America's
liberty was threatened by foreign powers.
In the late 30's, Donovan began traveling abroad and informally
reporting his findings directly to Roosevelt. Eventually he convinced
the president of the need for a centralized spying agency, and in July
1941 Roosevelt created a civilian agency within the White House to
oversee American intelligence, naming Donovan to the new post of
"coordinator of information."
Eleven months later, and half a year after Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt
converted Donovan's group into the O.S.S. under a presidential order. In
this the two faced great opposition, particularly from J. Edgar Hoover.
(Donovan was later quoted as saying that his "greatest enemies were in
Washington, not in Europe.")
Donovan reported directly to the president, even once bringing a silent
pistol invented by the O.S.S. into the Oval Office and firing it.
Roosevelt responded by telling Donovan he was the only Republican who
would be allowed in the Oval Office with a gun.
Perhaps Donovan's greatest skill was his ability to recruit talented men
and women from other fields, whether they came from the Ivy League, Wall
Street or, believe it or not, prison. (After the war, Gen. William
Quinn, then running the Strategic Services Unit, an interim organization
created after the dissolution of the O.S.S. in 1945, was alerted by
Treasury agents to the presence of master forgers in his ranks. Unknown
to Quinn, Donovan had arranged for the release of these men from prison
during the war to work for the O.S.S.)
Donovan was willing to try any ideas that he thought had potential and,
what was more important, he had the power to act on them. He understood
and accepted the inherent risks associated with intelligence work -
often telling O.S.S. personnel that "you can't succeed without taking
chances" - and was as willing to take responsibility for failures as for successes.
The O.S.S. under Donovan was not an insipid bureaucracy of career-minded
professionals. It was a freewheeling organization devoted to finding
effective ways of winning a war that imperiled the nation's future, a
situation we find ourselves in once again. Donovan found formal
decision-making and committees anathema to accomplishing his mission.
Rather, he operated on good sense, instincts and experience - and gave
the members of his staff great latitude to accomplish their missions as
they saw fit.
Another unique feature of the organization was that it encompassed
nearly all of the concerns that the C.I.A. and other intelligence
organizations are engaged in today. For instance, the special operations
branch, which would eventually be the model for the military's Special
Forces, was then fully integrated into the other intelligence
components. Donovan was also one of the first spy chiefs to recognize
the importance of covert action and the need for "actionable
intelligence" (information gathered and interpreted quickly enough that
action can still be taken to change the situation).
When the war ended, President Harry Truman, who knew little about
intelligence issues, disbanded the O.S.S. - only to realize his mistake
two years later and create the Central Intelligence Agency. The new
agency was different in several important ways, however. The O.S.S. had
been an ad hoc group, what Donovan called "an unusual experiment" in
unconventional means and methods against the enemy. From its very
beginning, however, the C.I.A. was designed not as an experiment but as
a permanent government institution. Many of its early leaders, excepting
Walter Bedell Smith and Allen Dulles, were distinguished not for their
intelligence experience but for their knack for political infighting.
As a peacetime organization, it was often compelled to pursue efficiency
rather than effectiveness - it tended to play it safe when picking
employees and projects. While this wasn't necessarily a fatal flaw
during the cold war, a war of diplomacy and proxy armies in which data
collection was often more important than covert action, it would be
crippling in the hot war against terrorism.
Thus in the future our agencies should consider the somewhat haphazard
way the O.S.S. chose people - unconventional warfare requires
unconventional people. In addition, granting tremendous new powers to a
"terrorism czar" will work only if that person is, like Donovan, truly
independent and above the infighting we will certainly see from the
Pentagon and other departments. And last, the new leader must have great
leadership ability, intelligence experience and imagination.
Fisher Howe, a leading O.S.S. officer, once said that "if you define
leadership as having a vision for an organization, and the ability to
attract, motivate and guide followers to fulfill that mission, you have
Bill Donovan in spades." In that sense, all the bureaucratic and
legislative changes in the world won't matter if we don't find the right
person for the job.
Charles T. Pinck is president of the O.S.S. Society. Dan Pinck, an
O.S.S. veteran, is the author of "Journey to Peking: A Secret Agent in
Wartime China."