Artifact Details
In this letter dated 13 June 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Office of Strategic Services, CIA’s predecessor agency.
On 13 June 1942, the year-old Office of the Coordinator of Information (COI) became the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), CIA’s World War II forerunner. When he created COI in 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt tasked it to “collect and analyze all information and data which may bear upon national security…,” thereby establishing the first central intelligence agency in US history. As COI, then-Colonel William J. Donovan encountered resistance from the FBI, as well as the Army and Navy, all wary, if not outright suspicious, of this new organization. However, Donovan quickly realized the military might well trust and use COI more if it were placed under the control of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). Donovan worked with the Secretary of the JCS to move COI from the President’s direct control to the JCS while still preserving the office’s autonomy. Donovan asked to change the name to help solidify the transition. Roosevelt readily agreed with this strategy and made it official in this letter to Donovan from the White House.
As Roosevelt alludes to in the letter, one significant aspect of this decision was that COI’s Foreign Information Service (mainly for radio broadcasting and “white,” or overt, propaganda) shifted to the Office of War Information, led by famed reporter and broadcaster Elmer Davis. COI’s propaganda branches now operated under separate controls and OSS maintained the “black” function within its Morale Operations unit. Morale Operations created black propaganda to appear as though it originated from German or Japanese sources.
Although the OSS and other US intelligence organizations never achieved truly effective cohesion, Donovan’s groundbreaking organization operated effectively in North Africa, Europe, and East Asia from 1942 until its dissolution on 1 October 1945.
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The Office of Strategic Services: America's First Intelligence Agency