SECRET AND NONSENSICAL
Document Type:
Collection:
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST):
CIA-RDP75-00001R000100010014-1
Release Decision:
RIPPUB
Original Classification:
K
Document Page Count:
1
Document Creation Date:
November 16, 2016
Document Release Date:
April 24, 2000
Sequence Number:
14
Case Number:
Publication Date:
October 13, 1972
Content Type:
NSPR
File:
Attachment | Size |
---|---|
CIA-RDP75-00001R000100010014-1.pdf | 94.09 KB |
Body:
Approved For Releas`T$ 51 g0~.. b Y00 ='flR l
13
CPYRGHT
CPYRGHT
Sectet and nonsensical
It: tIA! Rls Stlt'[ii
O5s
458pp. University of
Press (IIIEG). #3,95.
Gcncral WNiter Bedell Si
With once
Startled a postwar dinner
party by
Suggesting the war might have been
won much earlier had (lee United
States diverted the time, money -and
Loney anti
en expended on the Office
of Strafe-
menst of that
gic Services " and the rest of that
damn secret nonsense " to t
he regular
foizc.s.' It was a singular s
fok a man who had been General
J,
Eisenhower's Chief of :Staff and, later,
Director of the Central lntelligcncc
Age
California ncy,
R. Maras Smith's OSS, however,
is evidence that Bedcll Smith was
displaying his usual horse sense, The
picture of the 'OSS during and
immediately after the Second World
War is a depressing one. Its succcs-r th
the war as'it saw fit, and, of course,
Sol., the CIA, has its faults. But the
as depicted in this book, was a
mixture of idealism, naivety, in-
, competence and intrigue seldon7
matched in the annals of govern-
ment in America or anywhere else,
Mr Smith's wide reading and
xtensive research have not saved the
book from ingenuousness and error.
He begins by labelling his work
"tie secret history " of the organi-
zation, but there is little of note in it
that has not been written before and
often much better: Ile gets things
wrong. It was the American Navy,
not the Royal Navy, that was
responsible for landing General Pat-
.ton's forces in Morocco in 1942.
The Purple Gang operated in De-
troit, not Philadelphia. Stephen
Bailey is not, nor has he been,
President of Syracuse University",
which is headed by a chancellor.
. Mr Smith's main problem seems
to be his tendency to write about the'
OSS and : its operations in North
Africa, Europe and the Far East in
absolutes. Men and organizations
are heroic or dastardly, faithful or
treasonable. The story is told in
blacks and whites, whereas the dirty,
dangerous game played by the OSS
is best described in varying shades
of grey: .
tion's, the assumption was, then they a good, although incomplete, picture
must be accurate. They often were of Allen Dulles, who is dubbed " the
not, and the operation failed. Oddly, master spy ", But these are not
the CIA, despite the sorry record of sufficient to save thin book. The OSS
its uredecessor., has continued ? this (must wait for a more objective and
or~;anrzafiiin, ivihIf'' ~ejllCSSiirb'" he- so.nh,isticated chronicler.
Lance to guerrilla movements. '1 Ills often Winston Churchill cut through
was an error, The OSS planned , the red tape to save a promising
operations based on intelligence re- operation ; a good story about Gen-
ports produced by the OSS. There oral Donovan and David Bruce in
was little objective study of these' Normandy : the gradual profession-
reports ; if they were the organiza- alization of some. members of OSS
1erations--espionage, sabotage, assis- . There are sonic bright. spots: how
stilts4-such as the fiasco at the Bay
of Pigs,
1Ir Smith's 'villains include not
oniy the Gernmans, Japanese and
Italians, but the British 'intelligence
services, any official who seemed to
doubt the OSS's competence and its
right to order the political end of
all' "colonialists "The style is an
extraordinary mixture of exaggera-
tion and parochialism.
Mr Smith writes that the British
,Army- took a respite of several
months from the war against Hitler
to suppress the revcilt " of the EAM-
ELAS partisans in Greece: This was
the period when Second Army was
fighting bitterly in. North-West
Europe and the Eighth Army was
heavily engaged in Italy.
Perhaps the best chapter in the
book is that devoted to the OSS
operations in Yugoslavia-best, be-
cause it provides a fairly clear
picture of the bewildering situation
that arose from the presence of two
resistance movements and of the
naivety of ?OSS officers. One of
these was confident that "Tito " was
planninf, no Communist revolution
for his country ".
Surprisingly, the book is weakest
when it deals with the OSS in China
during and after the war and with
.American intelligence operations, in
Algeria in 1942-43. In both cases Mr
Smith tends to adopt the easy expla-
nation of what happened and a
somewhat austere attitude towards
those officers whose standards cif-
,fcred from his. Association with a
New York law firm or bank did not
attention to one of the more impor- \ necessarily sour an operator's juds -
tant decisions taken at the outset. by ment. ? In retrospect the OSS prob=
General William "Wild Bill "Deno- ably got more from this type of man
van, the founder and director of the, that it did from the wild-eyed left-
OSS. lie was determined to consoli- ovens from the Abraham Lincoln
date within the organization all op- ,Brigade in Spain.
Approved For Release 2000/05/23 : CIA-RDP75-00001 R000100010014-1