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: 
AttachmentSize
PDF icon CIA-RDP75-00001R000100010014-1.pdf94.09 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