WAR BY OTHER MEANS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-01208R000100050014-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 22, 2011
• Sequence Number: 14
• Publication Date: August 21, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

III ____- _- ! 1 :_ L.._.ILL
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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/23: CIA-RDP90-01208R000100050014-3
ARTICLE APPEARED NEV YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
ON PAGE /Q 21 August 1983
W L+~.1 by that Otto von Hapsburg, the pretender to the Austrian -
imperial throne, be received at the White House and
asked to contact possible pro-.shied groups in Hun-
gary. The only problem, as Mr. Smith points out, was -
e Hapsburgs were anathema to the Czechs and
that "th
Other Me i: anS Yugoslavs as well as to the Soviets." The plan wok.
promptly abandoned.
TKC SZADOW W*R 1ORS
O. S. S. and the Origins of the C. I. A.
By Bradley F. Smith.
507 pp. New York:
Basic Books. $20.75.
HERE is something lead the United states into making its central
serendipitous about the re- intelligence agency into something that it
cent spate of books about William J. Wild Bill" could
bO j
`
Donovan, the World War I hero who became P`~`
In the end, Donovan and the OS.S. made covert
operations into a respectabieBnd respected form of in-...
telligence activity. As Mr. Smith s, ..It see---
write c$
vious that O.S.S. was more influential m its impact on
people's ideas and imaginationlhan in-its practical
wartime achievements." And he concludes, "Whether
myth or not; the O.S.S. claim to independent shadow
lay PHiI1P TAUBMAN ~~ seed.: Washington's -.belief -
that it could retain superpower ~stati is? cheaply and.
-
Washington's spy master during World Warm and . i w un m J. Casey, me current director of Central In-:
lard the foundations for the Central In telligeace, is a Donovan disciple. He worked for Dono
I van in 'the OSS., su
cy. It is not that the books reduce the Donovan legend
operated behind 1~ German ~ Amer si agents who.
to more hum" The although that was,.lc-ng lines,-and bas'long been a
overdue -and "The Shadow Warriors" performs the leading member of the Veterans of Strategic Service, .
historical refinement without disrespect for Done- a group that has celebrated the achievements of Dono
van's accomplishments. Nor is it some new insight van and supported American intelligence activities.
But, as "T'he Shadow Warriors" niaites clear;-more
into haw the Office of Strategic Services which Ddo-
' than shared ezperieno
van created and directed, made the Government more Casey's direction, the f
receptive to the establishment of a centralized intelii- set in motion a series ~
gence 4Jrganization, though that too is amply- ex- America that would pn
plained in Bradley F. Smith's book. The unexpected ' -
dividend is the pertinence of the story to curr~eat:for- - j'
sign policy and intelligence issues, Particularly the ? +~Onovan ,
Reagan Administration's e~
i f
eas
tivities as an instrument of foreign policy. . eft '
"M "~ O SS made cov
Mr. Smith, who teaches history at Cabrillo Coll
in California, -has done an exhaustive job of research operations respectable."
on the OSS and Donova
If
hi
stuffed too much detail into his book. In some sections, The advocates of these efforts, involving Nicaragua,-
the story slows to a crawl with reconstructions of bu- Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, take a page
reaucratic battles that could interest only an O.S.S. from Donovan's script when they th
t
a
-I>- covert
veteran. In other places, he adopts the kind of forced operations are the ideal way to prote
ct American in-
prose that one associates with a doctoral thesis But terests.in,areas where diplomacy has failed and overt
these flaws may be forgiven because the book offers military action is too risky,
an honest, lively portrait of an important American . There are also disquieting parallels between the
and the contributions, good and bad, that he and the original justifications for shadow warfare offered by
O.S.S. made to the American intelligence system..- Donovan and the explanations given by current offi-
William Donovan, if not the father of United States cials for the use of covert actions against Nicaragua.
covert operations, surely was their-patron saint: He Mr. Smith reports that an early Donovan work about
was an indefatigable promoter of clandestine efforts Nazi subversive activities in the United States, "Fifth
to influence the internal affairs of other nations Dur- Column Lessons for-America," grossly exaggerated
ing World War II, be produced a blizzard of such . the threat in an.effort to shake the American public
proposals, some brilliant, some harebrained. The use out of its isolationist complacency. While no one has.
of O.S.S. agents to help coordinate the sabotage activi- suggested that the Reagan Administration's descrip-
ties of the French resistance with Allied forces during lions of Soviet and Cuban interference in Central
and after the invasion of Normandy was successful, America are fraudulent, critics have accused the Ad-
and Allen Dulles, the O.S.S. chief in Switzerland who ministration 'of selectively disclosing intelligence in-
later became the director of the C.IA, used Bern as a formation favorable to its policy.
I---- f
0 operations to support resistance groups in
France and Italy. But for every success there was a
failure or a seriously flawed plan. In March 1942, for
example, Donovan proposed to president Roosevelt
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/23: CIA-RDP90-01208R000100050014-3
n
anyt
ng he may have