ADDRESS BY MAJOR GENERAL WILLIAM J. DONOVAN - CHIEF OF O.S.S.- WORLD WAR II

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83-01034R000200230002-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
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• Document Page Count: 13
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Sequence Number: 2
• Content Type: SPEECH

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MAJOR GENERAL
WILLIAM J. DONOVAN
Chief of O.S.S. - World War II
AT THE
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HELD AT THE
HOTEL ASTOR ON OCTOBER 27th, 1952
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ADDRESS BY MAJOR GENERAL WILLIAM J. DONOVAN
TODAY THE AMERICAN NAVY has the responsibility and the
burden which the British Navy had for a century and a half.
We Americans are inclined to believe that the oceans are a
barrier and a defense. In reality America is accessible from
the sea which provides the avenues for invasions and for offen-
sive action.
What protects the United States is not the sea but the Navy
on it-with its marines, its aviation, and its Naval Reserves.
To command the sea, to keep open the sea lanes, the Navy
must have support from our nation's industrial plants, its
factories, its seaports and its defenses.
I am sure that Naval officers would be the first to deny that
a Navy could win a major war unaided. No single service is
going to win a war without aid. Sea power can do its best job
when, together with all of our armed services, it is part of a
unified team. It is well for us to keep in mind in our discus-
sions about Korea that it is only our possession of a Navy and
its command of the sea that we are able to keep troops in
Korea at all.
Besides transporting the bulk of the Eighth Army with
equipment and supplies to the battle area, and supporting it
immediately after it went into battle service ever since, the
Navy has accomplished two major feats of arms:
(1) the amphibious landing at Inchon which completely
broke the back of the Communist offense at that point; and
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(2) the withdrawal of the Tenth Corps at Hungnam which
averted what might have been a real military disaster. Such
disasters as occurred in the escape from Dunkirk, the British
evacuation of Greece in World War II and the fate suffered
by Rommel's Army cornered in Tunis, could not be taken off
by the Axis navies.
Thanks to the courtesy of Secretary Kimball, it was my
privilege a few months ago to visit Korea and see for myself
the gallantry and sustained courage of our marines and our
infantry. Those of you here who were in World War I and
remember the fixed positions and stabilized warfare of those
days, can visualize the incessant night raids and constant
artillery fire in that area. I saw there two of the operations
of our Air Force in its support of advancing troops and in its
pounding of the Red supply lines.
There also were the operations of the fast carrier task forces
operating off Korea in all kinds of weather, at the end of a
very long supply line. Employing at most three carriers, they
have according to figures issued by the Chief of Naval Oper-
d 40% of the air effort which has been directed
li
e
ations supp
at the Communists in Korea. It was very heartening to see
the teamwork of these services. We ask ourselves what has
the Navy done between World War II and the present to pre-
pare for its orthodox missions? I have learned that it has
instituted and vigorously worked on a program of scientific
development. It has concentrated in the fields of anti-submarine
warfare, offensive action through the use of its carrier air
power and the development of guided missiles for fleet defense.
Stalin, too, has recognized that the world is in a new age of
technology which has revolutionized atomic jet and electronic
armaments. He appreciates, too, I am sure, that a direct result
of that technological revolution is the capacity of nuclear
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energy for movement and for destruction. But in developing
these weapons, the Soviets have not, as we have, ignored and
neglected the use of new devices in the art of irregular warfare
and in the war of maneuver by psychological means.
Our orthodox military forces are confronted then with the
fact that the Soviets have two strings to their bow-the conven-
tional where they meet us toe to toe and in the psychological
field of war where we are nearly helpless.
The Navy which for our country has shown its diplomatic
and political, as well as its fighting talents, should recognize
the possibilities of this field of warfare.
The Mediterranean particularly the Adriatic, Aegean and
Western Mediterranean are ideally configured for covert oper-
ations from small boats and submarines. It is not unlike
Sweden whose Navy, Hanson Baldwin tells us, has gone under-
ground on the Baltic coast to counter the Soviet threat.
Surely the Navy-which landed many OSS raiding parties
on enemy coasts and many if not most of whose "frogmen"
were OSS-trained-could be of great value in the war now
being waged against us by the Soviet Union.
And the need for this kind of warfare becomes more press-
ing. We are only beginning to realize that when we try to
contain an enemy our initiative is destroyed and we run the
danger of being overrun by the forces we try to contain.
Stalin's speech to the closing Session of the 19th Congress
of the Soviet Communist Party a few days ago was merely a
restatement of a basic principle of Soviet policy. There is
nothing new in this. It means only that whatever adjective is
used-"cold", "hot", "shooting"-that Stalin will continue
by propaganda, subversion and division of peoples, including
our own country, to seek to break our will to resist.
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Let's face it: This country is at war with the Soviet Union
today, and it is time we stopped talking about a "cold war"
that is no more cold than the "phony war" of 1939 was phony.
This is subversive war and if we win we will have the edge in a
shooting war. If we win, we can prevent World War III.
We have failed to recognize this war because it is an un-
orthodox war. While we continue to play by the Marquis of
Queensberry rules, the Soviets ignore all rules. While we
build up our strength, the Soviets seize strategic areas by
subversive means. It is a form of irregular warfare. A kind
of war that has been waged since ancient times. The Byzantine
army boasted of their skill in stratagems and craftiness..
The British and French used its methods here in North
America in Colonial days. General George Washington dis-
played exceptional skill in deceiving the enemy and employing
secret agents to obtain information in our Revolutionary War.
This kind of war is called by different names: irregular, sub-
versive, psychological. Like orthodox warfare, it seeks to
break the will of an enemy to resist by all means moral and
physical-and it is still war.
Hitler and Mussolini developed subversive and psychological
methods, modernized propaganda and fifth column activities,
but used them only to support their orthodox armies. The
Nazis had only small groups of supporters in the democratic
countries and their espionage operations were limited, but the
Soviets make use of the fifth column and the Communist Party
as an army of occupation!
But Stalin has perfected these techniques: In each target
country, operations are directed by Moscow-trained leaders
with a small but strategically well placed hard core Communist
minority, ready to engage in sabotage and in partisan warfare.
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They infiltrate a target country, win a foothold in the channels
of public information and seek to control the key labor unions,
penetrate government agencies and establish popular fronts.
There are no declarations of war, no troops, no tanks, no
planes. But this stealthy warfare plus the threat of the Red
Army, has given Stalin control over vast areas of territories
and hundreds of thousands of people.
We have only just begun to grasp the special nature of
Communist organization and methods. The real strength of
the Soviets lies in their world-wide organization, highly devel-
oped techniques and communications, and in the discipline of
leaders especially trained in the Lenin School in Moscow.
Only by our understanding of the manner in which the fight
is carried to us will we be able to deal with it. We can't sit
back and hope to be let alone. There is no place for compla-
cency, or indifference, or fear-we can't buy our way out, nor
should we be misled by seeming successes until we have totaled
the score on a global scale.
So far, our efforts to counter Soviet subversive war have
been piecemeal. We helped Greece stop Tito and Stalin in the
so-called civil war. Our Berlin airlift forced the Soviets to
quit their blockade. From a standing start, we have held their
proxies in Korea. But we have not gone all-out. We can do
this if we make a-fist of all our resources-propaganda, decep-
tion, ideology, sabotage, guerrilla tactics and military and
economic help-so that every blow is a real punch!
And we did exactly this in World War II. From France to
China, through such operations, the Office of Strategic Services
gained for us the experience, the skill and the knowledge we
now need. They are not just theories-they are things we have
done with profit and can do again.
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Take the job that faces us in China. We must stop Stalin
and his attempted consolidation-now. His conquest of China
was a major defeat for our country. It made the Soviet Union
the dominant power in Asia as it is in Europe. Once Asia is
secured for the Kremlin, the Communist forces can be turned
against Europe and America. It is a big, tough, complex job
to upset that timetable, but it is our job and the outcome is life
or death for America!
The manpower for that job can come from those countries
whose forces could be American-trained and equipped. We
must ask 'the question in Asia that we asked in Europe. Are
you Asians prepared to fight for your own liberties? - I believe
with the proper exercise of our leadership, we can obtain the
confidence of those Chinese who are prepared to take up the
fight against Mao. We must realize that this is a two-ocean war.
In the interest of common defense, we are, obliged to work
with the Asians as well as with the Europeans. The South
Koreans, trained by American officers have shown their quality
in the recent fighting in Korea. The real task in Korea is to
have a diversion by way of China--a diversion that can take
some of the weight off our backs. That will take time and
sustained effort.
But we know how to help people like the Chinese. In World
War II we achieved similar results in North China, right up
to the border of Tibet. We did it in North Burma. There, we
armed and equipped Kachin and Karen tribes to fight, harass
and delay Japanese troops of occupation. To do this, we sent
in specially trained Americans skilled in communications, sabo-
tage and secret intelligence. They operated behind Japanese
lines and to support the tribal forces in Burma, we set up
headquarters in Assam, on the Burma-India border. These
Americans built up a native force of 12,000 fighting men,
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kept them in operation and held them loyal to us throughout
the war. We did it then and we can do it again.
The Chinese problem that faces us is not identical with the
job we did in Burma, but our methods are flexible. In World
War II, the Japanese had overrun Siam and it was essential
that we establish sources of information in the heart of that
country which has such a strategic position in Southeast Asia.
At the request of the Siamese government we trained 40
Siamese in America in the various techniques of guerrilla war-
fare, dropped then with 40 Americans behind the Japanese
lines into Siam and from them gathered priceless information
of enemy intention. The Siamese Prime Minister was skilled
in this kind of warfare. He pretended to be pro-Japanese but
was really on our side. In his own palace he gave shelter and
protection for two OSS men and set up a radio transmitter by
which they reported.
In every trouble spot the details of our problem were differ-
ent-Indonesia, Indo-China, Greece, Norway, Yugoslavia, Italy
and the rest. But in essentials the objectives were always the
same.
Now America's objective is-to prevent Stalin from consoli-
dating his gains in the Far East.
You don't measure the success of subversive warfare in
terms of battles won and cities destroyed. You don't hope to
meet and defeat a powerful enemy in the field. In guerrilla
war the object is delay-the tactic hit and run-the targets the
small enemy forces, the weak convoy-to breed in the mind
of the individual enemy, the sense of isolation and the fear of
capture.
Stalin's project is to extend his conquest of China throughout
Southeast Asia, down the path the Japanese followed through
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Indo-China, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Siam, Malaya, Indo-
nesia and Burma-all the way to India. Six hundred million
people--a quarter of all humanity-live in Southeast Asia
between India and Australia. This whole vast area is a single
unit, a single theatre of war.
Our immediate job is to bolster the countries on China's rim,
to reveal the Kremlin's aims for what they are, to assure their
peoples that they have not been left alone, to convince them
that we do not oppose their awakening nationalism and to show
them that their real and present danger is Soviet Imperialism.
Our task is not only to provide the weapons of war where that
can be done, but the constructive, humanitarian aid that no
one else in the world-certainly not Marshal Mao-can give
them: medicines, for example, and education in the cure of
tropical disease. That is Point Four not in lofty aspirations
for the future, but in terms of the present practical need for a
pair of pants, a bowl of rice and a chance for a healthy body.
These things too area part of psychological warfare.
And while we instruct them in the cure of their ills, we can
teach them to defend themselves. We can bring them tough
guerrilla fighters to teach them tough guerrilla fighting. We
can provide the equipment, the arms, the radios, the printing
presses, the teachers of new methods in industry, farming and
schooling. Without these, plans and blueprints will be wasted.
Today, while we sweat here to build up an orthodox fighting
force, his agents seize strategic areas necessary to our defense.
Asia is one problem, pressing and immediate, but Asia is
not all. The unorthodox war must be fought simultaneously in
Europe on three levels: in the countries that stand in the Krem-
lin's path of expansion, in the satellite countries already
enslaved, and inside the Soviet Union itself. And in all those
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categories, though the methods of fighting vary, the goal of the
subversive war is the same: to prevent expansion and consoli-
dation by the Soviet; to give moral and physical support to
our allies and to keep the enemy off balance until we are strong
enough to enforce the peace with orthodox military might.
This kind of war is a brave man's war and a poor man's war.
It doesn't cost billions and it doesn't fill very large cemeteries,
but its results can be incalculable. We can put our people into
countries behind the Iron Curtain, but we can't equip armies
there and we can't arouse peoples to revolt when they have no
weapons. But we can foment unrest, discontent-and sustain
hope.
The purges in Poland, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia are
certain signs that the Kremlin fears those peoples have been
dangerously aroused. In those places we have a very real
chance for success, if we use the methods experience has taught
us will make for success.
When Hitler wanted an agent, in say, Czechoslovakia, he had
to buy a traitor. All we had to do was to find a patriot and
give him a gun. During the war some French and British
thought it was a dangerous liability that we have so many
minority groups in America. We showed them that it was an
asset. Americans of the racial origin and the language of the
countries we sought to liberate helped build armies of resist-
ance in those countries.
We learned another odd thing-that it's easier to reach and
help people in an occupied country when they have been con-
scripted into the enemy's army than it is to reach those who
have gone underground. It works like this: the patriot drafted
into an invader's army is a patriot still; he is a source of
information and even of arms to the underground forces.
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4 01
Getting at the inside of the Soviet Union is a different mat-
ter. We know the Russian people want to reach the peoples
on our side of the curtain. There is not yet enough strength
and will for insurrection but there are tides of resentment and
discontent. There are many Russians who would be glad to
escape from the rule of the Kremlin and some who have done
so have been willing to go back. Those are the ones who can
tell their friends what is happening in the world outside Russia
and how real our support of assistance would be. We made a
serious mistake at the end of the war by receiving people who
had escaped and sending them back under guard to concentra-
tion camps and death at the hands of the Kremlin.. Part of
our job is to convince the Russian people that they do have a
chance in the world and we are with them.
We are with them and against their masters even to the
point of unloading our whole store of atomic bombs where
they will do the most good. It is fear of our bombs that has
kept Stalin from total war so far, but he too is stockpiling
bombs and there may come a time when he will feel that the
odds against him have shortened. What he cannot shake off
is the continuing fear of his own people. It is appropriate
here to quote the Italian historian, Guglielmo Ferrero : d}}Yit?rs'#a?3'
"Power is condemned to live in terror because, in order
to govern, it employs violence and terror. Its subjects
fear the arbitrary power which they must obey, while
the power itself fears the subjects it commands ... .
It is the fear inherent in power, fear of revolt, a fear
which from the very outset seizes upon all power that
is founded on force ...." ,
That fear rests heavily upon the Kremlin and we can use it.
We can turn the Soviet against itself. By helping his own
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people to help themselves we can magnify Stalin's fear, give
truth and force to his nightmare and in the end prevent him
from reaching his goal of world domination.
We see the Soviet's effort to seize the Middle East not by
open war but by subversion. Iran lies right across our sea
and air lines of communication with the Eastern Hemisphere.
It is the bridge between Asia and Africa. If the Kremlin
controlled Iran it would control not only Iran's oil but it would
very nearly control access to Africa and India. There can be
no argument about the necessity of safeguarding British bases
in the Middle East and our own interests in Saudi Arabia.
The Soviet threat to India must be arrested if she is.to remain
a bulwark of freedom in Asia, and order must be restored in
Burma. Otherwise, we would stand stripped and alone in the
East. It is gallant to fight alone, but it is more gallant still,
and more prudent to fight beside allies.
We can't get out of Korea because we're too far in. And
if we think of a future we won't get out. We have begun
slowly to realize that we will have to help those forces of Asia
who recognize Stalin for what he is and who are prepared to
fight for the liberation of China from foreign domination.
We have the machinery for a comprehensive psychological
war, most of it scattered through various departments of the
government, but the whole task is not coordinated. These
various agencies must be pulled together under central direc-
tion so that the Kremlin can be hit with all we've got.
There are people who are afraid any positive action we take
would scare Stalin into World War III. They ought to know
that if Stalin is determined to make war on the United States
he will do so, no matter what we do. Meantime, unless we
fight him with his own weapons, he will continue to cajole and
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maneuver us out of position, seize the bases we might one day
need, and reduce us to a level he could attack at his own time
and place.
This is our time of danger. Now, mobilizing our forces
and manufacturing our weapons, we stand where England stood
after Dunkirk, with her army in Libya and her home front
racing to arm and defend the nation.
We know the Soviet intentions. We have seen the pattern
of the Soviet tactics. We have come to understand the signifi-
cance of the Soviet type of war by indirection.
Psychological warfare is here to stay for the duration and
the sooner we recognize it, the better off we'll be. Anything
this nation must do it can do.
We are at war with an enemy who is alert, tenacious and
ruthless. His objective is world empire.
We must be as alert, as tenacious, as ruthless, for our
objective is to live as free men.
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