AN INTERVIEW WITH FORMER O.S.S. OFFICERS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000100400006-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 15, 2007
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: October 15, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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RADIO N REPORTS, INC.
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 656-4068
Good Morning, America
STATION WJLA TV
ABC Network
DATE October 15, 1982 7:00 AM CITY Washington, DC
DAVID HARTMAN: Before there was the CIA, America's
intelligence agents worked in an organization called the O.S.S.,
the Office of Strategic Services. The O.S.S. was born in the
early 1940s. And the man who essentially created it and built it
up from the ground was a man named William Donovan. Or he is
better known perhaps to those who knew him as Wild Bill Donovan.
There is a new biography out about Wild Bill. It's just
been published. It's called Donovan: America's Master Spy.
It's an absolutely fascinating book. It was written by Richard
Dunlop. Now he himself is a former O.S.S. agent, and he is
joining me this morning, along with two other former O.S.S.
spies. They are Nicholas Deak, who is now a partner in the
foreign currency exchange firm of Deak-Perrera, and Louise
Bushnell, or Bushnell, who is now semi-retired, and she does work
for the Red Cross, among her many activities.
morning.
Good morning, Dick. Nice to have you with us this
RICHARD DUNLOP: Good morning, David.
HARTMAN: Mr. Deak, good to see you. Louise, good
morning. Nice to have you with us this morning.
LOUISE BUSHNELL: Nice to be with you.
HARTMAN: I must say I have been -- since I became aware
of your book, Dick, I've become fascinated with this, and also
with some of the people who were what we now call spies -- right?
-- whose names are familiar to us.
OFFICES IN: WASHINGTON D.C. ? NEW YORK ? LOS ANGELES ? CHICAGO ? DETROIT ? AND OTHER PRINCIPAL CITIES
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Dick, rattle off some of the people, would you, whose
names we would recognize of this group?
DUNLOP: Well, David, some of the people that I mention
in my book, Donovan: America's Master Spy, are Arthur Goldberg,
the former U. N. Ambassador and Supreme Court justice; David
Bruce, former U. S. Ambassador to France, West Germany and Great
Britain; John Ford, the Hollywood director -- "How Green Is My
Valley," among other things; Henry Ringling North of the Ringling
Circus family; John Whites, the fashion designer, and, oh,
Sterling Hayden, the actor.
HARTMAN: And I'll throw one more in, familiar to our
viewers....
DUNLOP: Who's that, David?
HARTMAN: Julia Child.
DUNLOP: Yes, indeed.
HARTMAN: Who worked for the O.S.S.
DUNLOP: She was in Ceylon.
HARTMAN: In -- where?
DUNLOP: Ceylon.
HARTMAN: In Ceylon. So there you go.
Louise, you -- how would you describe this man? You
worked perhaps more closely with him, Bill Donovan, than maybe
anybody for a long period of time. How would you describe him?
BUSHNELL: Well, he had an extraordinary personality. He
was very, very quiet, and he seldom raised his voice. But he was
in control of every situation. And the had the sharpest blue
eyes, the keenest eyes I've seen on anybody in my life. He'd
just transfix you and pierce you with those eyes. It was really
amazing. He was kind. He was interested in all kinds of people,
the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker. He....
HARTMAN: He seemed to know no fear either, didn't he?
BUSHNELL: He knew no fear. He was very brave. He had
an extraordinary memory. He worked with kings, and he worked
with peasants. He was perfectly amazing from that point of view.
HARTMAN: I understand that you helped to save his life
one day at the office in Washington. Tell me that story, would
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you?
BUSHNELL: Well, the office had been just opened, and it
was about a month later. And my job then was to take care of the
people who came in to see him, his special appointments. And one
afternoon at 5:30, suddenly the guard came running, and he said
"There's a man with a gun who's looking for the colonel to kill
him. Hide him." And then he darted off.
Well, in my office, there were only chairs, my desk and
a very small file in the corner. And I sat there for a second.
And I got an idea. So I went to the door that separated our
offices, and I opened it. And I just went this way, because
there was only one man left that he was interviewing. And he
didn't even look surprised. He just looked at me. And the man
left, and he walked over to me, and I told him what had happened.
And in the meantime I'd had an idea, because the office hours in
Washington then were 8:00 to 4:00. And by then it was 5:30, 20
to 6:00. So any way, we walked down the hall, he right behind
me, and I got to the ladies' room. And I opened the door, and
there were three bins. And I said, "Colonel, go to the third bin
and climb up and squat so nobody will see your legs and nobody
will see your head, and lock the door." The other doors were
closed.
And so he looked at me, and he did exactly what I
suggested. And then there was a sign that said "Out of order" in
the toilet. And I took it and hung it on the outside in the
hall and walked back to my office. And it was the longest 21
minutes that I've ever had to wait in my life. I could hear
people running through, you know, the police and whatnot. And
finally the guard came in and said "We've got him, Mrs. Bushnell;
we've got him." And so then I waited a few more minutes, and I
walked down and I opened the door. And I said "You can get down
now; they've got the man."
So there was kind of a little grunt; not quite a grunt,
but, you know, it was difficult for him to climb down. He had a
little -- not paunch, but he was a little heavy.
BUSHNELL: Rotund, a little. So he got down and he
opened the door, and he looked up at me with a kind of a twinkle,
and he said "Thank you very much. And would you do me another
favor?" And I said "Anything." And he said "Will you never tell
this story as long as I live." And I never did.
HARTMAN: And you have now.
BUSHNELL: I have now, yes.
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HARTMAN: Deak, you met him in India, didn't you?
NICHOLAS DEAK: Yes.
HARTMAN: What is it that he just said he was going to
do? What did he want to do when he got to India?
DEAK: Well, he flew into India from Ceylon. He had a
meeting with Mountbatten. And we had a landing strip behind the
Japanese lines in Burma. And our job was -- the job of our unit
was to get Japanese prisoners out of Burma alive for interroga-
tion. And he arrived in India, and without taking a rest, without
losing time, he got into a small plane, one of those small obser-
vation planes; said "I want to land on that land strip, on the
landing strip in Burma."
I told him, well, general, that will be very dangerous,
because you might be captured, and that will be the end of the
O.S.S., and all the information you have, you cannot risk that.
He said "Don't worry my son. I always have a pill with me. If
they capture me, they don't get anything out of me." And he got
into the plane.
I noticed that the people who were with him were worn
out. He wore out everybody around him. And he had tremendous
drive; was a soft-spoken fellow. Actually, I spent four years in
the O.S.S., and it took me three years to meet him. But that
made an impression on you.
HARTMAN: And he did to this day, obviously, or you
wouldn't be sitting here.
HARTMAN: Is being a spy what it's cracked up to be?
The movies have created an image of what the life of a spy is
like. Is it anything like the glamorous image that we get of
spying, do you think?
BUSHNELL: I wouldn't call it glamorous at all. I don't
know really why there is so much glamour attached to it, because
it's quite serious work, scary work. Some of it's humdrum; some
of it's repetitive. And then you can find yourself in situations
that can be very difficult.
I don't know whether these gentlemen agree with me, but
this is my impression. I've never understood why it's so
glamorous.
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DUNLOP: Well, Louise is right right. A good part of it
is just having a good head, a level head, and having common sense
and ability to perhaps live another life within the life that you
presumably are living.
HARTMAN: Richard, thank you very much. Nicholas Deak,
thank you for joining us. Louise Bushnell, thank you. And I
guarantee you, this is a fascinating look at something that most
of us know so little about.
And thank you all for joining us this morning, giving us
a glimpse at your other lives of earlier days. Thank you all
very much.
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