Office of Strategic Services (OSS)

Formed during the USA's war effort in WWII, the OSS was the predecessor to and the impetus for the formation of the CIA. This project tags GENi profiles of its circa thirteen thousand members. The identities of members were entered into the public record in 2008. Prior to that date, identities were kept secret by law.

The page on the OSS in wikipedia portrays the organization as drawing recruits from all walks of life and gives several examples. It also had the reputation as having provided key positions to the well-to-do: "There were so many aristocrats in the agency that the joke went around that OSS stood for "Oh So Social"." > as reported by Vanity Fair in 2017.

Chronology (work in progress)

• July 11, 1941, Roosevelt signed an order naming Donovan Coordinator of Information (COI)
• June 13, 1942 The Office of Strategic Services was established by a Presidential military order issued by President Roosevelt
• May 1944, Donovan had "some eleven thousand American officers and foreign agents scattered in every important capital." (of the world)
• Late 1944, The OSS purchased Soviet code and cipher material (or Finnish information on them) from émigré Finnish army officers
• May 17, 1945, Donovan flew to Europe to prepare for the prosecutions (of the Nuremeburg tribunal), and eventually brought 172 OSS officers

Useful links

• Personnel discussion on wikipedia
  • "13,000 OSS personnel and documents of their OSS service, previously a closely guarded secret, were released by the US National Archives on August 14, 2008. Among the 24,000 names were those of Julia Child, Ralph Bunche, Arthur Goldberg, Saul K. Padover, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Bruce Sundlun, Rene Joyeuse MD and John Ford.[45][8][46] The 750,000 pages in the 35,000 personnel files include applications of people who were not recruited or hired, as well as the service records of those who served."
• informal/non-published history
  • see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_T._Hellman
• Bill Donovan and the OSS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Donovan#OSS
• OSS Society of McLean VA
• http://www.osssociety.org/
• https://www.facebook.com/osssociety/videos/2179140835436435/
  
• National Park Service page includes well written descriptions

Fun Fact

SCUBA gear was developed largely due to the support of the OSS. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_J._Lambertsen = Christian J. Lambertsen