Editing Office of Strategic Services (section)

== Origin ==
{{Main article|Office of the Coordinator of Information}}
Before the OSS, the various departments of the executive branch, including the [[United States Department of State|State]], [[United States Department of the Treasury|Treasury]], [[United States Department of the Navy|Navy]], and [[United States Department of War|War]] Departments, conducted American intelligence activities on an ''ad hoc'' basis, with no overall direction, coordination, or control. The [[United States Army|US Army]] and [[United States Navy|US Navy]] had separate code-breaking departments: [[Signal Intelligence Service]] and [[OP-20-G]]. (A previous code-breaking operation of the State Department, the [[Black Chamber|MI-8]], run by [[Herbert Yardley]], had been shut down in 1929 by Secretary of State [[Henry Stimson]], deeming it an inappropriate function for the diplomatic arm, because "gentlemen don't read each other's mail."<ref>Stimson, Henry L. ''On Active Service in Peace and War'' (1948). ''per'' ''Bartlett's Familiar Quotations'', 16th ed.</ref>) The [[FBI]] was responsible for domestic security and anti-espionage operations.

President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] was concerned about American intelligence deficiencies. On the suggestion of [[William Stephenson]], the senior British intelligence officer in the western hemisphere, Roosevelt requested that [[William J. Donovan]] draft a plan for an intelligence service based on the British [[Secret Intelligence Service]] (MI6) and [[Special Operations Executive]] (SOE). Donovan envisioned a single agency responsible for foreign intelligence and special operations involving [[commandos]], [[disinformation]], [[Partisan (military)|partisan]] and [[Guerrilla warfare|guerrilla]] activities.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Spector |first1=Ronald H. |title=In the ruins of empire : the Japanese surrender and the battle for postwar Asia |date=2007 |publisher=Random House |location=New York |isbn=9780375509155 |edition=1st |page=8}}</ref> Donovan worked closely with Australian-born British intelligence officer [[Dick Ellis|Charles Howard 'Dick' Ellis]], who has been credited with writing the blueprint.

Said Ellis:

<blockquote>I was soon requested to draft a blueprint for an American intelligence agency, the equivalent of BSC [British Security Co-ordination] and based on these British wartime improvisations... detailed tables of organisation were disclosed to Washington... among these were the organisational tables that led to the birth of General William Donovan's OSS.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Fink |first1=Jesse |title=The Eagle in the Mirror |date=2023 |publisher=Black & White Publishing |location=Edinburgh |isbn=9781785305108 |pages=96}}</ref></blockquote>

After submitting his (and Ellis's) work, "Memorandum of Establishment of Service of Strategic Information", Donovan was appointed "Coordinator of Information" on July 11, 1941, heading the new organization known as the [[Office of the Coordinator of Information]] (COI).

[[File:William Joseph (Wild Bill) Donovan, Head of the OSS.jpg|thumb|left|William J. Donovan]]

Ellis, described as Donovan's "right-hand man", "effectively ran the organization".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Fink |first1=Jesse |title=The Eagle in the Mirror |date=2023 |publisher=Black & White Publishing |location=Edinburgh |isbn=9781785305108 |pages=95}}</ref>

Writes Fink:

<blockquote>Ellis was sent from New York by [[William Stephenson]] "to Washington to open a sub-station to facilitate daily liaison with Donovan, who reciprocated by sending [future Director of Central Intelligence, DCI] [[Allen Dulles|Allen Welsh Dulles]] to liaise with BSC in the Rockefeller Center". According to Thomas F. Troy, paraphrasing Stephenson, Ellis 'was the tradecraft expert, the organization man, the one who furnished Bill Donovan with charts and memoranda on running an intelligence organization".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Fink |first1=Jesse |title=The Eagle in the Mirror |date=2023 |publisher=Black & White Publishing |location=Edinburgh |isbn=9781785305108 |pages=95–96}}</ref></blockquote>

Donovan had responsibilities but no actual powers and the existing US agencies were skeptical if not hostile to the British. Until some months after Pearl Harbor, the bulk of OSS intelligence came from the UK. [[British Security Co-ordination]] (BSC), under the direction of Ellis, trained the first OSS agents in Canada, until training stations were set up in the US with guidance from BSC instructors, who also provided information on how the SOE was arranged and managed. The British immediately made available their [[Aspidistra (transmitter)|short-wave broadcasting capabilities]] to Europe, Africa, and the Far East and provided equipment for agents until American production was established.<ref>''The Secret History of British Intelligence in the Americas, 1940-1945'', p27-28</ref>

[[File:Dick Ellis.jpg|thumb|Dick Ellis]]

Writes Fink:

<blockquote>[[William J. Casey|William Casey]], who headed up OSS's Europe-based human-intelligence operations, the Secret Intelligence Branch, and went on to become director of the CIA, wrote in his autobiography, ''The Secret War Against Hitler'', that Ellis was not only writing blueprints but involved in on-the-ground, logistical programs: "Dick Ellis, [an] experienced British pro, helped establish training centres, mostly around Washington." United States Assistant Secretary of State [[Adolf A. Berle|Adolf Berle]] commented: "The really active head of the intelligence section in [William] Donovan's [OSS] group is [Ellis] ... in other words, [Stephenson's] assistant in the British intelligence [sic] is running Donovan's intelligence service."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Fink |first1=Jesse |title=The Eagle in the Mirror |date=2023 |publisher=Black & White Publishing |location=Edinburgh |isbn=9781785305108 |pages=97}}</ref></blockquote>

The Office of Strategic Services was established by a Presidential military order issued by President Roosevelt on June 13, 1942, to collect and analyze strategic information required by the [[Joint Chiefs of Staff]] and to conduct special operations not assigned to other agencies. During the war, the OSS supplied policymakers with facts and estimates, but the OSS never had jurisdiction over all foreign intelligence activities. The [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] was left responsible for intelligence work in Latin America, and the Army and Navy continued to develop and rely on their own sources of intelligence.

Donald Downes, who was developing counterintelligence capabilities in Washington, explained the situation in his memoir:

<blockquote>Edgar Hoover was out for Donovan's scalp and any type of co-operation was pretty well one-sided. Not only OSS, but the British Secret Intelligence, many of whose investigations were bound to lead to America, were constantly being hounded by the FBI... A friend of ours in the Department of Justice had warned us that Edgar Hoover believed we were 'penetrating' embassies and that he was annoyed.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Downes|first1=Donald|title=The Scarlet Thread: Adventures in Wartime Espionage|date= 1953|publisher=Wildside Press|page=94}}</ref></blockquote>