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Essay on The Office Of Strategic Services In China
The Office of Strategic Services was a United States intelligence agency formed during World War II. It was the precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency.
Prior to the formation of the OSS, American intelligence had been conducted on an ad-hoc basis by the various departments of the executive branch, including State, Treasury, Navy and War.
They had no overall direction, coordination, or control. The Army and the Navy had separate code-breaking departments (Signal Intelligence Service and OP-20-G) that not only competed, but refused to share break-throughs. Also, the original code-breaking operation of the State Department, MI8, run by Herbert Yardley, had been shut-down in 1929 by Secretary of State Henry Stimson because "gentlemen don't read each other's mail".
President Franklin D. Roosevelt was concerned about American intelligence deficiencies. He directed William J. Donovan, a New York lawyer, to draft a plan for an intelligence service.
The Office of Strategic Services was established in June 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 policy makers with facts and estimates but the OSS never had jurisdiction over all foreign intelligence activities - the FBI was responsible for intelligence work in Latin America, and the military jealously guarded their areas of responsibility.
America's entry into the war in December 1941 provoked new thinking about the place and role of COI. Donovan and his new office-with its $10 million budget, 600 staffers, and its charismatic director-had provoked hostility from the FBI, the G-2, and various war agencies.
The new Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) initially shared this distrust, regarding Donovan, a civilian, as an interloper-but one they might be able to control and utilize if COI could be placed under JCS control....
