At FDR ’s request , Major General William Joseph Donovan formed the Office of Strategic Services ( OSS ) at the stature of World War II . Prior to WWII , American intelligence employment was direct by a number of unlike organizations that did n’t coordinate their activities , including divisions of the State Department , Treasury , and the Navy and War departments . Beginning in July 1941 , Donovan recruited spies , analyst , and code breakers for a young dedicated intelligence information assemblage and covert operations rig . Formally established by FDR on June 13 , 1942 , the OSS carried out a bit of important commission during WWII , including recruiting a key German spy , the anti- national socialist diplomatist Fritz Kolbe , who afford the OSS crucial selective information about German prospect for D - Day , the V-2 rocket program , novel high- tech German jet-propelled plane fighter , and Nazi spy afield . The OSS worked with Gallic resistance fighter aircraft forwards of the Allied release of France and also carry out a massive effort of propaganda , psychological warfare , and misinformation to mislead the Germans about American design . Outside Europe the OSS hunted Nazi spy in Africa and Latin America .
Meanwhile , in the Pacific field of operations , OSS agent trained Chinese Kuomintang and communistic troops resisting the Japanese , and in Vietnam the OSS made physical contact with Ho Chi Minh , whose Viet Minh nationalists were also fighting the Japanese .
Overall , the OSS employed 24,000 hoi polloi around the world by the close of the state of war , includingimprobable part like Red Sox backstop Moe Berg and celebrity chef Julia Child . The OSS was disbanded in 1945 but reconstituted as a young radical , the Central Intelligence Agency , by President Truman in 1947 .
Looking for more mythic content like this ? You ’re in luck -The Mental Floss History of the United Stateshits bookshelves near you on October 5th!If you pre - order , you ’ll get three devoid issues ofmental_flossmagazine . Get all of the detailsover here .
