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OSS Personnel Files Released
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) recently opened
over 35,000 files on more than 24,000 employees of the Office of Strategic
Services. This affords the public an unprecedented, detailed look at the
wartime lives of those who served in America's first all-purpose,
strategic-level intelligence organization. (Learn
more about the OSS from our monograph, “The
Office of Strategic Services: America's First Intelligence Agency” and our
Featured Story, “The
Office of Strategic Services: The Forerunner of Today’s CIA.”)
Information about
specific OSS
officers has been randomly available in secondary sources, previous records
releases, and scattered documentary collections. But the approximately 750,000
pages now available at NARA's College Park (Maryland) facility describe the everyday
worlds of the individual operators, analysts, technicians, administrators, and
support personnel who comprised OSS Director William J. Donovan's "unusual
experiment -- to determine whether a group of Americans constituting a cross
section or racial origins, abilities, temperaments and talents could meet and
risk an encounter with the long-established and well-trained enemy
organizations."
The documents include the mundane paraphernalia of bureaucracy – applications
and recommendations; training and work assignments; pay, leave and travel
records – as well as performance evaluations and commendations that describe
outstanding intelligence achievements and acts of heroism under fire.
Overall, the
collection depicts an exceptional workforce drawn from all walks of life – with a mix of skills and an esprit de corps – that soon became part of CIA's
legacy from the OSS
and helped establish intelligence as a central element in national security
decision making and war fighting.
The newly released records are available in the main research room at NARA's College
Park facility. Archival information about the
collection can be found on NARA's
public Web site at http://arcweb.archives.gov/arc
[external link disclaimer] by entering the number 1593270 in the search box.
Posted: Sep 11, 2008 02:07 PM
Last Updated: Sep 11, 2008 02:07 PM
Last Reviewed: Sep 11, 2008 02:07 PM