life of william "wild bill" donovan, often thought of as the father of the cia. he examines william donovan's leadership of the office of strategic services during the second world war and his thoughts on the use of counterintelligence. this lasts about an hour. >> i'm glad they have the photo of donovan of your. this is kind of an iconic portrait shot of donovan. you will see that when you go to the oss society meetings. and the one commonly folks identify him with. there's a funny story behind it. you will notice he has -- his hair is cut real short here. he was out in the field most of the time when he was running the oss and he liked to go in on allied landings. very often he would have the ships barber or military barbara give him a crewcut before he went out. when he got back to headquarters he would get teased by the headquarters staff. wallace who is on his personal staff would say that some haircut you've got there, mr.. and donovan laughed. he got a lot of his haircuts because he was out in the field and made a lot of military landings. the book "wild bill donovan" is really three stories. it's a biography of a truly heroic figure. suffered a lot of personal tragedies. it's a spy story with a lot of accounts of very daring operations they conducted. and as peter mentioned, it's also a story of political intrigue, political intrigue at the highest levels of government in washington and also overseas. that part of it was the one that probably interested me the most. the personal story on donovan. it's a very, very rich one. i would have loved to have been a reporter back then covering donovan. i probably would have. donovan liked reporters. he leapt to them frequently. he had reporters on his staff. when he went overseas, particularly before he joined or informed -- for the oss he would work sometimes part-time as a reporter. he was an interesting man he was probably about -- fairly short. when he ran the oss in the '60s the female agent, some of them thought he was kind of penguin shaped it in some of them even mentioned to him, any kind of didn't. he slept probably five hours or less a night. could speed read at least three books a week. he was an excellent all round answer. he loved to sing irish songs. he would go by up sheet music of broadway musicals that he could memorize the words. he didn't smoke. he rarely drank. he enjoyed fine dining but enforcement put on the weight. he spent lavishly with no concept for a dollar. whenever he was out traveling the had an egg with a kept money because donovan never had money on them and he was always mooching off his aid. he never showed anger. instead, he let it boil inside him. he was rakishly handsome as a young man, and even into his senior years he had bright blue eyes that women found captivating. but his life was also filled with personal tragedy. his daughter, his daughter-in-law, and a granddaughter all died at very early ages. he was born new year's day 1883 in buffalo new york's poor irish first war. he thought one point is going to be a catholic priest, but then he decided he wasn't cut out for the cloth so he went to columbia university, was a cornerback of the columbia football team his senior year. then went on to columbia law school. franklin roosevelt incidentally was a classmate, although the two never mixed. roosevelt was from a much higher social life than donovan so they never really talked to each other in law school. he returned to buffalo, became a successful lawyer, married into wealth. in world war i he won the medal of honor for heroism in combat. he was absolutely fearless in combat. in fact, as a chaplain father duffy said donovan was one of the two guys he ever met who actually enjoyed combat. he commanded a battalion in a 60 night irish regiment, a very famous new york city regiment, and when he won the medal of honor he was the executive officer on the ground commander. that's also we got connecting "wild bill." before the u.s. entered into the u.s. war and donovan had his troops in europe training income he put them through absolutely grueling, brutal training. and at one time after a long march and had been running all day with full packs and crawling through obstacle courses, his men all collapsed in front of him, and he got up there and he said what the heck is the matter with you? i've been running the same course with you and i haven't broken a sweat and i'm not even panting. and out of the back somewhere, some trooper yelled out, he never found out who, but we're not as wild as you are, bill. from that day on, "wild bill" donovan stuck. he claimed to be upset with the nickname, that it ran counter to this kind of professional, cool, quiet image. but his wife knew he really liked it. he returned to new york he wrote. in 1932, he ran as a republican candidate for governor of new york. he was running against lieutenant governor herbert lehman, who was roosevelt lieutenant governor. of course, in 32, roosevelt made his first run for the president. donovan's ultimate goal was to be the country's first irish catholic president, and new york was the ideal steppingstone for a launch for the presidency. he ended up running as much against fdr as he did against herbert lehman. he said some very nasty things about roosevelt. he was a dyed in the wool republican and he thought the whole new idea was crazy. at one point he called roosevelt crafted. act and those are fighting words. or he called them on another campaign stop the hyde park figure because roosevelt knew he was a farmer. roosevelt on the other hand took a shot at dawn. he had a surrogate watch my camping trip or even eleanor roosevelt went out and campaigned for lehman and took some shots at donovan. donovan turned out to be a horrible campaigner. if he was in this room talking to you, he would totally mesmerize you with those bright blue eyes and a charismatic personality. on the campaign trail before a large group, he was totally would. he was a terrible speaker. he is lieutenant governor, the one running with them on the republican ticket, thought he was so lousy that davis and thought he should have run for governor and donovan should've been lieutenant governor so he could have been kept out of the way. it's amazing that roosevelt later made donovan is spymaster considering all the nasty things they said about each other in the campaign. but fast forward to 1940, 41 your roosevelt is preparing the country for war. he is building up defenses. he knows he has to mobilize the country for what's coming down the future. donovan is -- was a member of really the international swing of the republican party. he, too, delete the country need to mobilize for war. and needed to build up defenses. roosevelt also was beginning to think about forming a coalition cabinet, much the way winston churchill did in london. so he was bringing in republicans, both men found each other useful. in 1940 and 41 roosevelt said donovan onto unofficial trips to your. the first one in 1940 was to england. basically to assess whether britain could survive the war, whether the nazis would defeat them or whether they would ultimate come out the winner. donovan came back and reported that britain could survive the war, but it would need u.s. arms and aid. the second time he went over in late 1940, early 41, he had a long meeting with winston churchill, and at churchill's behest he took it to of eastern europe and the balkans and the middle east. basically to deliver for churchill and also roosevelt, too, again he was on an unofficial basis there. but deliver the message that fdr did not depend to let great britain lose this war. so if you, a balkan leader wanted to use i would side you're going to be on, you better be on the winning side and that winning side would be the allies. churchill was delighted with that message that donovan conveyed. in fact, he paid for his trip to an attack at one point he had an escort, had to escort donovan around comes ian fleming, later became the james bond novelist. the state department, however, was privately upset about the trip because he was donovan going around to embassies on foreign post a meeting with foreign leaders with no diplomatic standing, either in the united states government or the british government. at one point state department aides debated internally whether he should be prosecuted for violating the logan act, which makes it a crime for private u.s. citizen to represent the u.s. government in for negotiations. fdr, on the other hand, was delighted that donovan was out there delivering this message. and bringing back intelligence for him. because in 1940-41, he really had, really no for an intelligence is because. there were small units in the army and the navy but there was really a lot of officers there, and many of the officers was considered a dumping ground in the intelligence unit at the time. so roosevelt was making major foreign policy decisions at this time, decisions that could affect his own reelection, such as land lease, operating nearly blind to what lay ahead of him overseas. and it worried him. it worried him so much that at times he became physically ill. okay, when donovan comes back from those diplomatic missions, that's when our spy story begins. in july 1941, before pearl harbor, roosevelt signed an executive order, very short executive order, about two pages, very, very vague. it said that colonel donovan, because he is been a colonel in world war i, will collect information for me of national importance, and he will do other unspecified duties. and this was setting up an organization called coordinator of information, later became a office of strategic services, the oss as we know it. initially he was corridor of information. it was such a big order that roosevelt other cabinet officers started scratching their heads thinking, what the heck is this guy up to? what are you getting into? he had to send out follow-up memos to explain exactly what this coordinator of information business was all about. donovan like to say that he began his unit, his oss, from minus zero. in effect he really only started out with one guy, which was "wild bill" donovan. and in the beginning he was kind of like a player in a pickup basketball game looking for agents or operations or covers, wherever really he could find them. so for example, the failed land company, sold lamps overseas. donovan made an arrangement with the philips lamp company salesman when they went on their overseas calls, particularly in occupied countries, countries the axis occupied. if they ran across anything of interest for him in their sales call, they reported back to donovan. the eastman kodak company, remember, my day, used to be the brownie camera, back and on wednesday they had thousands of kennel club's all over the united states. and so donovan arrange for eastman kodak to send him photos, members of the camera club had taken overseas of possibly military important sites. and american airways, pan am. donovan signed secret contracts with some of its employees, its ticket agents in africa to be on the look out, provide them information of nazis moving around in africa. the operations codename was cigar. donovan also cooked up all sorts of wild schemes. he was interested in any idea no matter how crazy it was. he was willing to try almost anything. his code number on all the os as documents, the secret documents, was 109 which was his room number. in his headquarters and headquarters was located on navy s.e.a.l. just across from what now is the state department. his secretary, they had their own codenames. they used to call him seabiscuit after the resource, they always saw him running all around. they could never keep track of him. he kept $2000 in a desk drawer in his desk that he used to pay any sources that emit, and he was constantly darting around washington on secret rendezvous is, on his show for knew where he was. to pay off sources. his r&d chief, research and develop achieve, standard level, was a very well-known inventor, new england defender of his time, drink up all kinds of spy gadgets for donovan. miniature cameras, pistols with silencers, pencil like explosive devices. one idea stanley lovell and donovan were high on work truth drugs. so they decided to experiment a particular truth drugs on a mafia thug, a guy named little audie he was a new york low-level mobster. one of donovan's officers have busted little auggie several times had about two is a partner for some smokes. little auggie starts puffing away and laughing and getting, having a silly grin on his face. eventually starts telling the oss officer about the mob did see it carried, you know, working with lucky luciani and all the congressmen he bribed. unfortunately donovan couldn't use any of it in court, and little auggie's secrets were secure with the oss because they did want to have it out they were testing a truth drug. he proposed at one point, donovan proposed that roosevelt have a button at his desk he could push at any time and it would transmit a radio message to every radio in the united states warning them is is the japanese were going to attack, or the germans were going to attack new york. roosevelt ignored the idea, but roosevelt enjoyed listening to all of donovan's ideas. he was really open to it. donovan was kind of its part by thinking out of the box. and roosevelt from his early days as a young man was always intrigued with espionage and spying. in fact, donovan thought he was a real spy all a long. so for example, one of the ideas standard level tested was fitting that with incendiary devices. and they thought they dropped the bats over tokyo, the bats would fly into the eaves of the paper and wood houses. the incendiary device would go off it would burn down all the houses in tokyo. this was action and i did governor roosevelt picked up from somebody. she passed it onto front of it he thought his prequel and pass it on to donovan. so stanley lovell and his men got out there or some desert, i've forgotten where, and fitted these bats with these incendiary devices, dropping out of a plane. the poor things sunk like a stone. the idea didn't work. but donovan was going to try anything. in addition to being the father of american -- modern american espionage and also special operations, if you go down to the u.s. special operations command in tampa, florida, there are portraits of donovan better, and one of his uniforms. they consider him the father of special operations. donovan was also father of information of warfare. psychological operations. back in his day they call him morale operations, and their technology was fairly crude crude. it consisted many of leafless, rumors, newspaper articles and radio. so for example, he had oss officers plant rumors in papers in the u.s., "the new york times" and overseas that top of nazis earthling germany for south america and leaving the germans high and dry. marlena dietrich, you know, very, very famous singer back then sang for a lot of the radio propaganda, broadcast that donovan broadcast into german, to german troops. they were, for example, the league of lonely women leaflets that were dropped off to german soldiers which said that their wives and girlfriends back home have joined the league of lonely women and were having sex with their comrades who were returning back from leave. another idea they had they tried that once they drop take mailbags over germany that were stuffed with poison pen letters. they got to the letters they got from german phone directories, and other city directories. and they hoped to german citizens would pick them up, pick up the mailbag, figured it was lost and give it to a german postmaster and deliver all the mail. stanley lovell even concocted one idea, or concocted a hormone that if they could ever get to hitler's vegetables, they would inject the hormone into his vegetables and to make his mustache fall off and who have a falsetto voice, which would clearly be a bummer for the führer. [laughter] donovan also turned out, be a horrible manager. during his four years commanding the oss he probably violated every rule they teach in harvard business school or public administration school. totally disorganized. in fact, and at one point a circle of his and eight, a half dozen of them, staged what was called or tried to stage the palace revolt. which was they tried to oust him. they tried to see if they could move up and out, kind abroad oversee as the the organization. and donovan -- don evans aid would run the day-to-day intelligence. donovan, who by then had lunch in of tuesday's no one on his own, had squashed the palace revolt like a bug. even so he was a charismatic leader, okay? and that was really what, you know, what built the oss and really defined his tenure over. when he went out into the field he rarely gave the command. he would ask somebody to do something and the agents would always loyally follow him. eventually he build a spy organization, and over 10,000 espionage agents, commanders, intelligence analysts, people in stations all over the world, which is a pretty remarkable achievement considering again he only started out with one guy which was "wild bill" donovan. he mounted covert operations for the torch invasion, the invasion of north africa in novembe november 1942. was fairly successful in the battlefield he provided eisenhower's forces. he was far less successful in organizing the french to cooperate with the invaders coming in. that basically failed on that endeavour. he mounted the oss have significant operations in sicily and italy, had a lot of trouble in italy. there were a lot of failed operation. mark clark's fifth army had a lot of trouble in italy. that was a very brutal attrition battle for mark clark's fifth armor and. he had extensive operations on the balkans oss operations to help organize and supply the resistance there particularly in yugoslavia and greece. in asia, you had oss operations against the japanese in burma and china. interestingly, douglas macarthur and admiral chester nimitz would have anything to do with the donovan. they prohibited his men from working in their pacific theaters. they didn't see much use for the oss. for the normandy landing, donovan had a huge intelligence operation providing a lot of -- good intelligence on german defenses, intelligence for the air force were bombing targets. and infiltrated by air, parachuted in a number of commandos, oh geez they call them, operational groups, commandos. that helped organize the french resistance in advance of the normandy landing. donovan also had a penchant for going in on landings, too. he went in on the italian landings and the sicilian landings. it also went in on the normandy landing, too. george marshall, the army chief of staff, thought he had donovan banned from going into the normandy landing, because if a very good reason to even donovan's own men thought that being that close to the combat was not the place for the chief of american strategic intelligence service to be, and marshall and eisenhower realized that donovan were captured by the axis there he be a very, very valuable target with all the secrets in his head. but they weren't able to stop "wild bill." he managed to talk his way aboard a navy cruiser, and landed the second day at utah beach for the normandy landing. had a grand time, almost got shot up by a mesha schmidts flying over, and marched in england with david bruce who was the head of the london station. where they got pinned down at one point by a german machine gun nest. had some grand stories to tell after that. it took almost two years really for donovan to build up this organization to really get into the fight. but keep in mind also took the u.s. army almost two years to really get into world war ii. they had to train their forces, build it up along the way. and it took a while for commando operations and spy operations to really become proficient. and like all intelligence agencies, the oss experienced its share of failures. some of them were spectacular failures. for example, donovan thought he had a silver bullet agent code-named vessel, who was planted inside the vatican in rome, and was supplying him with transcripts of people conversations that pope pius was having with his envoys and other foreign envoys and with the japanese. turned out vassal was an italian pornographer with a very vivid imagination, and was very, very skilled at creating dialogue, completely suckered donovan as oss. not unlike when you fast forward to, for example, the run up to the second iraq war, with the cia thought it had a silver bullet intelligence agent in curveball it was supplying them with information about saddam hussein's biological weapons capability. and it turned out curveball was a fabricator, too. in fact, he just recently was interviewed by the british press what he admitted, i made it all up. but as the u.s. army improved, donovan's oss improved as well. toward the end of the war was supplying a significant amount of intelligence, reins of it to the allies. but as i say this is also a story of political intrigue. donovan like to say he had enemies in washington as fierce as hitler was in europe. he had ferocious battles with j. edgar hoover, who thought his organization was just a collection of amateurs, which in the beginning it was. the pentagon at first bitterly fought the formation of the oss ear and launched a guerrilla operation against it, practically throughout the war. and, in fact, toward -- as the war matured for the u.s., toward the end the pentagon formed a secret espionage unit behind donovan's back. mark stout here is doing groundbreaking work on that research. the unit was nicknamed the pond, and it was not only spying on the axis, it was also spying on donovan's name, and donovan himself. the generals and admirals in the pentagon, you know, they fight among themselves in any war, and they certainly did in world war ii. british and american senior officers constantly squabbling. the squabbles with the donovan were even more intense because, for many of them they just didn't really understand what this guy was doing. when he talked about morale operations, or sabotage and espionage or league of all the women leaflets, he was in some respects talking a foreign language to them. they found a lot of his ideas disturbing and they found him disturbing, too. on also had a penchant for never taking no for an answer. he was famous for making end runs around a commander if he got a note from them to get the decision reversed from higher ups. so for example, when the commander of the navy told him no, i can't lend you any naval officers for your oss, donovan went to frank knox, the secretary of the navy and had frank knox call that admiral to pressure them to turn over the men. that kind of action doesn't win you a lot of friends in senior ranks of the pentagon. one time use at a cocktail party with an admiral, and he had his oss officers burgle the admiral's office and steel papers, bring about him at a cocktail party so he could show off to the admiral what is meant to do. again, i don't know whether -- [laughter] whether the admiral was impressed or flush by the. donovan also had a penchant for showing up late at pentagon made with other generals and admirals, and he would come always impeccably dressed, york, and very often he would have on it on his medal of honor ribbons sewed on. as a not-so-subtle reminder to the rest of the admirals and generals in the room with the rows of ribbons, that he the only one that counted. but when he was out in the field with this man county could be one of his agents said in court should leave civilian. he is uniform would always be rumpled, which is what you see here. sometimes he would wear a paisley ascot which is uniform, too. i don't think they let them do that nowadays. but i think what the message donovan was trying to convey to anybody out in a field that he was running an unconventional operation, and he was an unconventional guide. for the allies, there was tension there as well. the british played a critical part in helping donovan form his oss. even throughout the war, they're often the british intelligence sharing with donovan's oss was much greater, and more deep than his intelligence sharing with his own u.s. army. even so he had fierce fights with british intelligence and special operations over turf where they're going to spy overseas. he launched spy operations against churchill to find out what he was up to. if you read the british records, they launched spy operations, they kept tabs on donovan to ensure they knew what he was up to. in china, our other ally, shanghai check, donovan set up a paper there through a publisher. he planted his agent in there to serve as reporters but also to flout intelligence reports on the side, only on what the japanese were doing in china but also what shanghai check was doing in china. the soviets, this always were our allies in world war ii. donovan at one point they do finish intelligence service $62,500 or 1500 pages of soviet military and hb documents which included kgb code. the state department when they learned about him was horrified because it would cause a huge diplomatic flock and complained to roosevelt and roosevelt ordered donovan to turn the covers back over to the soviets. in fact, donovan had his men go to washington who didn't believe for a new minute that donovan spent had a copy of the code and knew it already. not only ask that donovan had a copy of code but enterprising fans also sold the coach to the japanese for i think about 70,000 bucks. free enterprise lives alive and well. eventually, donovan could not overcome his political enemies. he had drafted a plan for a postwar central intelligence agency, a postwar cia, that he wanted to lead. but walter cohan, who was a white house reporter for the mccormick patterson chain which was very anti-russell, a republican chain, which published the "washington times" here in washington got a copy of donovan's secret plan for setting up the cia and the published a paper in a highly inflammatory store he accused donovan of wanting to set up what a method to an american gestapo to spy on not only people overseas, but americans at home. and if you call someone a gestapo back during world war ii, and those are very incendiary words. j. edgar hoover had an agent spread particularly natch -- nasty rumor with harry truman staff that eventually got to truman about donovan's personal life. i will let you read the book to find out what that is, but donovan had a number of affairs, had a number of extramarital affairs, and it was well known in washington and out in the field that he had. at one point the pond, the secret pentagon espionage unit, arranged through an officer who was stationed, who is on the white house staff under roosevelt and then under truman, that a 59 page report was placed on truman's desk, accusing the oss of all kinds of misdeeds, corruption, they even accused them of staging an orgy in india at one point. true but also didn't like a donovan personally. there was bad chemistry between these two guys. on one side you had a successful republican, wall street lawyer. on the other side you had a failed haberdashery who is a diehard democrat. these two guys were never going to match up. truman wanted an intelligence service. he knew he needed a national strategic intelligence service, particularly after the war. he just didn't want donovan heading it up or the oss have anything to do with it. on september 20, 1945, he shut down the oss, parcel out its units to the pentagon and the state department. truman eventually formed, i'm sure all of you know, the cia in 1947, modeled a good bit after donovan's vision of what the cia should be. donovan wanted to lead that agency. in fact, he had intermediaries quietly lobbied truman to see if he could be head of the cia. of course, truman wasn't going to anything to do with it. donovan had said some mean things about truman on the presidential campaign trail. when dwight eisenhower came in, he had surrogates lobby again to making head of cia. instead, eisenhower gave the job to allen dulles, which left donovan very bitter even the allen does had worked for donovan working in the oss station and burned. donovan thought that dulles was a poor manager and that he would have been better as cia director. instead, eisenhower made donovan ambassador to thailand, largely as a consolation prize. without a think i'll end it there. do you have any questions about what donovan did after the war, the legacy of his organization, affect on modern intelligence on the lad to give them. >> is it true that donovan handed over or had handed over to soviet intelligence a list of agents of oss in europe? >> i'm not -- well, a little complicated. donovan proposed in the winter of 1943 to set up a liaison arrangement with the in kgb, and he flew to moscow to try to set that up. he thought he had rose on board with a. the joint chiefs were pretty much on board with it. and asked got something set up with the head of the nkgb been. they were going to exchange officers, and was going to be a soviet group come to washington and in oss group come to moscow. both spy chiefs knew that these groups would be spying on the other. this was donovan's opportunity to get into the soviet union with his agent and moscow. and also to get material from the soviets used to the war. when j. edgar hoover heard about this plan he went bananas. and lobbied roosevelt not to allow the soviet officers and, not to have this exchange program. hoover's view was he had his hands full already, keeping an eye on all the soviets that were here already in the united states spy. so the plan got nixed. even so, donovan had fairly robust exchange of information with the nkgb throughout from 1943 on. they exchange actually a lot of intelligence. donovan supplied some gadgets to the soviets which they appreciated and they supplied information on some of the activities of what they knew was happening, particularly in eastern europe. and the war was drawing to ananda, -- to an end. the russians are coming in and occupying eastern european and the balkan nation. i but at some point maybe even then me, but don't hold me to it, they wanted to know who were the oss officers that were in country. because they were still working together trying to round up not see holdovers toward the end of the war. so they exchange information on that. eventually though the russians knew that the oss officers in eastern europe were going to be spying on them as much as working with them. and they force them all out of the balkan nations in the oss but there was a brief exchange of information. >> did the british fear any of the details about the enigma operation with donovan? >> yes. they shared -- donovan had men, men and women in the park working with the british. and they got access to the raw take. the british were very, very important in helping donovan said that his counterintelligence operations called x. do. it's ironic that a shared more of their intercept working americans did. donovan never had direct access to magic. magic was the navy army code-breaking capability in the japanese diplomatic military codes. all he could get from magic were summaries of the report. marshall didn't trust donovan's organizations to keep a secret. they thought he was loose on security. but in the case of the brits, they get direct access and it was very, very close cooperation. >> where do you see yourself differing from the two previous biographers of donovan? >> actually three biographies. the first one written by cory ford on donovan. he was screened by the donovan family and a law firm and largely wrote a hagiographic portrait of donovan. that the law from edited at the end. anthony cave brown wrote the the original donovan microfilm at a hastily took off all his files in his office and carted off to new york. he did have asked -- to a lot of the newer metro that is come out. there's a lot of speculation that donovan did that we look at the actual record turns out it didn't happen. the other book was richard dunlop wrote a biography of donovan around the same time in the early '80s. based largely on anecdotes or reminiscences of former oss officers but as any historian or biographer will tell you, anecdotes are really very helpful bringing light to your story, but memories fade after 10, 20, 30, 40 years. so there were instances in his book, too in that they had donovan in different places. i call them elvis sightings when i was doing research, where he wasn't there. he wasn't doing what they thought he did. maybe somebody recalled vaguely. what i tried to do was at least based on the record and use the anecdotes. there's a lot of oral histories after of oss officers. >> what was the extent of the communist penetration of oss? >> they had done a lot of studies on that, and i don't have the numbers in my head but it's in the book. there were at least like a half dozen in the oss headquarters who are believed to have other common sympathies or work feeding information to soviet intelligence. there were bridges and penetration and stations all around around the world ncaa has done a good analysis of that. donovan knew he had communist in his organization. he had a very complicated relationship with calmness. he wanted to work with them but he didn't necessarily want them working for him. so he would set up relationship with communist in the u.s., become as part of the u.s., and with communist overseas but he could be very, very harsh on communists he found in his organization, particularly if they were being investigated by congress or the name popped up there or j. after hoover found out about it. so it could be very harsh there. be recognized even to the end even though he never said it publicly that there were probably, i think i have in the book, the number, about 40 people in his organization that he thought were communist league or whatever they are but there was never any evidence that that communist infiltration or the moles or you can get anything to change the outcome of the war in any particular way because we were allies with the soviets then. so, and they have done assessments since then as it didn't have a huge effect, just giving the soviets information with the oss was done. donovan tried to plant his own people in the nkgb, particularly as they moved into eastern europe, and even as he was trying to set up a liaison relationship with the nkgb. he had made arrangements with oil executives that were going over on land a lease to help the russians with oil exploration to report to him on anything they saw over there, too. >> the donovan and the oss have any relationship with the atom bomb? >> say that again. >> dead donovan and the oss have any relationships with the effort to deny the nazis the atom bomb? >> yeah. the as is a project, moe berg was a famous former catcher, major league catcher was involved in that. leslie grove, the general in charge of the manhattan project had gone to donovan, never told him in detail are never told any thing wrote about the manhattan project itself, that he asked donovan to have this officers go out and scout anything they could find on german and anti-scientific efforts to develop a nuclear device. and the click of a lot of information, and i think they all suspect the reason they were clicking it was because the u.s. was building its own nuclear weapon. and basically they came back with the conclusion that the germans in particular were far behind in their nuclear weapon development. >> i've read a review of your book that mentions very favorable for one in "the wall street journal," but it mentioned that donovan was sort of an early proponent of -- [inaudible] and i wanted if you could just explain a bit about that. >> yeah, he made a lot of trips international lawyer drumming up business for his law firm or representing clients overseas. this is in the '20s and '30s. j. edgar hoover thought he was a nazi sympathizer. he collected a lot of contacts in berlin. some of them, some of which proved useful, much later during the war. but this was mainly in gathering business information. and also in protecting his clients in germany as the nazis took over. so he represented companies from major jewish families, to try and prevent the nazis from expropriating their property or their businesses. he signed a petition to prevent the prosecution of german. said he was very very active on. i mean, he had no illusions about what the nazis were about. and adolf hitler. he viewed hitler, he told friends that this was the incarnation of evil, and he was really fascinated by hitler throughout the war. in fact, at one point he had a team of psychologists and psychiatrists do a very extensive psychological profile of hitler, which was fairly good. i read to the whole thing. it's fascinating. they predicted among other things that hitler would likely never surrender, that he would hole up and fight it out and commit suicide indian. they also had a good bit of information they collected on hitler's sex life. and donovan had that spiced up, sent out as propaganda later on. he thought that would be a good propaganda tool. >> as a biographer i know there are always, remain questions you can't answer about your subject. is there anything about donovan you are still questioning, you still don't feel you know everything about? >> yeah, there are. he didn't -- it's interesting. he never wanted to write an autobiography of himself. there were several publishers who approached him for the end of the war, asking if you be interested. he didn't want to do that. he was very, very particular about the oss history and how that would be told, and he -- the final history very, very carefully. there are still kind of questions about where he was at certain points in the war, that you really can't pin down. there's been a lot of rumors, and some of the rumors i would say able to discover that were not too. for example, there is a terrific rumor out there, report that was in previous biographies that donovan went in to liberate france in a jeep with artist anyway, and they went to the ritz hotel and had the bartender order to dozen martinis therefore everybody. thought it was a terrific and ago. i was going to use in the book until i found out it wasn't true. david bruce that went in with donovan into the ritz hotel. there was a lot of speculation, and i don't know, that donovan had secret meetings with the head of the german intelligence. i could find nothing in the oss records indicate that was ever the case. there was one approach by one of donovan's officers that never came about. maybe there's something there, after that nobody has seen. it probably would've turned up in the oss records. the good news about the oss records is that practically all of them are declassified. i don't think there's that much left classified now. the bad news is that all of them are declassified because there's millions and millions of pages over at the national archives, just donovan's own personal papers in his office, over 100,000 pages which i had to go through which took a while. but yeah, you know, i'm sure this industry out there, and i still have freedom of information act requests out there hoping to find for the next edition. >> to question. one is political. you touch on world war ii. how much of that could have come from world war i because you the stories about -- [inaudible] the other one is george b. strong was jag officer in the movements officer for u.s. in world war i. where some of this conflict could have come from from way back when. the other one, i know a new index you have colonel. you mentioned the colonel. but you touch on the oss regiment that operated in north africa, the meta- train? i know you mentioned the operations increase in which involve the only as far as i know, the only u.s. army unit to be sent from the army to the oss as a unit? that was the 122nd. >> yeah, on the first thing come on the world war i connection, there's been a story out there that's repeated and a lot of books and you can find on the internet that truman was supposed to supply artillery cover for the battle we're donovan won his medal of honor, he got shot in the leg. and that truman didn't and donovan complained later on in truman heard about it and never forgot it. it turns out it was an old wives tale, didn't happen. trumans unit wasn't there that day. there was a supplying artillery cover but for some reason it got repeated and gets mentioned kind of tangentially and anthony k. brown's book but i want to all the records at the truman library all the world war i records to peace were truman was and where donovan was, and they were not together during that battle. the george strong, georgia d. strong who is head of the army g2, the intelligence section was one of donovan's most implacable enemies. he was known as george v because his kind of interest me. but he was a warrior scholar, very learned person but he was -- you despise donovan, and donovan hated george v, too. and i think that animosity build the minute the oss was formed. i don't know how much it was any world war i connection there. as far as colonel eddy, colonel andy who headed up donovan, a lot of his warfare, he was a world war i hero, got his leg shot off and had rows of ribbons. when he met george patton at one point, patent thought this guy must be a really one tough son of a gun. i think patton used a different word. because it looks like he's been shot at quite a bit. and 80 had some good operations for donovan in north africa. again, they were not able to deliver on the hope and promise that they could organize the vichy french to support or go along with the allied landing in north africa. >> one of the of the reasons why i mentioned the 2677 is it's often said the oss had no effort, and you find with a 2677 africa 101 which was a unit and the army action was making use out of one piece of it which kind of killed the effectiveness of the overall network. spector could've been something of a tactical level, at the national level donovan wanted to replicate magic. since he was denied asked to. in fact, he set up a dummy corporation called and eq to it up to and affect the leader of the secret spy unit, the military spy unit spying on me taxes and donovan at one point had been working on our action i think is heading up for donovan that organization. and marshall eventually shut down that ad hoc intercept unit because he didn't want anything in -- conflicting with magic. >> why don't we take a couple more? >> hi. could you elaborate on the relationship or rivalry of donovan's british counterpart whose name i don't recall but he went by intrepid, or he was known as intrepid? >> o., stephenson. bill stevenson. they were very, very close, and stephenson was very, very helpful for donovan in setting up the oss, provide him and a lot of help in new york. donovan had cancer relationships with the head of the british intelligence, and charles hamburg who was head of british special operations, british osv. there were constant fights. basically what happened was donovan couldn't have formed his organization beginning without british hell. but it was like kind of a teenager. once you learn to drive dad's car, you don't want dad sitting in your seat right next to following you on your date. which is what happened with the relationship between british and the u.s. the british would have preferred to have the oss be basically subject of the crown and work as auxiliaries for the british effort out there. and from their side of the story, the seasoned operatives after for a long time, and here were these american cowboys with the oss coming in and mucking up the works out there, getting in the way they thought. donovan knew that what the british wanted out of him. organization to be an auxiliary of the british special operations. and he thought that very early on. in fact, there was a famous line, he told a british special operations representative in new york at one point, he said i won't let me or my organization be novel to buy you. does anybody know what novel is? i didn't either until i looked in the dictionary. it is british slang for fixing a racehorse to lose. and he was worried about the grits were going to be novel in him. he also thought the british used his organization for his own purposes. and would discard them when they didn't need him. the grits heard the statements, didn't appreciate being called a horse fix or a prostitute. and so, you know, throughout the war there was tension between the two, but donovan realized even at the end, at the very end, that he could have built up what he had without the british help. >> in your research, educate the feeling that roosevelt either did not discourage or actively encouraged the competition between donovan and military intelligence and solo players who volunteered at various times? >> yeah. roosevelt didn't discourage that competition but he liked the creative tension, so if you talk or if you read the histories of roosevelt senior aides, even harry hopkins, even people like steve early, none of them ever knew what roosevelt was up to with everything. he kept things compartmentalized. he played aids off of one another. donovan, for example, learned after he formed, or the chordata of information was formed that roosevelt had a secret spy unit in the white house and was run by john franklin carter he was a columnist in washington newspaper columnist. in fact, he ran a secret spy can why he was writing columns all the time which kind of violates some press the government will. i'm not sure what it is but it certainly violates it. and roosevelt encouraged this tension between the two, and every now and then he would yank donovan's chain back, or h