Franklin roosevelt appoints him in the summer of 1941 aswhat eventually becomes the office of strategic services. Kind of a strange choice because donovan was a staunch republican, had run for governor of new york on an antiroosevelt, antinew deal platform. But he was also a man of irrepressible spirit, boundless optimism, full of ideas and, in a sense, hehe reflected the qualities of Franklin Roosevelt so he was named the head of our first spy service. Cspan as you know, they called him wild bill donovan. Tell us a wild story. Guest well, oneone of theone of the conclusions i reached about donovan was that he was a magnificent magnet for attracting talent. His oss attracted College President s, semanticists, philosophers, writers, journalists, photographers, actors, cameramen. Arthur goldberg had been an oss veteran, subsequently goes on the supreme court. Historian Arthur Schlesinger jr. Was with the oss. The french chef julia child was with the oss. But what kind of strstruck me about donovan is the crackbrained ideas that he could advance, one of which was that his agents would somehow intrude into hitlers diet substances that would cause the fuhrers breasts to swell, his voice to rise and his mustache to fall out. Another idea that he came forward with was to drop leaflets over japanese troops which show pictures of japanese women involved in compromising positions with caucasians, which presumably wouldwould demoralize them and seeing that their women were not being faithful. The thing that was surprising to me is that these crazy ideas did not turn fdr off at all. He didnt reject them out of hand because he loved thethe surreptitious, the furtive, the clandestine and the covert. Cspan you say in your book at, i think, the height of the oss, he had Something Like 1,600 people working for him . Guest more like 16,000. Cspan sixteen thousand people guest yes. Cspan boy, i missed that. Guest and thats starting from ground zero. You know, we had no Intelligence Service to speak of, even the year before pearl harbor. Cspan so kind of relate that to today. The president of the United States has somebody whos a friend of his who creates what kind of aand what wouldwhat would happen if this kind of thing was developed today . Guest well. Cspan can you relate it to whats going on in the world right now . Guest yeah. Ii thi think that thethe real parallel here is the shocking unexpectedness of pearl harbor and september 11th. How could this happen . At theafter the fact, the strand of intelligence that leads from a to b to c to pearl harbor may stand out glaringly, and after the fact the strand of intelligence that runs from x to y to z to the World Trade Center and the pentagon may seem to stand out glaringly. But before the fact, this intelligence doesnt come in single strands. It comes in great bundles. You know, we were breaking the japanese code, there were hundreds of messages available to the president. We now have the nsa, which i understand does Something Like 3 billion of worldwiwide eavesdropping. So what we have thats comparable is a fa flood tide of intelligence which seems to overwhelm the circuitry. What we seem to be lacking isthen and now is careful analyananalysis to say, well, weve got this tide of intelligence. What direction is it falling in . What do these jigsaw pieces tell us if we can put them together . that was a failing prior to pearl harbor and obviously a failing now. Cspan Vincent Astor. What did he do for fdr . Guest well, i mentioned a moment ago that the United States didnt go into the intelligence business in a serious way until 1941. We were probably the only world power that didnt have a professional Intelligence Service. Roosevelt relied very heavily prior to, lets say, 1940 on a circle of socialite friends as his sources. There were a group of them who styled themselves the club, and they had taken a shabby apartment on new yorks upper east side. They had an unlisted phone number. They had a secret mail drop. Ititit sounded like the spy games of boys being carried out by grown men. The chthe chief figure in this outfit called the club was Vincent Astor, one of the wealthiest men in the country. Cspan which one is he in this photo at top . Guest Vincent Astor is the one to the right of the bar on the ship wheres is standing. Cspan or to the left of fdr . Guest and hesand helets see. It looks to me like hes toyes. Yes. Cspan andand who was he . Guest Vincent Astor was thethe heir of a massive fortune in the United States. He washe was a socialite, but he was also a man interested inin causes, owned probably the biggest chunks of real estate in manhattan. He and his other members of the club, while they seemed like dilettante amateurs, had this value for fdr they were very highly placed. For example, astor was a director of western union, and consequently he was privy to the kinds of cables which were going from foreign embassies in the United States back to their homelands, and though it was illegal, he had these cables intercepted and he passed this intelligence along to fdr. Another member of the club was winthrop aldrich, who, at the time, was head of the chase manhattan bank. Aldrich knew about International Financial dealings. He could report to fdr all the money that was going into and coming out of the russian spy front in the United States, the amtorg trading company. But thisthis was a pretty unsophisticated level of intelligence for a country the size of the United States at that point. Cspan well, in 1939 and 40, what kind of an intelligencegathering operation did fdr have . Did he have an official one . Guest no, hethat doesnthe doesnt begin a formal, official Central Intelligence agency until the summer of 1941. What he has before that are the military services, the office of naval intelligence, he has the military Intelligence Division of the army, and he has the fbi and he hahe trihes very unhappy with the lack of coordinationand doesnt that ring a bell today . For example, at one point, to try to get these people moving in the same direction, hehe calls a meeting ofof hoover as the head of the fbi and the head of military intelligence and naval intelligence. Hoover doesnt dane to come. Cspan just says, im not coming . Guest well, he had to be ordered by fdr finally to come. We had the army and navy with the lunatic handling ofof the messages that we were decoding, particularly japanese diplomatic traffic. They had this rivalry in which the army would decode messages on even days, theand the navy would do it on odd days. They had a sa sa system where they would share who got to deliver the plum traffic to the president. The army would do it in certain months and subsequent month would be in the navy. And it wasit was madness. And finally roosevelt himself just cut out that nonsense. Cspan back to Vincent Astor. Was he the one that went on the trip to try to find some intelligence over in japan . Guest yeah. Again, this indicates the rather amateurish intelligence that roosevelt conducted prior to forming a formal agency inin the oss. Astor had a magnificent oceangoing yacht called the nourmahal. It had a crew of over 40 members. Fdr asks Vincent Astor to cruise the pacific, seemingly on a pleasure junket, and hit places in the marshall islands, which were then managed by japan asas a mandate, and to report on our preparations there. And this was great fun for Vincent Astor and a great adventure. He subsequently thought this would lead to his becoming fdrs chief of intelligence, but hes up against tougher rivals in donovan and some others. Cspan John Franklin carter. Youve got a photo of him in your book. Who doeswho is he . Guest John Franklin carterinteresting manwas a columnist in washington. At one point he wangles an appointment with the president in the oval office and he, in effect, says to fdr, you know, i have extraordinary contacts in journalism, among International Government figures, among businessmen worldwide. I could easily set up for you a ring and i would report strictly to you. roosevelt lapped that up. It was just the kind of thing that appealed to fdroff the books, circumventing his own bureaucracy, something private, clandestine. A spy thriller kind of thing appealed to him. So he took money out of his own white house budget to set up the John Franklin carter ring. Has this money transferred into the state department, where presumably its there to buy reports about foreignforeign governments. And then carter operates throughout the war, directly reporting to fdr and the oval office. Cspan how many people did he have working for him . Guest very small group, only about 12. But the interesting thing is that we have an oss that doesnt necessarily know about the John Franklin carter ring. We have John Franklin carter who doesnt necessarily know about the astor ring. Cspan and you say that fdr didnt write very much down. Guest fdr, by his character and temperament, was ideally suited forfor secret warfare. He loved to trade in secrets. He was a master manipulator of people. He misled his own associates when it suited him. He seemed to enjoy subterfuge for its own sake. And he said it best himself. He said, im a juggler. I never let my left hand know what my right hand is doing. and to answer your point, he left virtually no fingerprints. One of the most frustrating things that hhistorians on theon the trail of Franklin Roosevelt complain about is the lack of written commitment to decisions that he made or explanations as to what he did. Cspan what did you learn about him baas a person . Guest well, i always had ahad a sense thatthat roosevelt was a man with a certain amount of guile. My research in writing roosevelts secret war convinced me even further of that. As ias i said a moment ago, he was ideally suited for this kind of thing. Hehe wasi think some of the best descriptions of him, which i accept asas essential to his character, one of which was made by one of his new deal associates, who said, the man always conceals the purposes of his mind. ananother one of his Close Associates said, ithis was robert sherwood, who wrote speeches for roosevelthe said, i could never penetrate that heavily forested interior. Henry Wallace said, the only certainty in the Roosevelt Administration was what was going on inside fdrs head. mmy initial expectation that he would be aa man who held the cards close to the vest was confirmed. Somebody said to me, well, did this make you think less of him . it made him more interesting to me, a more textured character. Cspan you say in the book that yourecolin powell helped you with information on this book. Did i misinterpret that or was that from your old friendship . Guest well, in this sense, asas you know, i wi was Colin Powells collaborator on his autobiography, my american journey. Colin powell, needless to say, had very, very useful connections throughout the federal bureaucracy, and when i would have queries, i could go to some of his staff whowhowho would get answers for me, for which im very grateful. Cspan how long did you work on his book . Guest he and i were together for about 20 months. Most of the time i spent down in a little study in his office examining the soles of his sneakers. Hes a, you know, very casual guy. And he putpropped his feet up on the desk andand we would just Start Talking with a tape recorder on, and essentially, what we arrived at was an extended oral history. Colin powell has an extraordinarily retentive mind. Hes a great storyteller. Every once in a while when we were sated with working on the book, he would regale me with his renditions of jamaican songs which had kind of a naughty double entendre lyric. It was a sstimulating experience. Cspan what do you know about him that we dont that gives you a certain view of him during this crisis as secretary of state . Guest well, im not sure whowhowho would not be aware of this now, but mymy sense is that werewere fortunate in that inin colin powell we have an unusual preparation for the work hes carrying on now. This man, from the military standpoint, was thethe nations chief military figure as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. Frequently overlooked is the fact that he had already been a National Security adviser. He was reagans man at the nsc. And then he has developed a worldwide reputation for integrity, inintelligence, candor, so that in building coalitions, this is enormously important. So i think we have an extraordinary combination in colin powell, and i would say, in short, the man i see is resolute, but at the same time reasonable. Thatsthats a comfort. Cspan but just on a personal level, if somebody came to you and said that, joe, im gonna go meet colin powell. Ive got to do business with him, what would you tip him off to do . Guest well, iii will tell you, brian, what iwhat i told my wife when i first met colin powell. I went down to the pentagon the very day before he retired from 35 years in the military. Hes a jointchairman of the joint chiefs. And we were just kind of sizing each other up for the collaboration. And i went home and my wife said, well, what is he like . and i said, colin powell is the most comfortable man in his skin whom i have ever met. and what i would tell somebody is pretty much expect a direct, casual figure with no guile, no side to him. Cspan so how did you get to all this . Where werewhered you first get interested in being a writer . Guest well, i wanted to be a writer ever since i was a kid. Finally, ii backed into writing, i guess. I was, for many years, chief speechwriter for governor and later Vice President nelson rockefeller. Did that for a long time, as i say, and started outthe first five years i loved it. The next three years i tolerated it. The final three years i hated it. It had nothing do withwithwith my boss. It was that i wanted to write my own books. And finally, rather late in life i would say, in my 40s, i started writing my own histories and biographies. Cspan i counted in the front part of the book that this would be your ninth book. Did we miss any . Guest not that im going to admit to. Yes, these. Cspan youyou wrote in 94 about nuremberg, in 91 about william casey. Guest right. Cspan . In 98 about edward r. Murrow. Guest yeah. Cspan . In 90in 79, piercing the reich the penetration of nazi germany by american secret agents during world war ii. How much of that book led to what youre doing here . Guest well, itit led to a sense of confidence that i could write reasonably well about intelligence. And ii did that book. Ananother book that dealt with intelligence was casey, william j. Casey, who subsequently becomes the director of Central Intelligence and who i first had met inin talking to him about bill donovans oss. Casey, you know, as the brits would say, had a pretty good war. Casey waswas posted inin england during the latter part of world war ii, and he was responsible for one of the great triumphs during that period, which was something the british said couldnt be done, and that is we got a number of teams inside nazi germany, intointo Something Like 60 german cities so this would have been a coup for the oss and a coup for the Roosevelt Administration of the war. Cspan what is magic . Guest the us code crackers were working very hard prior to 1940 in breaking the japanese diplomatic code. They called it code purple. They finally broke that code, and therethere bit was broken sby a team led by a man named Frank Rowlett. Rowlett andand his people were now able, in effect, to place the president of the United States on the distribution list of the Japanese Foreign office because were breaking these messages, theyre available in a very shin a very short time. They mayit may be a message from the foreign offices in tokyo to the americanor toexcuse meto the japanese ambassadors in washington. Were breaking that code and these messages go up to preto president roosevelt very quickly. And thats what the magic operation was. Very important because our breaking of the japanese codes were responsible for our 1942 victory in the pacific at midway, which is a turning point of that war. And. Cspan Frank Rowlett is what kind of a guy back then and where did he operate from . Guest Frank Rowlett was operating out of a former girls school in the Northern Virginia suburbs of washington called arlington hall. He operated with a very small group of people. I cant imagine they made a great deal of money. They worked for the army as cryptographers, but they were very dedicated. And theirtheir breakthrough was really a significant advance for us. One of the things that theytheythey enabled us to doby breaking the japanese codes, we also were able to find out german intent. How did that come about . Because the japanese had an ambassador posted to berlin. His name was oshima. Oshima was a rabid pronazi. Consequently, he won the confidence of adolf hitler. Hitler would bring in oshima and say, mr. Ambassador, im going to send you to inspect the atlantic wall. I want you to see what im erecting to repel an allied invasion of the continent, or he wo