[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> welcome to c-spanat 2's booktv bringing you 48 hours of books on history, biography and public affairs by nonfiction authors. ..

>> douglas waller, former correspondent for time and "newsweek" magazine recounts the life of william "wild bill" donovan, often thought of as the father of the cia. examines the office of strategic services and his thoughts on the use of counterintelligence. this lasts about an hour. >> i am glad that they have the photo of donovan up here. this is really kind of an iconic portrait shot. you will see that when you get to the oss society meetings, and this is the one commonly the most commonly a identified. actually, there is a funny story behind it. you will notice that his hair is cut short here.

actually, he has a crew cut. he was out in the field most of the time when he was running the zero ss pretty like to go in on allied landings. very often he would have the ships barbara or the military part give him a crewcut before he went out. of course when he got back to headquarters he would get teased by the headquarters staff. in fact, wallace bull, he would pop his head in and say, that is some hair cut that he got there. and donovan laughed. he loved it. he got a lot of these because he was out in the field lot. the book william "wild bill" donovan is really three stories. it is a biography of a truly heroic figure who suffered a lot of personal tragedy in his life. as a spy story. a lot of accounts of very daring operations that they conducted. as peter mentioned, it is also a

story of political intrigue, political intrigue at the highest levels of government in washington and also oversees. that part of it was the one that probably interested me the most. the personal story on donovan, a very, very rich one. i would have looked to been a reporter back in covering donovan. in fact, probably would have to be done and like reporters. he leaked to them frequently. he had reporters on his staff. he went overseas, particularly before he joined or informed the zero ss he would work sometimes part-time as a reporter. he was an interesting man. he was probably about this high, actually, a fairly short. when he ran the oss in the 60's the female agents that he was actually kind of penguin checked. some of them even mentioned it to him. the kind of laughed. he conducted. he slipped five hours or less

and night. he could speed read at least three books a week. he was an excellent ball and dancer. he loved to sing irish songs. he would go by a sheet music of broadway musicals. he did not smoke. he rarely drank. he enjoyed fine dining, but unfortunately that put on public. he's bent lavishly with no concept for a dollar. whenever he was out travel and he always had an aide with him to cut money because of and never had any on him. he never showed anchor. instead he let it boil inside him. he was right to sleep handsome as a young man and even into is senior years he had parked allies. his life was also filled with personal tragedy. his daughter in law and a granddaughter all died at a very early ages.

he was born new year's day 1883 in buffalo, new york poor irish first word. he taught at one point he was going to be a catholic priest, but then he decided he really wasn't cut out for the cloth. he went to columbia a university, was a quarterback of the columbia football team, then went on to columbia law school. franklin roosevelt, and the applicable was a classmate. the two never makes progress about was from much higher social strata. they never really talked to each other in law school. he returned to buffalo, became a successful lawyer, married into protestant wealth. in world war one he won the medal of honor for heroism in combat. he was absolutely fearless in combat. in fact and his chaplain said that donovan was one of the few guys who actually enjoy it combat. he commanded a battalion in the

69th irish regiment, very famous the york city regiment. when he won the medal of honor he was the executive officer in the ground commander. that is also where he got the nickname "wild bill." before the u.s. entered into the war and, and have his troops in your training he put them through absolutely growing burgle training. at one time after a long march and they have been running all day with full packs and crawling through of two courses is men all collapsed in front of him. he get up there and said, you know, what the hell is the matter with you. a have been running the same course, and i haven't broken a sweat. i'm not even panting. out of the back somewhere some tripper yelled out, but we are not as wild as you are, bill. from that day on wild bill donovan stock. he claimed to be upset with them again, that it ran counter to his professional cool, quiet

image. his wife knew that he reluctant. he returned to new york a hero. in 1932 he ran as a republican candidate for governor of new york. he was running against lt. governor herbert limit who was was about to attack governor. in 32 roosevelt made his first run for the presidency. donovan's of nicole was to be the country's first irish catholic president. new york was the ideal stepping stone for a launch for the presidency. he ended up running as much against fdr has he did against herbert lehman. he said some very nasty things. he thought the whole new deal idea was crazy. at one point he called roosevelt crafty. back then that was a fighting word. he went on another campaign stop. a hyde park faker because

roosevelt claimed he was a determined farmer at hyde park, and dominant thought that was ridiculous. roosevelt, on the other hand, took a shot at donovan. he had surrogates like him on the campaign trail. even eleanor roosevelt went out and campaigned for lemon. donovan turned out to be a horrible campaigner. if he was in this from talking to you he would totally mesmerized you with this bird lives and that charismatic personality. on the campaign trail before a large group he was totally within. he was a terrible speaker. in fact, his lieutenant governor, the one running with him on the republican ticket, but he was so lousy that davison thought she'd -- he should have run for governor. it is amazing that drizzle of later made donovan his spymaster

considering all the nasty things they said about it to the. but fast-forward to 1940, 41. roosevelt is preparing the country for war. he is building up defenses. he knows he has to mobilize the country for what is coming down in the future. donovan was a member of the international wing of the republican party. he believed that the country needed to mobilize for war and needed to build up defenses and prepare. roosevelt also was beginning to think about forming a coalition cabinet, much in the white once and churchill did in london. he was bringing in republicans. both men found each other useful in 1940 and 41 roosevelt sent donovan on to an official trips to europe. the first one in 1940 was to include basically to assess

whether britain could survive the war. whether the nazis would defeat them or whether there will ultimately come out the winner. donovan came back and reported that burn could survive the war, but it would need u.s. arms and aid. in particular, lend lease. the second time he went over in late 1940 or early 41 he had a long meeting with winston churchill. at churchill's be has to take a tour of eastern europe and the balkans and the middle east. basically to deliver for churchill and four rows of, he was on an unofficial basis. deliver the message is that fdr did not intend to let prepared news this war. if you are deciding which side you're going to be on you better be on the winning side. that will be the allies. turturro was delighted with that message that donovan conveyed. in fact, he paid for his trip.

in fact, at one point he had an escort escort him around. it is ian fleming who later became the james bond novelist. the state department, however, was partially upset about the trip. here was donovan going around to its embassies and foreign posts and meeting with foreign leaders with the diplomatic standing either in the united states government with the british government. at one. state department aides debated internally whether he should be prosecuted for violating the look and act which makes it a crime for private u.s. citizens to represent the u.s. government and for negotiations. fdr on the other hand was delighted that donovan was out there delivering this message. bringing back intelligence for him. in 1940-41 he really had no -- this is the president's -- no foreign intelligence service to speak of.

there were small units in the army and navy, but there wasn't really a lot of officers. many of the officers, it was considered a dumping ground for poor performers in the intelligence units. 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. or it him. worried him so much that the times he can physically ill. when donovan came back from those diplomatic missions that is when our spies tour begins. in july 1941 before pearl harbor roosevelt signed an executive order, very short, about two pages. very vague. it said that colonel donovan, because he had been a colonel, we will collect information for me of national importance.

he will do other unspecified duties. this was setting up an organization called the coroner of information that later became the office of strategic services. in fact, initially it was the coordinator of information. it was such a vague order that roosevelt's other cabinet offers started scratching their heads thinking what is the stamp to. what are you getting into? he had to send a followup members to explain what this coordinator of the information business was all about. donovan lexus and he began his unit as zero ss from-0. in effect he also started out with one guy. in the beginning he was kind of like a player and a pickup basketball game looking for agents are operations or covers were ever he really could find it. for example, the phillips lamp

company sold lamps overseas. donovan made an arrangement with the phillips plant company salesman when they went on their overseas calls, particularly and occupied companies, if they ran across anything of interest for him in their cells called the reported back. the eastman kodak company, used to be the brownie camera. is that have the disposable cameras. they have thousands of camera clubs. so donovan are arranged for eastman kodak to send him totals, members of the camera club had taken overseas of possibly militarily important sites. pan american airways, pan am. donovan's cited secret contracts with some of its employees. ticket agents in africa to be on the lookout and provide him information of knots is moving around in africa.

the operation was code named cigar. he kicked up all kinds of wild schemes. he was interested in any idea, no matter how crazy. he was really willing to try almost anything. his code number on all the oss documents was 109 which was his rubber -- room number located on a hill across from what now is the state department. his secretaries have their own cut them to read these to call him sea biscuit after the race horse because they always saw him running around. they could never keep track of him. he kept $2,000 in a desk drawer and his task that he used to pay any sources that he meant. he was constantly dart in and around washington on secret rendezvous is. only his chauffeur really knew where he was. his are and peachy, his research and development chief was a very

well-known inventor. he dreamed up all kinds of spy gadgets for donovan. miniature cameras, brussels with silencers, pencil like explosive devices. one idea was tree trunks. they decided to experiment on a mafia thug, a dime and a little on the who was an new york low-level mobster. one of his officers had him up to his apartment for smokes and the chat. laced in the cigarette was the stricter chemical. and so he starts puffing away and laughing and having a silly grin on his face. eventually he starts telling the zero ss officer about the mob had to carry out, working with lucky the channel, and all the

congressman he had bribed. unfortunately donovan could not use any of it in court. his secrets were secured because the did not want to have it out that there were testing the truth guard. he proposed at one. that roosevelt have a button at his desk that he could push at any time and it would transmit a radio message to every radio and the united states warning them and the japanese work right to attack with the germans are going to attack me your. rose above ignored the idea. roosevelt enjoyed listening to all of donovan's ideas. he was pretty open to it. donovan was a spark plug for digging out of the box. roosevelt, from his early days, was always intrigued with espionage and spying. in fact, donovan thought he was a spy above all want. for example, one of the ideas

was fitting that bats in the eaves of houses with incendiary devices. they fought that dropped the bat over tokyo. they would fly into the eaves of the paper and wood houses. the incendiary device would go off and turn down the houses in tokyo. this was an idea that eleanor roosevelt picked up from somebody, passed on. he thought of it pretty cool. he passed it on. so stanley and his men got out there and dropped -- fitted these bats with an incendiary device, and drop them out of a plan. the port banks sunk like a stone. the idea did not work. but donovan was willing to try anything. in addition to being the father of american -- modern american espionage and also special operations there are portraits of donovan.

one of his uniforms. they consider him the father of special operations. donovan was also the father of the information warfare as we see it today. psychological operations. back in his did they call the morale operations. the technology was fairly crude consisting mainly of leaflets, rumors, newspaper articles, and radio. for example, he had "wild bill" officers plant rumors in papers in the u. s, new york times, and overseas that top nazis were fleeing germany for south america and leaving the germans' high and dry. a very, very famous singer, saying for a lot of the radio propaganda broadcast that donovan broadcast into germany. there were, for example, the leader of lonely woman leaflets that were dropped off as german soldiers which said that their

wives and co friends back home had joined the legal limit and were having sex with their comrades who were returning back from leave. another idea they had that they tried out was the job fake mail bags over germany that were stuck with poison pen letters. the addresses the gap for the letters from german phone directories and of the city directories. they hope that the german citizens to pick him up, figure it was lost, and give it to a german postmaster and deliver of amal. stanley even contracted one idea or concocted a hormone that if they could ever get to hitler's festivals that would inject the one on and his vegetables and make his mustache falloff. donovan also turned out to be a

horrible manager. during his four years commanding the oss t probably violated every rule that they teach you in harvard business school of public administration school, totally disorganized. at one. a circle of his inner aides, a half-dozen, 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 him up and out as a project overseer of the organization. donovan or his aides would run the day-to-day intelligence. donovan, who by then had launched enough to boost to small one on his own, squashed the palace revolt like a bug. even so he was a charismatic leader. that was really what build the alaska gas.

related to find his tenure he rarely gave a command. he would ask somebody to do something, and the agents would clearly follow him. eventually he build a spy organization into over 10,000 espionage agents. stations all over the world. it was a pretty remarkable achievement considering hilla started out with one guy. he mounted covert operations for the torch innovation, the invasion of north africa and november 1942. he was fairly successful in the battlefield or beach intelligence he provided to eisenhower. car less successful in ordering the french to cooperate with the invaders coming in. he basically failed in that endeavor. he mounted -- the oss had significant operations in italy

and sicily. a lot of trouble in italy. a lot of failed operations. mark cox fifth army had a lot of trouble in italy. a very brutal attrition battle he had extensive operations in the balkans, oss operations to help organize and supply the resistance, particularly in yugoslavia and greece. in asia you had a less as operations against the japanese in burma and china. interestingly douglas macarthur and admiral chester nimitz would not have anything to do with donovan. they prohibit his men from working in the pacific theaters. it did not 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, a lot of intelligence for the air force for bombing targets, and they infiltrated by

air, parachuted in, number of commandos, operational group commandos and shepherds. that helped organize the french resistance. donovan also had a penchant for going in on landings. he went in on the italian landings and the sicilian landings. he also went in on the normandy landing. george marshall, the army chief of staff, but he had on the been banned from going into normandy landing because, and for very good reason, even his own man of that being that close to combat was not the place with the chief of an american strategic intelligence service to the. marshall and eisenhower realized that if he were captured by the axis he would be a very valuable targets with all the secrets in

his head to be if they were not able to stop him. he managed to talk his way aboard a navy cruiser and landed the second day at utah beach for the normandy landing. he had a grand time, almost got shot up. he marched inland with david person who was the head of the london station where they got pinned down at one. by the german machine gun. he had some grand stories to tell after that. it took almost two years for donovan to build up his organization to really get into the fight. keep in mind, it also took the u.s. army almost two years to really get into world war two. they had to train their force and building up. and it took awhile for his commando operations and spy operations to really become proficient. and like all intelligence agencies, the oss experienced

its share of failures. for example, dominant thought he had the silver bullet agent codenamed vessel who was planted inside the vatican in rome and was supplying him with transcripts of people conversation spent pope pius was having with his on voice and other foreign on voice and with the japanese. it turned out vessel was an italian demographer with a very vivid imagination and was very skilled at creating dialogue, completely. not on like when you fast forward to, for example, the run up to the second barack war where the cia thought it had a silver bullet intelligence agent and curveball that was supplying them with information about some of his and biological weapons to the ability to read it turned out curveball was a fabricator.

drive to made just recently was interviewed by the british press. he a minute, middle of. but as the u.s. army improved donovan's oss improved as well. toward the end of the war he was supplying a significant amount of intelligence. as i say, this is a story of political intrigue. donovan like to say he had enemies in washington as fierce as hitler in europe. he had ferocious battles with j. edgar hoover he thought his organization was just a collection of amateurs which actually in the beginning it was. the pentagon and at first but through the fought the formation of the oss and lost a guerrilla operation. toward the end the pentagon formed a secret espionage in it

behind donovan's back. mark stop here is doing groundbreaking work on the research. the unit was not bent upon. it was not only spying on the axis. it was also spying on donovan's and nan and donovan himself. the generals and atoms and the pentagon, the fight among themselves in any war and this certainly did in world war ii. british and american senior officers were costs and the squabbling. the squalls with donovan work even more intense because for many of them the adjusted not understand what this congress doing. when he talked about barack operations and league of on the women leaflets he was in some rs talking of a foreign language. they found of a lot of his ideas disturbing. they found him disturbing.

he also had a penchant for never taking no for an answer. he was famous for making and runs around a commander if he got a note from him commit to get the decision reversed from higher-ups'. for example, when the commander of the navy told him no, i can lend you naval officers, then went to frank knox, the secretary of the navy and have frank knox called the animal to pressure him to turn over the man that doesn't win you a lot of friends. one time he was at a cocktail party and he had his oss officers rural the admirals' offices come bring it back to him at the cocktail parties of the ticket show off to the admiral what his men could do. again, i don't know whether the admiral was impressed or oval nonplused. donovan also had a penchant for showing up late at pentagon

meetings. he would come in peccable addressed. his uniform was designed by whistles in new york. very often he would have only his medal of honor ridden so daunted as a not so subtle reminder to the rest of the camels and generals that he had the only one. but when he was out in the field with his men he would be when one of his agents said incorrigibly civilian. his uniform would be rumpled. sometimes he would wear a paisley ascots with his uniform. adopting this led him to that nowadays. i think what the masses on and was trying to convey to anybody out in the field, he was running and a conventional operation. he was an unconventional guy. for the allies there was tension

as well. the british played a critical part in helping donovan form his own assess. even throughout the war very often the british intelligence sharing was much greater and more deep and his intelligence sharing with his own u.s. army. even so he had fierce fights with the british intelligence and special operations over turf , where the were going despite overseas. he launched spy operations against churchill. if you read the british records, they launch spy operations and kept tabs on donovan to make sure they knew what he was up to. in china our other allies, donovan set up a paper, founded it through a publisher. he planted his agents in there to serve as a reporter, but also to file intelligence reports on the side, not only on with the japanese were doing, but also he

was doing in china. the soviets were our ally in world war ii. donovan paid the finish intelligence services to 2,000 $500 for 1500 pages of soviet military and in kgb documents which included codes. the state department was horrified. they complained to roosevelt. roosevelt ordered dominant to turn the cut back over to the soviets. in fact, donovan had his men taken to andre gromyko in washington who did not believe for a new york minute that donovan's men had not copy the codes. not only had his men copied the codes, but the enterprising fans also sold the codes to the japanese. the free enterprise lives alive and well. eventually down the but the data

overcome his political enemies. he had drafted a plan for a post were central intelligence agency. he wanted to leave. but walter drolen and who was a white house reporter for the mccormick patterson chain which was very vehemently anti roosevelt which published the washington times "herald" in washington, a copy of donovan's secret plan for setting up the cia and published it in the paper. a highly inflammatory story. he accused donovan of want to set up what amounted to an american gestapo to spy on not on the people overseas but americans at home. you call somebody a gestapo back during world war ii, and those are, you know, very incendiary words. j. edgar hoover had an agent spread a particularly nasty rumor with harry truman's staff

that eventually got determine. i'll let you read the book to find out what that is, but donovan had a number of affairs, a number of extramarital affairs, and it was well known in washington and out in the field that he had. at one. the pond, rubber the secret pentagon espionage in it arranged through an officer who was stationed come on the white house staff under roosevelt and then determine that a 59 page rt was placed on truman's desk accusing the os as of all kinds of misdeeds, corruption compound operations. even accused him of staging an orgy in india. german also did not like donovan personally. there was bad chemistry. i mean, on one side you had a successful republican wall

street lawyer. on the other side you have a failed misery haberdashery who was a die-hard democrat. these two guys are never going to match up. truman wanted an intelligence service. he knew he needed a national strategic intelligence service. he just didn't want donovan headed out. on september 20th 1945 he set down the alaska eskimo parceled out his chest to the pentagon and state department to be its chairman eventually formed as an sure all of you know, a cia in 1947 models, a good bit after donovan's vision of what the cia should be. donovan wanted to leave that agency. in fact, he had intermediaries quietly lobbied determined to see if he could be head of cia. of course, truman was not going to have anything to do with that. donovan said some mean things about german of the presidential

campaign trail. wind like eisenhower came and he answered it lobbied to making head of cia. instead, eisenhower gave the job to allen dulles which left dahlin -- donovan very bitter. donovan always thought that tebow support manager and that he would have been better as cia director. instead, eisenhower made donovan ambassador to thailand, lightly as a consolation prize. with that, a big owl ended there. if you have any questions about what donovan did after the war, a legacy of his organization. >> is it true that donovan handed over to the mkvdr had handed over to soviet intelligence a list of agents of

a lesser us in eastern europe? >> i'm not -- >> agents or assets. >> it is a look complicated. donovan proposed in the winter of 1943 to set up a liaison arrangement with the and kgb. he flew to moscow to try and set that up. he thought he had risen no on board with it. the joint chiefs were pretty much on board with the. they actually got something set up with the head of the kgb. when they were going to exchange officers and there was going to be a soviet group that came to washington and analysis corporation come to moscow, but the spy chiefs knew that, you know, these groups would be spying on the other. this was his opportunity to get into the soviet union with his agents in moscow.

also to get material. when j. edgar hoover went -- heard about this plan he went bananas. hoover had his hands full keeping an eye on all the surveys that were here. the planned donovan had a fairlt exchange of information with the kgb throughout 1943 on. they exchanged a lot of intelligence. gadgets to the soviets. some of the activities and with the new was happening. as the war was drawing to an end

the abortions were coming in and occupying eastern european balkan nations. don't hold me to it, but it may have been romania. they want to know who were the zero ss officers that were in country. they were actually still working together trying to round up a nazi holdover. eventually the russians knew that the zero ss officers in eastern europe are going to be spying on them as much as working with them. they forced them all out of the balkan nations. there was a brief exchange of information. >> did the british share any of the details of the enigma

operation with donovan? >> yes. they shared. donovan had men and women working with the british, and they got access to the raw tape. in fact, the british were very, very important in helping donovan set up his counterintelligence operations. it is ironic that they actually shared more of their intercept work than the americans did. donovan never had direct access to magic. magic was the navy army codebreaking capability. all he would get, could get from magic were summaries of their reports. marshall did not trust donovan's organization to keep secrets. it that he was loose on security. in the case of the brits they

get direct access and there was very close cooperation. >> where did you see yourself different from the two previous biographers? >> actually there are three biographies. the first one was ridden by corey ford. he was screened by the dawn of the family and the donovan leisure law firm and largely a he geographic portrait of donovan. the law firm headed it at the end. anthony k. brown wrote a last zero. he had access to the original, then the microphone that he had the tucked of all his files in his office and carted off to new york. he did not have access to a lot of the newer material that has come out. there is a lot of speculation on things that donovan did. when you look at the actual record it turns out it didn't

happen. the other book was richard dunlop who wrote a biography around the same time in the early 80's. based largely on anecdotes are reminiscent of the former zero ss officers. as a historian or biographer with tell you, you know, and it puts our pretty helpful. memories fade after ten, 20, 30, 40 years. there were instances. they had donovan and different places. i called them elvis sightings. he really was not there. he was not doing what it thought he did. maybe somebody recall vaguely. what i try to do was at least base it on the record and use the anecdotes. >> what was the extent of communist penetration?

>> they had done a lot of studies. i don't have the numbers and my head, but it's in the book. there are at least a half-dozen in the ls as headquarters. they believed to have at a communist sympathies or feeding information to soviet intelligence. there were breaches and penetrations of stations all of round the world. the cia has done some good analysis of that. donovan knew he had communist organization. he actually had a very complicated relationship. he wanted to work with them but did not want them working for him. he would set up relationships with communists and the u.s. he could be very harsh on

communists in his organization, particularly if they were being investigated by congress with the name popped up there. he beckham has until the end that there were probably 40 people in his organization that he thought were communist leading. but there was never any evidence that the communist infiltration did anything to change the outcome of the war in any which way because we were allies with the soviets. so they had done assessments. so it didn't really have a huge effect of it than just giving the soviets information on what the allies as was doing. donovan tried to plant his own people even as he was trying to set up a liaison with the

relationship with the npd he had made arrangements with oil executives ever going over under a lindley's to help the russians with oil exploration to report to him on anything they saw. >> donovan and the oss have any relationship with the efforts of the atom bomb? >> oss and the donovan have any relationship? >> the project, a very famous former catcher, major league catcher. he was involved in that. leslie groves, the gentleman in charge of the manhattan project, had gone to donovan. never told him in detail are never told him anything really about the manhattan project. he asked donovan to have his officers to allow an scour

anything they could find on the german and italian scientific efforts to develop a nuclear device. they collected a lot of information. a think they suspected the reason they were collecting it was because the u.s. was building its own nuclear weapons. basically they came back with the conclusion that the germans in particular were far behind in the nuclear weapon development. >> overview of your book. i mentioned the donovan was an early opponent of nazism. i've wondered what his -- you know, if you could explain.

>> he made a lot of trips overseas basically as an international we're coming up business for his law firm are representing clients overseas. this is in the '20s and '30s. j. edgar who retired he was a nazi sympathizer. he collected a lot of information and made a lot of contacts in berlin. some of it proved useful much later during the war. but this was mainly in gathering isn't -- business information and protecting his clients in germany as the nazis to go for. so he represented companies from major jewish families to try and prevent the nazis from expropriating their property or businesses. he signed a petition to, i think, prevent the prosecution of a german jews in court.

he was very, very active. he had no illusions about what the nazis were about. adolf hitler, he viewed hitler, he told friends that this was the incarnation of evil. he was really, you know, fascinated throughout the war. in fact, at one point he had a team of psychologists and psychiatrists to a very extensive psychological profile of a which was actually fairly good. they predicted that heather was likely never to surrender. he would hold up and fight it out they also had a good bit of information they had collected on his sex life. donovan had that spiced up and sent out as propaganda. he thought that would be a good propaganda tool. >> as a biographer ino -- i no there are always questions you

can't answer. is there anything you can't cancer? >> it is interesting. he wanted -- and never wanted to write an autobiography of himself. there were several publishers who approached him. he was very particular about the oss history. he edited the final history very carefully. there are still questions about where he was at certain points of the war. you really can't pin it down. there have been a lot of rumors, and some of them i was able to discover that weren't true. for example, there was a terrific rumor out there, or a report, that donovan went into liberated france in a jeep with ernest hemingway. they went to the ritz hotel and that the bartender water up to

dozen martinis for everybody. thought it was a terrific anecdote. i was going to use it in the book until i found out it wasn't true. it was david bruce. there was a lot of speculation that donovan had secret meetings with the head of the german intelligence. i could find nothing in the zero ss records to indicate that was ever the case. there was run approach that never came about. maybe there is something there that nobody has seen. it would have probably turned up. the good news is that practically all of the zero ss records are declassified. the bad news is that all of them are declassified because it's millions and millions of pages. i mean, just donovan's own

personal papers in his office number over 100,000 pages but i'm sure there is a mystery after. i've still got a freedom of information act requests out there hoping to find it for the next edition. >> two questions. political intrigue. you touch on the world war ii. how much of that could have come from world war one? you hear stories like german been an artillery officer. the other one is george be strong who is the army chief who was the jag officer and the movement officer for u.s. and world war one. some of this conflict could have come from way back when. the other one -- i know in your index.

all right. you mentioned him. >> yes. >> do you touch on the 2677 oss regiment that operated in north africa? and a you mentioned the operations increased which involved the only, as far as i know in talking to other people, the only u.s. army unit to be sent from the army to the oss as a unit. that was the 122nd. >> on the world war one connection there has been a story repeated in a lot of books and you find it on the internet that truman was supposed to supply artillery cover for the battle at st. george. donovan won his medal of honor, catch up through the light. truman didn't and donovan complained later on. german heard about it and never

forgot the. it turned out it was an old wives' tale. germans unit was not there. for some reason it that repeated and gets mentioned trans tinselly. anthony cave brown's book. i went through all the records at the truman library. all of the world war one records. they weren't together during that battle. the george tron, george v. strong who was head of army jeep to was one of donovan's most implacable enemies. he was known as george the fifth because he was kind of an imperious man, but he was a warriors dollar. a very learned person, but he absolutely despised dominant and fought him the whole time. he headed towards the fifth. i think that animosity built the meant that the oss was formed.

i don't know how many connections there were. colonel and the who headed up at of his covert action and warfare operations leading up to the torch invasion, he was a world war one hero. he got his leg shot off. you know, he has frozen ribbons. when he met patent at one. paten thought the sky must be one tough son of a gun. it know, it looks like he has been shot at quite a bit. no, he had some real good operations in north africa. again, they were not able to of deliver on their hope and promise that they could organize the french to support or go along with the allied landing. >> one of the other reasons, it

is often said that the os has had no effort. you find with the 2677 africa 101. the army was making use out of one piece of it which kind of killed the effectiveness of the overall network. >> there could have been something that the tactical level pit at the national level, and wanted to replicate magic. he was denied access. in fact, he said about an incorporation to set it up. in fact, the leader of the secrets by unit, the military spy unit was buying on the axis and donovan and at one point had been working, actually, i think he was heading up the fpq organization. donovan basically get rid of him. that he was kind of a conspiracy buff. marshall eventually shut down that ad hoc intercept unit

because it did not want anything conflicting. >> one more in the back. >> lisk take a couple more. >> sure. >> could you elaborate on the relationship or rivalry of donovan's british counterpart? he went by intrepid. he was known as intrepid. >> stevenson. bill stevenson. they were very, very close. stevenson was a very, very helpful in setting up the zero ss. provided him a lot of help. donovan had tensor relationships with stewart who was head of the british intelligence. charles hamner wrote was head of british special operations, british as solely. there were constant fights. basically what happened was donovan really could not have formed his organization in the beginning without british help.

it was like a teenager. once you learn to drive a dad's car you don't want that sitting in your seat right next to you. which was what happened with the relationship between the british and the u.s. the british would have preferred -- prefer to have the oss be subjects of the crown and work as eggs and others. and, you know, their side of the story, they had seasoned operatives. here b's american cowboys. mucking up the works in getting in the way. donovan noon but what the british wanted. they knew that he wanted -- they wanted him and his organization to be an ice hillary a british special operations intelligence. he fought that very early on. in fact there was a famous line he told a british special operations representative in new

york and one. he said, i won't let me or my organization be novel by you. does anyone know what that is? i didn't. it is british slang for fixing a racehorse to lose. he was worried that the brits were going to be nobbling him. he also thought the houston organization for their own purposes. you know, they would discard him when they did not need them. they did not appreciate being called a prostitute. and so throughout the war there was the tension between the two. donovan realized even at the and, at the very end that he could not have built up what he had without the british help. >> in your research did you get the feeling that roosevelt added

did not discourage or actively encouraged the competition between donovan and military intelligence and solo players been volunteered? >> yes. roosevelt did not discourage that competition purity like the creative tension. if you talk or if you read the history hemet even harry hopkins , none of them barely knew what roosevelt was up to. he kept these compartmentalized and played aides off of one another. donovan, for example, did not learn after he formed the coordinator of the information was formed, that roosevelt had a secret spy unit and the white house. off the books it was run by john franklin carter. in fact