On the day of Roosevelt’s death, Attorney General Francis Biddle, Secretary of State Edward Stettinius, and Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal had been meeting to discuss Donovan’s plans for a central intelligence agency and who might direct it.
“It was generally felt that since the new organization would work on a highly secret plane,” reported Biddle, “it should start from scratch and be on its own from the beginning. Its functions would not be the detection of crime like those of the FBI but the gathering and weighing of information in the foreign field. These should be separated from any association with criminal investigation.”
The three men agreed that Bill Donovan should direct the agency. The discussion was interrupted by a message for Stettinius to report immediately to the White House. He left the meeting but returned soon with the tragic news that Roosevelt was dead. The three men went to the White House together. There was no longer any point in discussing the fate of the OSS until the viewpoint of the new President was made clear.
As for Truman, it was not at all definite that he wanted a central intelligence agency, and certainly not one with Bill Donovan as director. Donovan was among other things a Republican, and a dangerous one at that, who might still become a candidate for the presidency. Truman was dealing with the most urgent problems of his new presidency, and such things as the surrender of Nazi Germany, the development and use of the atomic bomb, and the proposed meeting with Stalin and Churchill at Potsdam all required his attention. He had no time for Donovan and the future of the OSS until May 14, when he noted in his appointment book, “William Donovan came in to ‘tell how important the Secret Service is and how much he could do to run the government on an even basis.’”
Donovan found Truman in a puzzled and, to Donovan, a puzzling mood.
“The OSS has been a credit to America,” Truman said. “You and all your men are to be congratulated on doing a remarkable job for our country, but the OSS belongs to a nation at war. It can have no place in an America at peace.”
Donovan interrupted to aver that the OSS could play an even more important role in the troubled peace that seemed likely after Japan surrendered. The President studied him for a moment and continued:
I am completely opposed to international spying on the part of the United States. It is un-American. I cannot be certain in my mind that a formidable and clandestine organization such as the OSS designed to spy abroad will not in time spy upon the American people themselves. The OSS represents a threat to the liberties of the American people. An all-powerful intelligence apparatus in the hands of an unprincipled president can be a dangerous instrument. I would never use such a tool against my own people, but there is always the risk, and I cannot entertain such a risk.
Donovan, now angry, argued with the President in favor of continuing the OSS in peacetime.
“Mr. Truman was very quiet, and when I left, there was no question in my mind that the OSS would be dissolved at the end of the war,” Donovan said later.
The entire interview could not have taken more than 20 minutes.
Peace was a long way off yet, and Donovan still had the OSS to run. Operation Sunrise had become a perplexing problem. On the day he died, Roosevelt, believing that the angry showdown with the Soviet Union was over, cabled to Stalin, “The Bern incident now appears to have faded into the past without having accomplished any useful purpose.” He was wrong. The Soviets were still incensed and seized upon the Dulles negotiations as grounds for suspicion of the British and Americans. Almost a million Germans and Italian Fascists had surrendered through Operation Sunrise, but because of Soviet obstruction their surrender had been put off until only six days before the final armistice was signed with Germany. This had cost thousands of British and American lives, and both Donovan and Dulles were bitter. Donovan, in particular, believed that Russia’s ambition to seize as much of Europe as possible had cost needless casualties and prolonged the war.
Now that victory had come in Europe, Donovan did not put Allen Dulles in charge of OSS Europe as most OSS men had expected. Some said Donovan believed that Dulles had mishandled Operation Sunrise; Dulles’s supposed failure, it was said, prejudiced Donovan against him. “I thought Allen was a fine operative,” said Donovan after the war, “but I did not think he had the organizational skill to handle all of Europe. It is not true that I was soured on Allen because of Operation Sunrise. Both of us knew that the Soviets were to blame for the delays and after them, Roosevelt for attempting to placate Stalin.”
Donovan put Dulles in charge of the OSS office in Germany, where Dulles did important work gathering information that Donovan was to use the coming autumn at Nuremberg. On May 2 President Truman had made Associate Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson the chief prosecutor for the war crimes trials. On May 22 Justice Jackson went to Paris to meet with Donovan and Gen. Edward C. Betts, judge advocate of the European Theater of Operations, to discuss how the trials might be conducted. Subsequently, Jackson asked Donovan to serve as assistant prosecutor, and the two men traveled to Frankfurt, to Switzerland, and back to Paris to consult with OSS personnel who were gathering war crimes evidence. They met in London with Britain’s Attorney General Sir David Maxwell Fyfe and the Soviet ambassador so that the Russians would not think the Western Allies were preparing the war crimes trials behind their back.
On July 7 Jackson and his staff accepted Donovan’s invitation to fly in his C-54 to Wiesbaden, where they were lodged at OSS quarters. Lieutenant General Lucius Clay and Ambassador Robert Murphy met them at the Fabian Building to make additional plans for the trials. The first question to come up was where the war crimes trials should be held. Murphy suggested Luxembourg, but the others believed that they should take place in Germany. The Russians had made it clear they preferred the trials to be conducted in Berlin, where they had strong armed forces, but the Americans and the British decided on Nuremberg. The city had important symbolism to the Nazis and there was sufficient housing available for the numbers of people who would be involved.
During the summer of 1945, Donovan struggled to keep the OSS together. “We were winding down our operation in Europe,” he recounted later, “but we were still adding to our groups working in Asia.”
On July 25 Donovan and R&A chief William Langer flew around the world visiting OSS bases. “The trip might have been called The World’s Airports by Midnight,” Langer told his wife.
The tour included impromptu visits to the Shatt-al-Arab waterway, oil refineries at Abadan, tea plantations in Ceylon, India, and China. Donovan was concerned with the needs of American intelligence in the Middle East now that Japan also was certainly going to surrender within weeks. Throughout July, American B-29s had been raining bombs and incendiaries on Japanese cities. Donovan’s agents were reporting that Tokyo was as much as 40 percent destroyed, and other cities were even more seriously damaged. Before he left Washington, Donovan had been consulted about the ultimatum that the United States, Great Britain, and China were preparing to give to Japan. The first atomic bomb had been successfully tested at Alamogordo, New Mexico, on July 16, and the Allies, meeting at the time at Potsdam, had decided to give the Japanese a chance to surrender before being attacked with the fearful new weapon. Their ultimatum, containing no mention of the atomic bomb, was delivered to Japan on July 26 as Donovan and Langer were flying toward India.
Crossing the Arabian Gulf, Langer and Donovan were issued a new type of parachute, which Donovan undertook to explain to his companion. “You pull the right-hand cord, and it opens up,” said Donovan. “Just before your feet touch the ocean, you pull the left cord, and it disengages the chute.” It was clearly no time to mistake the left hand for the right hand.
In China Donovan and Langer set about a last inspection of OSS posts. Howard Lyon was given the task of driving Donovan around in a jeep with a machine gun sitting at his side in case of need. “The general visited Chinese and American generals, inspected Field Photo laboratory, and parachute drying sheds,” sai
d Lyon.
Lyon also found himself strapping on a .45 automatic to guard the entrance to a house where Donovan was staying. The only visitor admitted was one of Donovan’s favorite OSS women.
Donovan continued up to Hsian, where he was met by Gus Krause, the OSS commander for northern China. The long war with Japan had exhausted the Chinese Nationalists. Inflation and corruption in the government were fueling demands for military and political reform. From their Yenan base Mao Tse-tung’s Reds appealed for revolution. Communist partisans not only were attacking the Japanese but were extending communist control in anticipation of the day when the war with Japan would end and an all-out struggle with the Nationalists could commence. Donovan was with Krause, studying the Chinese situation, when on August 6 news came that the atomic bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima.
“Donovan knew that the bomb was going to be dropped,” recalled Krause. “I remember he said, ‘It’ll stop the war in a hurry.’”
With the explosion of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki two days later, the Russians attacked the Japanese in Manchuria.
“The Japanese had planned to fight a last-ditch battle in Manchuria,” said Krause. “There were warehouses by the mile, full of equipment and material. Donovan and the OSS tried to persuade Washington to prevent the Soviets from seizing these vital warehouses, but no, our government was unwilling to offend Old Joe. It wasn’t right for America to work against Russian interests. As a result, all of this equipment and material was seized by the Russians and turned over to Mao Tsetung.”
Donovan knew he must press for American action in the face of the Soviet move when he returned to Washington.
“He knew he had a difficult problem,” said Krause. “The very OSS was about to be dismantled, and he was anxious for it to continue. We were having lots of trouble in China with the damned Russians. They were not only invading Manchuria but had crossed the Great Wall and were advancing on Peking. We had 20 OSS men against a brigade of Russians in our area. They were pushing us around as if we were children.”
On his last night in Hsian, Donovan ate dinner in the OSS mess hall. “All of the OSS group was there,” remembered Mitchell Werbell. “I was a Second Lieutenant, way below the salt, but after dinner, the general decided to go with me to buy jewels—rubies, Alexandrite, this and that and the other thing.”
Everything that Donovan bought, Werbell bought, confident that the OSS chief would certainly know a valuable gem when he saw it.
“I sent my gemstones home with General Donovan,” said Werbell, “and he promised to mail them to my wife.”
Before his plane took off for the flight back over the Hump to India, the pilot asked Donovan and Langer if they had chutes.
“No,” they both replied.
“Anybody have a chute for these guys?”
There was no answer.
“Well, I guess I’ll have to fly safely.”
In India a Donovan aide bought a beautiful vase for $50. He later had doubts.
“Bill,” he said to Donovan, “I think I’ve been had.”
“What difference does it make?” asked Donovan. “It’s just as beautiful.”
The plane flew on to the Philippines and then to San Francisco. When they landed on August 13, Donovan and Langer discovered that Japan had surrendered. By noon of the following day they were in Washington.
At home, Mitchell Werbell’s wife took the stones he had bought to a hometown jeweler. “Why didn’t you get more?” he demanded.
Then she took the stones to Tiffany’s, where a more practiced jeweler examined them beneath a glass. “You have some very nice pieces of jeep taillight,” he said.
“Bill Donovan had a bagful of stones,” Werbell observed, “and I had only a few.”
The aide who had bought the vase took it to the Metropolitan Museum in New York City.
“It is worth at least two thousand dollars,” he was told.
Intelligence reports continued to come in from all over the world, and Donovan went on forwarding the vital information upon which policy decisions might be made to the President. When Donovan paid a visit to President Truman, both men were cordial, but Donovan realized that the termination of the OSS was close at hand. He assured Budget Director Harold Smith that he was liquidating the various overseas operations and that he himself wished to return to private life by the end of the year, or at least by February 1, 1946. Actually, he had no desire whatsoever to return to private life, but he knew the OSS was doomed. On August 25 Donovan wrote to Smith:
In our government today, there is no permanent agency to take over the functions which OSS will then have ceased to perform. These functions, while carried on as incident to the war, are in reality essential to the effective discharge by this nation of its responsibilities in the organization and maintenance of peace.
It is not easy to set up a modern intelligence system. It is more difficult to do so in a time of peace than in a time of war.
It is important therefore that it be done before the war agency has disappeared so that profit may be made of its experience and know-how in deciding how the new agency may best be conducted.
Men and women began to leave the OSS. On September 13 Donovan brought René Dussaq to see the President in recognition of Dussaq’s heroism with the French Resistance. Truman was properly affable, but later in the day he gave the go-ahead to Budget Director Smith to finish off the OSS. Smith reported on his September 13 conference with the President: “I referred briefly to the Office of Strategic Services and to the fact that General Donovan . . . was storming about our proposal to divide the intelligence service. The President said that Donovan had brought someone into his office this morning, but they did not talk about this matter. The President again commented that he has in mind a broad intelligence service attached to the President’s office. He stated that we should recommend the dissolution of Donovan’s outfit even if Donovan did not like it. I told the President that this was precisely my attitude.”
On September 20, Smith was back at the White House. “When I gave the President the order on OSS for his signature,” he stated, “I told him that this was the best disposition we could make of the matter and that General Donovan would not like it.”
President Truman glanced over the documents and signed the order. How was Donovan to be told? Smith suggested that the President should call him to the White House, but Truman had no desire to confront Donovan. The President directed Smith to deliver the order, but when Smith returned to his office, he was embarrassed at the prospect of taking the order and an accompanying letter to Donovan. So he sent his assistant, Donald Stone.
“The President doesn’t want to do it, and I don’t want to do it,” Smith told Stone, “but because I can, I’m ordering you to do it.”
Stone saw Donovan at OSS headquarters. “When I delivered the document,” he said, “Donovan took it with a kind of stoic grace. He knew it was coming, but he gave no outward indication of the personal hurt he felt by the manner in which he was informed.”
Truman scaled down espionage and covert operations and placed them in a Strategic Services Unit in the War Department. R&A and the intelligence briefing and reports sections were given to the Department of State. All over the world, field operations halted or went awry. Donovan wrote to Arthur Krock of the New York Times:
I called you the other day, but missed you and take this means of saying good-bye, as I am leaving for Germany within a few days. I could not go without telling you how grateful I am for your support in what our outfit tried to do. I think especially of your article which came out the very moment the Budget Director’s plan came out, the effect of which is to destroy an intelligence system at the very moment when we need it most.
I do not speak of OSS because I think as I often told you, it is better for that to end its life with the war. I speak of the principle of intelligence. It is strange that at the moment when both the French and the British are modeling their systems upon what we did during the war
in the consolidation of functions, that we should go back to the 18th-century idea of having it in a Foreign Office.
Jim Murphy was less restrained. “It was a disgraceful and irresponsible business,” he said. “Truman summarily dismissed his only intelligence chief and did not even trouble to observe the customary ritual of sending for him personally.”
On September 28, 1945, about 2,000 morose OSS men and women crowded into the Riverside Roller Skating Rink on the Potomac flats below the headquarters buildings. They listened attentively when Bill Donovan stepped to a dais to talk.
We have come to the end of an unusual experiment. This experiment was to determine whether a group of Americans constituting a cross section of racial origins, of abilities, temperaments, and talents could meet and risk an encounter with the long-established and well-trained enemy organizations.
How well that experiment has succeeded is measured by your accomplishments and by the recognition of your achievements. You should feel deeply gratified by President Truman’s expression of the purpose of basing a coordinated intelligence service upon the techniques and resources that you have initiated and developed.
This could not have been done if you had not been willing to fuse yourselves into a team—a team that was made up not only of scholars and research experts and of the active units in operations and intelligence who engaged the enemy in direct encounter, but also of the great numbers of our organization who drove our motor vehicles, carried our mail, kept our records and documents, and performed those other innumerable duties of administrative services without which no organization can succeed and which, because well done with us, made our activities that much more effective.
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