Trusted Writing on History, Travel, and American Culture Since 1949
Office of Strategic Services
The origins of today’s vast intelligence apparatus can be traced, in part, to the forgotten efforts of librarians and archivists to gather information during World War II
An unlikely band of American librarians and archivists mobilized during World War II in a forgotten war effort centered on books and documents.
The least-understood branch of our military was born 60 years ago but today is coming into prominence as never before.
The safest, fastest, most convivial operation in the annals of espionage
A little autobiography is needed. I was born a U.S. citizen, in Lenox, Massachusetts, to be precise, and educated in France and England. I therefore speak French with a French accent and English with an English one. Now this is not allowed of Americans.
When and how it got the green light to conduct “subversive operations abroad”
The furious speaker was Field Marshal Kesselring. The time was 1944. And the “shadow” was cast by Italian partisans and a handful of brave Americans from General Bill Donovan’s O.S.S.
An eyewitness recreates a wonderful, wacky day in August, 1944, when Hemingway, a handful of other Americans, and a señorita named Elena helped rekindle the City of Light. Champagne ran in rivers, and the squeals inside the tanks were not from grit in the bogie wheels.
Editor's Note: General "Slam" Marshall served in both world wars and was the Army’s chief historian in the European theater at the time of the events related here.
Featured Authors
