November 1, 2024 • 30 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, “Wild Bill" Donovan was one of America’s most exciting and secretive generals—the man President Franklin Roosevelt made his top spy in World War II. “Wild” Bill was the director of the Office of Strategic Services (the country’s first national intelligence agency). He is known as the founding father of both the CIA and the military's Special Operations Forces—along with being credited as the father of psychological and cyber warfare. Here to tell the story is Douglas Waller. He is the author of the bestseller, Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. Wild Bill Donovan
was one of America's most exciting and secretive generals, the
man President Franklin Eleanor Roosevelt made his top spy in
World War II. Wild Bill was the director of the
Office of Strategic Services, the country's first national intelligence agency.
(00:32):
He is known as the founding father of both the
CIA and the military Special Operations Forces, along with being
credited as the father of psychological and cyber warfare. Here
to tell the story is Douglas Waller. He's the author
of the best seller wild Bill Donovan, the spymaster who
created the OSS and modern American espionage.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Let's take a listen.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
While Bill Donovan he slept five hours or less a night,
speed read about three books a week. He was an
excellent ballroom dancer. He loved to sing Irish songs. In
fact that you go to Broadway and buy up the
latest sheet music so he could memorize the words. He
didn't smoke, rarely drank, enjoyed fine dining, although it tended
(01:21):
to add to the weight. He spent lavishly, had no
concept for a dollar. In fact, when he was roaming
the world visiting his different OSS stations. He was always
bumming dollars and quarters off as the aides who are
with him because he never kept any money with him.
He was witty, but he never laughed out loud. He
never told a dirty joke, He never showed anger, and
(01:43):
steady let it boil inside of him. He was also
rakishly handsome. He had these bright blue eyes that women
found absolutely captivating. His life also was filled with a
lot of personal tragedy. His daughter died in an automobile
accident in college, daughter in law died of a drug overdose.
(02:03):
One of his granddaughters, when she was four years old,
died when she accidentally swallowed silver polish, and a lot
of sadness in his life.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
He was born on New.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Year's Day, eighteen eighty three in Buffalo, New York's poor
Irish first ward. He thought he might wanted to become
a priest, and every Irish Catholic family was always assumed
that one of the sons would become a priest, and
Donovan thought that was going to be him. Realized later
on that he wasn't cut out to be a man
of the cloth. He went to Columbia University, was a
(02:33):
star quarterback on the football team his senior year until
he got hobbled by a chief tackle by a Princeton lineman.
He then went to Columbia Law School. Franklin Roosevelt also
attended the law school at that time. In fact, Roosevelt
later liked to say that he and Donovan rolled buddies
in law school, and Donovan said, oh, that's a bunch
of maloney. Roosevelt was on a much higher social strada
(02:55):
than a poor kid from Buffalo. He returned to Buffalo
after law school, set up a law practice, married one
of the richest women in town. World War One, he
led a battalion with the sixty ninth Irish Regiment, the
very famous regiment.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
In fact, they did a movie on it. Jimmy Cagney
played in it.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Donovan was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for heroism
in battle during World War One. The chaplain of the
sixty ninth Irish Regiment, a guy named Father Francis Duffy,
said Donovan was the only man he had ever met
in his life who actually enjoyed combat.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
He really did.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
He would write home to his wife Ruth, that going
out on combat missions was like going out trick or
treating at night. Also during World War One is when
he got his nickname wild Bill. He was a very rigorous,
almost a brutal trainer of his men because he realized
they were going to be going into a meat grinder
of combat in World War One, which they did. So
before they actually went into action in France, he had
(03:56):
him running over hill and dale and over obstacle courses,
under bob wire and everything. Finally the entire battalion collapsed
in front of him, and he stood up there, old Johnny,
and said, well, you know, what the heck's the matter
with you? I'm thirty five years old carrying the same
pack that you are. You don't see me out of breath.
From somewhere in the back, a soldier shouted out, He
never figured out who, but we're not as wild as
(04:18):
you are a bill.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
From that day on, wild Bill Donovan stuck.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
He claimed he didn't like that nickname because it ran
counter to the cool, calm, quiet spy image he wanted
to project, but his wife, Ruth, said that he really
did like to be called wild Bill.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
He returned to New York a hero.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
He became an assistant to the Attorney General and the
Coolidge administration during the roaring twenties. His goal at that
point was to become Attorney General of the United States,
and he thought Herbert Hoover, who succeeded Calvin Coolidge, had
promised him that position, and in fact, Hoover had promised
him the Attorney generalship. But this is the late nineteen twenties.
(05:00):
Ku Klux Klan is a very powerful political movement in
this country, and it was up in arms of the
idea of a Roman Catholic becoming Attorney General of the
United States. Donovan, as any prominent figure in Washington, also
made his share of enemies there.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
He was a prominent Republican.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Senate Democrats avowed to block his nomination. Hoover re indegged
on the promise until the day he died. Donovan never
forgave Herbert Hoover for denying him the Attorney generalship. In
nineteen thirty two, he decided to dip his toe into
politics once more.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
He ran for governor of New York.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
His idea then was to become the first Irish Catholic
President of the United States, and the governorship of New
York was an ideal stepping Stone for the presidency many
respects it may still be today. Keep in mind nineteen
thirty two, Franklin Roosevelt was running for his first tournament
office and he had been governor of New York. Donovan
ran against a guy named Herbert Layman, who was roosevelt
(06:00):
lieutenant governor. He ended up running as much against Roosevelt
as he did against Layman. Said some pretty nasty things
about Fdr on the campaign trail. At one point he
accused Roosevelt at being quote crafty. Another time, he accused
Roosevelt being a hyde Park faker, because Roosevelt claimed he
was a simple farmer from Hyde Park, and Donovan said
(06:21):
that was a bunch of bologney. Roosevelt, for his part,
sent out surrogates on the campaign trail to take their
shots at Donovan. In fact, Eleanor hit the trail and
went after Donovan on different issues. Now, the reason I
gave you some of this backstory is it's amazing then
that Franklin Roosevelt made Donovan his top spymaster, very senior position,
(06:44):
considering all the nasty things these two guys had said
about each other.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
In New York politics.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Fast forward to nineteen forty Going in nineteen forty one,
Roosevelt is building up the nation's defenses, preparing the nation
for war that he can see on the horizon. Donovan,
even though he was a conservative Republican, he believed the
New Deal was a Communist plot to take over America.
He too, also thought that the nation needed to build
(07:14):
itself up for war. So he had two very canny,
savvy politicians here who saw common cause in working with
each other. In the summer of nineteen forty Roosevelt sends
Donovan to England basically just to answer a very simple question,
can Britain survive this war or is it going to
(07:35):
be occupied by Nazi Germany? And this was a question
that Roosevelt didn't really have a clear answer to. He
didn't really have a good read on Winston Churchill either.
Later on they would become very very close, but at
that point he didn't know who this Prime Minister really was,
so he sent Donovan over. Donovan was given access to
the top levels of the British government, which is actually
(07:57):
kind of unusual because here's an Irish American going over
and the British government, particularly Churchill's office, didn't know whether
this guy is going to be an Anglo file or
an Anglo phobe. Turned out, Donovan was a committed Anglo file.
Came back to Washington with a bag full of secret
documents and an answer to Roosevelt's question, which was, yes,
Britain could survive the war, but it's going to need
(08:20):
a considerable amount of material aid from the United States,
which eventually came in the form of lease at the
end of nineteen forty the beginning of nineteen forty one,
Roosevelt sent Donovan on a second mission to Europe, this
time not only to England to collect more material, but
also to tour the Balkans, the Middle East and Eastern
Europe again to gather up intelligence there, but also to
(08:43):
deliver a very private message, particularly to Balkan leaders, and
that was that if you a Balkan leader, were sitting
on the fence in this war, and many of them
were at this point, just keep in mind that Franklin
Roosevelt does not intend to let Great Britain lose this conflict.
So if you're trying to decide which side you want
to be on, keep in mind the winning side is
(09:04):
going to be the Allied side. Churchill was delighted with
the message that Donovan conveyed in the region, he sent
a cable to Roosevelt saying that Donovan had been a
heartwarming flame.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
And you've been listening to Douglas Waller tell the story
of wild Bill Donovan, and what a wild story it is.
Born poor in Buffalo, Columbia, you and law school, and
then right into the middle of World War One where
he becomes a Medal of Honor recipient and describes himself
as enjoying combat. Politics follows, and then the Second World
(09:40):
War and the life of espionage when we come back
more of this remarkable story. While Bill Donovan's story here
on our American story, and we continue with our American
(10:11):
stories and with the story of wild Bill Donovan. Telling
that story is Douglas Waller, an author of the best
seller Wild Bill Donovan. Let's pick up where we last
left off.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Churchill also supplied a British plane to take Donovan around
to the different countries, and British escorts officers to open
doors for him and also to keep an eye on
to report back to London to make sure he stayed
own message. One of those escort officers was Ian Fleming,
who wrote the James Bond novel. The State Department, though,
(10:43):
wasn't so pleased with this trip, because here you had
somebody with no official government standing in either the US
government or the British government, strong arming Balkan leaders behind
closed doors, and in fact, at one point, senior State
Department aids discussed the the possibility of whether Donovan should
be prosecuted for violating the Logan Act, which makes it
(11:05):
a crime for a private citizen to negotiate on behalf
of the US government. Roosevelt, however, was only too happy
to have Donovan out there freelancing because, keep in mind
nineteen forty going into forty one, Roosevelt has no foreign
intelligence service to speak of. There were tiny foreign espionage
units in the Navy and the Army, but they were
(11:27):
largely dumping grounds for poor performing officers. Roosevelt is facing
a very tough re election fight for an unprecedented third term.
He's running against Wendell Wilkie. He's a very strong candidate.
Roosevelt was actually seriously worried that he was going to
lose that race. And here he is making major foreign
policy decisions overseas, largely blind to what lay ahead. Of
(11:50):
him overseas. In fact, it worried him so much at
times that he would become physically ill. When Donovan returns
from those two European trips, that's when our spy story begins.
In July nineteen forty one, Roosevelt signed an executive order.
It made Donovan his Coordinator of Information. A year later,
(12:12):
the organization be redesignated the OSS the Office of Strategic Services,
but it started out as the Coordinator of Information. It
was just a one page document he signed, very vaguely written.
It said, Colonel Donovan, which had been his World War
One rank, will collect information of national security interests for me,
and will do other unspecified jobs. In fact, the document
(12:35):
was so vague that members of Roosevelt's cabinet scratched their
heads and wondered, what in the heck is Franklin doing here,
appointing this Republican Wall Street lawyer who had been mentioned
as a possible presidential candidate for the GOP, to this
nefarious position in the administration doing all kinds of unspecified things.
(12:55):
Donovan said that he began his organization really from minus zero,
which is really the case.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
He only began with one guy, which was himself. In
the beginning.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
He was kind of like a player in a pickup
basketball game, looking for agents and operations anywhere he could
find him. So, for example, the Phillips Lamp Company, they
made lamps, sold lamps worldwide.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
They're still in business.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Donovan arranged privately with the Phillips Lamp Company that when
its salesman went overseas, particularly into occupied countries, they would
report back to the OSS on anything they saw that
might be of interest or of military value. The Eastman
Kodak Company my day, you know, they made Brownie cameras.
Back then, the Eastman Kodak Company had thousands of camera
(13:43):
clubs around the country. Donovan arranged for those camera clubs
to send him photos that tourists had taken when they
were overseas on vacation, particularly militarily important sites. Donovan had
a project code named Cigar where he secretly had ticket
agents for PanAm stations throughout Africa that would report back
(14:08):
to him whenever Abver or Gestapo agents moved into the
airports or came in or came out on different flights.
He cooked up all kinds of wild schemes when he
was OSS director. He's opened to really any idea that
crossed his desk. He kept two thousand dollars in his
desk drawer at all times, and that was to pay
for informants for information when he was roaming around Washington.
(14:30):
I don't think you'd find a CIA director today keeping
two grand.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
In his desk.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
He had a research and development chief, a guy named
Stanley Lovell, who was a very famous New England inventor
in his own right, and he was the guy who
created all the spy gadgets for Donovan. Donovan used to
call him his professor Moriarty, after the Sherlock Holmes character.
Stanley Lovell built the things like the miniature cameras that
(14:55):
spies used, the pistols with silencers, pencil like explosive devices
that could be used to detonate charges or for discreet assassinations.
Donovan was also very very interested in truth drugs and
how they might be able to be secretly administered to
an unwitting official to get him to spill the beans
on different secrets. So one time they decided to test
(15:17):
the truth drugs out on a New York mobster guy
named Little Aggie. There was an ossauficer who had been
a New York City cop who had busted Little Oggie
a number of times and eventually befriended the gangster. So
one day he invited Aggie up to his apartment for
some smokes and a chat. Well. Laced within the cigarettes
(15:39):
was a truth drug. It was tetrahydrous cycling. And so
Little Oggie starts puffing away, puffing away, slowly, getting a
silly grin on his face and chuckling and telling the
officer about working for Lucky Luciano and all the mob
hits he's carried out, and all the congressman he's bribed.
Of course, Little Oggie's secrets were safe with Donovan. He
couldn't bring him to try would give away the truth drugs.
(16:03):
He had all the other kind of wild ideas that
he would propose to Roosevelt. One of them was that
he proposed that Roosevelt would have a button at his
desk that he could punch at any time, and it
would put him in instant radio communication with every radio
in America, So that way, if the Japanese were going
to bomb Los Angeles, or the Germans were going to
(16:23):
attack New York, Roosevelt could alert everybody Roosevelt ignored that idea.
But Roosevelt was a spy aficionado in his own right,
ever since he was a teenager. He always enjoyed subterfusion, intrigue,
and keeping secrets, And in fact, Roosevelt sent ideas to
Donovan that were kind of off the wall too. One
(16:45):
of them was bats that you know, bats that fly.
They were gonna fit these bats with incendiary devices, time
around them, and they're gonna fly over Japan. Drop the
bats out of the plane, and the bats would fly
into the paper and wood homes in Japan, into the eves.
(17:06):
The incendiary devices would go off and it burned down Japan.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Great idea.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Someone had written eleanor with the idea. She passed it
along to Franklin. Franklin thought it was cool and gave
it to Donovan. So Stanley Lovell and his guys went
out to the Midwest somewhere, got a bunch of these bats,
fitted them with the incendiary devices, took them up in
a plane, dropped them out of the plane. Guess what
happened to the bats. They all sank like stone. There
(17:31):
was no idea the way that idea was.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Going to work.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
But Roosevelt didn't mind the failures, and Donovan was willing
to try anything. In addition to being the father of
the modern CIA, Donovan is also the father of modern
special operations. If you go down to Tampa, Florida, to
the headquarters of the US Special Operations Command, they have
(17:54):
in the main foyer in a glass case Donovan's uniform.
There a lot of memorabilia from him. Donovan loved his commandos.
He would talk in kind of that soft purr and say,
you know, I know this is a dangerous mission, but
if I could, I would go with you, and he
actually meant it. In fact, it got to be kind
of a joke within OSS circles, you know about you know,
(18:17):
Donovan coming and putting his arm around an agent. This
is an easy you know, if I could go with you,
I would That meant you were headed for trouble. In fact,
at one point he went to Roosevelt said, you know,
I'd like to command a you know, a division of
guerrillas in the Philippines. MacArthur didn't think too highly of
that idea.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
And you've been listening to Douglas Waller tell the story
of wild Bill Donovan, particularly his exploits along with Roosevelt
around World War Two and the formation of the OSS
in the end, the modern precursor to the CIA. And
when we come back more of this remarkable story wild
Bill Donovan's story here on our American story, and we
(19:39):
continue with our American stories and with Douglas Waller, author
of While Bill Donovan, the spymaster who created the OSS
and modern American espionage, let's pick up where we last
left off.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
He is also considered the father of what we called
today modern information warfare, things like psychological operations and cyber warfare.
In Donovan's day, though, it was done with the technology
that was really pretty crude, and it was called morale
operations back then, and it consisted mainly of newspapers, leaflets,
(20:17):
radios and rumors. So, for example, Donovan's agents spread rumors
in international papers New York Times, Associated Press or whatever
that top Nazis were fleeing Germany and going to hide
out in Argentina.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Who was going to leave the German army high and dry?
Speaker 3 (20:34):
But I mean another syops plan they tried out was
Stanley Lovels had a group of scientists concoct a set
of female hormones, and if they could find Hitler's vegetables
and inject it in there, it would make his mustache
fall awesome given a falsetto voice, which of course would
(20:55):
be a real bummer for the fure. Donovan turned out
to be a horrible manager. In the four years he
ran the OSS. He violated every rule they teach at
Harvard Business School and Public Administration School, and at one
point his own senior aides there tried to oust him. Donovan,
who by then had launched enough coups to smell one
(21:16):
on it being launched on himself, squashed it like a bug.
But and to his credit, though he was a very
charismatic leader, he rarely ever issued an order or a command.
He was usually always a request, and his agents would
follow him loyally and blindly, and eventually Donovan built a
spy organization of over ten thousand espionage agents, research analysts, commandos,
(21:41):
and support staff scattered in OSS stations all over the world.
They mounted a number of covert operations for the Torch
invasion of North Africa in November nineteen forty two, did
a lot of analysis of the Vishi French defenses there.
For the Army invading in They had little operations going
(22:02):
on in Asia. Douglas MacArthur, the commander of the Southwest
Pacific Theater, banned the OSS from his theater.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Didn't want to have anything to do with him.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
They had extensive operations before and after the Normandy landing
in France. His research analysts did a considerable amount of
analy topographic analysis as the beaches of Normandy for.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
The invading armies.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
He had an economist on his staff who picked out
bombing targets for half Arnold's eight Air Force. He had
hundreds of commandos and spies that dropped into occupied France
before and after the invasion, on many of them in
very dangerous missions. Donovan himself also liked to go in
on every Allied landing, which horrified his senior staff, because
(22:47):
the last place you want your top spymaster with all
those secrets in his head is at the front, where
he might be captured and he would be a very
valuable prize for the other side. General George Marshall, the
chief of Staff the Army, thought he had Donovan prohibited
from going in on the Normandy landing, and so did
Dwight Eyes and Power commanded the European Forces.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Donovan, though, managed to talk.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
His way aboard a Navy heavy cruiser and a land
at Utah Beach the second day after the first wave.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
He gets to the beach.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
And a Germans measuresmith flies by straight to the beach
and he has to dive under the jeep for cover,
dusts himself off, then walks inland about three or four
miles looking for some of his operatives there. He weren't
going to find him, but he thought you'd just go
in there and look for him. He gets pinned down
by a German machine gun nest he's with another aid.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
He reaches into.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
His jacket pocket to pull out his L pill. That's
a potassium cyanide capsule every OSS agent carried that he
could chomp an out on and kill yourself instantly, so.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
You want to be tortured.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
Realized though that he left his L pill at Claridge's
Hotel in London. In fact, he had his aid radio
London as soon as they got back to the beach
because he was worried a maid might come in there
and mistake it for an aspirin. It took Donovan almost
two years to really build up.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
His spy organization to get into this fight.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
Now, that sounds like a long time, and keep in
mind it took the US Army almost that amount of time,
so unprepared were we for World War Two. Like any
other intelligence agency, Donovan also had his intelligence failures. One
of the most notable ones was the Vessel case. Donovan
thought he had a silver Bullet agent planted inside the
(24:33):
Vatican who was supplying him with verbatim transcripts of papal
conversations that.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Pius was popious was having.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
With not only was senior Vatican and envoys all around
the world, but also with foreign diplomats at the Vatican,
including the Japanese ambassador. There turned out Vessel was an
Italian pornographer with a very vivid imagination and a real
talent for hating dialogue and snookered Donovan's organization. He had
(25:04):
ferocious feuds with j. Edgar Hoover, the director of the FBI.
Hoover thought Donovan's organization was the biggest collection of amateurs
he'd ever seen, and truth be told, it was a
collection of amateurs.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
In the beginning.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
Now, in any war, generals and admirals on the same
side will fight among themselves. There's always fierce bureaucratic battles
in World War II was no exception. But in the
case of Donovan, the bureaucratic battles became even more ferocious
because conventional generals and admirals just didn't understand what this
(25:38):
guy was about.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
I mean, when Donovan started.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
Talking about little Loggie and sex hormones for Hitler, they
thought the guy was deranged. Donovan would also show up
to Pentagon meetings, usually late, immaculately tailored in his general's uniform.
He bought it from Wessel's in New York, and on
the uniform he would have sewn on it just his
Medal of Honor ribbon, as a not so subtle reminder
(26:04):
to all the generals and admirals in the room with
their rows of ribbon, all that fruit salad, that he
had the only one that really counted.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Out in the field.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
Though he could be what one of his aides said
was incorrigibly civilian, he would show up and his fatigues all.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Wrinkled, look like he just got out of bed.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Sometimes he'd be wearing a Paisley ascot with him. Again
as a reminder to everybody around him. This was an
unconventional guy, and he was running an unconventional unit. Eventually,
Donovan couldn't overcome his political enemies. He had drafted a
plan for a post war Central Intelligence Agency CIA after
(26:44):
the war. He wanted to lead that agency. Walter Trohan,
who was a reporter for the McCormick Patterson newspaper chain
Trohan got leaked to him a copy of Donovan's secret
plan to set up a post war CIA, and he
published the entire plan in the Chicago Tribune, the Washington
(27:04):
Times Herald, and a New York paper on the same day,
along with a very inflammatory story accusing Donovan of wanting
to set up a quote Gestapo like organization that was
going to spy not only on people overseas but Americans
at home. Back then, if you accused any organization of
being gestopo like that about sank it politically, and it
(27:28):
did with Franklin Roosevelt.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
He basically shelled the plan.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
On September twentieth, nineteen forty five, Truman, this is after
the war's over. Truman shuts down the OSS and parcels
out its functions to the Pentagon and the State Department.
Now Truman was not deaf and dumb to the dangers
that lay ahead of him overseas. I mean, he was
this pretty savvy president. He could see and he was
(27:53):
going to see the Cold War rolling out, and he
realized he needed a foreign intelligence service. He just didn't
want to have Donovan is oss to be any part
of that. In nineteen forty seven, Truman organizes the Central
Intelligence Agency as part of the Defense Department Act. Donovan
wanted to lead that CIA in nineteen forty seven. In fact,
(28:14):
he had a surrogate's lobby Truman to make him CIA director,
but Truman wasn't going to have any part of that,
particularly after Donovan.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Had said some mean things about Truman on the campaign trail.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Presidents usually don't forget that kind of stuff that's said
about him. Nineteen fifty three, Eisenhower becomes president, a fellow
Republican like Donovan. I could thought Donovan had done some
fine worship in Europe. Donovan thought he had his best
chance to be CIA director then. Instead, though, Eisenhower appoints
(28:44):
Alan Dulles as CIA director and a.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Terrific job on the production by Greg Hengler and a
special thanks to Douglas Waller. He's the author of the
best seller while Bill Donovan, the spymaster who created the
OSS and modern American espionage. Pick it up at your
local bookstore or wherever you get your books online, and
by the way, Wile Bill Donovan died at the age
of seventy six from complications of vascular dementia in February
(29:12):
of nineteen fifty nine at Walter Reed Army Medical Center
in Washington, d C. Shortly before his death, he was
visited by President Eisenhower, who later told a friend that
Donovan was the last hero. Upon learning of his death,
the CIA sent a cable to its station chiefs. It read, quote,
the man more responsible than any other of the existence
(29:35):
of the Central Intelligence Agency has passed away. The story
of Wile Bill Donovan here on our American Stories
Speaker 3 (30:11):
In La
And we continue with our American stories. Wild Bill Donovan
was one of America's most exciting and secretive generals, the
man President Franklin Eleanor Roosevelt made his top spy in
World War II. Wild Bill was the director of the
Office of Strategic Services, the country's first national intelligence agency.
(00:32):
He is known as the founding father of both the
CIA and the military Special Operations Forces, along with being
credited as the father of psychological and cyber warfare. Here
to tell the story is Douglas Waller. He's the author
of the best seller wild Bill Donovan, the spymaster who
created the OSS and modern American espionage.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Let's take a listen.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
While Bill Donovan he slept five hours or less a night,
speed read about three books a week. He was an
excellent ballroom dancer. He loved to sing Irish songs. In
fact that you go to Broadway and buy up the
latest sheet music so he could memorize the words. He
didn't smoke, rarely drank, enjoyed fine dining, although it tended
(01:21):
to add to the weight. He spent lavishly, had no
concept for a dollar. In fact, when he was roaming
the world visiting his different OSS stations. He was always
bumming dollars and quarters off as the aides who are
with him because he never kept any money with him.
He was witty, but he never laughed out loud. He
never told a dirty joke, He never showed anger, and
(01:43):
steady let it boil inside of him. He was also
rakishly handsome. He had these bright blue eyes that women
found absolutely captivating. His life also was filled with a
lot of personal tragedy. His daughter died in an automobile
accident in college, daughter in law died of a drug overdose.
(02:03):
One of his granddaughters, when she was four years old,
died when she accidentally swallowed silver polish, and a lot
of sadness in his life.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
He was born on New.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Year's Day, eighteen eighty three in Buffalo, New York's poor
Irish first ward. He thought he might wanted to become
a priest, and every Irish Catholic family was always assumed
that one of the sons would become a priest, and
Donovan thought that was going to be him. Realized later
on that he wasn't cut out to be a man
of the cloth. He went to Columbia University, was a
(02:33):
star quarterback on the football team his senior year until
he got hobbled by a chief tackle by a Princeton lineman.
He then went to Columbia Law School. Franklin Roosevelt also
attended the law school at that time. In fact, Roosevelt
later liked to say that he and Donovan rolled buddies
in law school, and Donovan said, oh, that's a bunch
of maloney. Roosevelt was on a much higher social strada
(02:55):
than a poor kid from Buffalo. He returned to Buffalo
after law school, set up a law practice, married one
of the richest women in town. World War One, he
led a battalion with the sixty ninth Irish Regiment, the
very famous regiment.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
In fact, they did a movie on it. Jimmy Cagney
played in it.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Donovan was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for heroism
in battle during World War One. The chaplain of the
sixty ninth Irish Regiment, a guy named Father Francis Duffy,
said Donovan was the only man he had ever met
in his life who actually enjoyed combat.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
He really did.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
He would write home to his wife Ruth, that going
out on combat missions was like going out trick or
treating at night. Also during World War One is when
he got his nickname wild Bill. He was a very rigorous,
almost a brutal trainer of his men because he realized
they were going to be going into a meat grinder
of combat in World War One, which they did. So
before they actually went into action in France, he had
(03:56):
him running over hill and dale and over obstacle courses,
under bob wire and everything. Finally the entire battalion collapsed
in front of him, and he stood up there, old Johnny,
and said, well, you know, what the heck's the matter
with you? I'm thirty five years old carrying the same
pack that you are. You don't see me out of breath.
From somewhere in the back, a soldier shouted out, He
never figured out who, but we're not as wild as
(04:18):
you are a bill.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
From that day on, wild Bill Donovan stuck.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
He claimed he didn't like that nickname because it ran
counter to the cool, calm, quiet spy image he wanted
to project, but his wife, Ruth, said that he really
did like to be called wild Bill.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
He returned to New York a hero.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
He became an assistant to the Attorney General and the
Coolidge administration during the roaring twenties. His goal at that
point was to become Attorney General of the United States,
and he thought Herbert Hoover, who succeeded Calvin Coolidge, had
promised him that position, and in fact, Hoover had promised
him the Attorney generalship. But this is the late nineteen twenties.
(05:00):
Ku Klux Klan is a very powerful political movement in
this country, and it was up in arms of the
idea of a Roman Catholic becoming Attorney General of the
United States. Donovan, as any prominent figure in Washington, also
made his share of enemies there.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
He was a prominent Republican.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Senate Democrats avowed to block his nomination. Hoover re indegged
on the promise until the day he died. Donovan never
forgave Herbert Hoover for denying him the Attorney generalship. In
nineteen thirty two, he decided to dip his toe into
politics once more.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
He ran for governor of New York.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
His idea then was to become the first Irish Catholic
President of the United States, and the governorship of New
York was an ideal stepping Stone for the presidency many
respects it may still be today. Keep in mind nineteen
thirty two, Franklin Roosevelt was running for his first tournament
office and he had been governor of New York. Donovan
ran against a guy named Herbert Layman, who was roosevelt
(06:00):
lieutenant governor. He ended up running as much against Roosevelt
as he did against Layman. Said some pretty nasty things
about Fdr on the campaign trail. At one point he
accused Roosevelt at being quote crafty. Another time, he accused
Roosevelt being a hyde Park faker, because Roosevelt claimed he
was a simple farmer from Hyde Park, and Donovan said
(06:21):
that was a bunch of bologney. Roosevelt, for his part,
sent out surrogates on the campaign trail to take their
shots at Donovan. In fact, Eleanor hit the trail and
went after Donovan on different issues. Now, the reason I
gave you some of this backstory is it's amazing then
that Franklin Roosevelt made Donovan his top spymaster, very senior position,
(06:44):
considering all the nasty things these two guys had said
about each other.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
In New York politics.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Fast forward to nineteen forty Going in nineteen forty one,
Roosevelt is building up the nation's defenses, preparing the nation
for war that he can see on the horizon. Donovan,
even though he was a conservative Republican, he believed the
New Deal was a Communist plot to take over America.
He too, also thought that the nation needed to build
(07:14):
itself up for war. So he had two very canny,
savvy politicians here who saw common cause in working with
each other. In the summer of nineteen forty Roosevelt sends
Donovan to England basically just to answer a very simple question,
can Britain survive this war or is it going to
(07:35):
be occupied by Nazi Germany? And this was a question
that Roosevelt didn't really have a clear answer to. He
didn't really have a good read on Winston Churchill either.
Later on they would become very very close, but at
that point he didn't know who this Prime Minister really was,
so he sent Donovan over. Donovan was given access to
the top levels of the British government, which is actually
(07:57):
kind of unusual because here's an Irish American going over
and the British government, particularly Churchill's office, didn't know whether
this guy is going to be an Anglo file or
an Anglo phobe. Turned out, Donovan was a committed Anglo file.
Came back to Washington with a bag full of secret
documents and an answer to Roosevelt's question, which was, yes,
Britain could survive the war, but it's going to need
(08:20):
a considerable amount of material aid from the United States,
which eventually came in the form of lease at the
end of nineteen forty the beginning of nineteen forty one,
Roosevelt sent Donovan on a second mission to Europe, this
time not only to England to collect more material, but
also to tour the Balkans, the Middle East and Eastern
Europe again to gather up intelligence there, but also to
(08:43):
deliver a very private message, particularly to Balkan leaders, and
that was that if you a Balkan leader, were sitting
on the fence in this war, and many of them
were at this point, just keep in mind that Franklin
Roosevelt does not intend to let Great Britain lose this conflict.
So if you're trying to decide which side you want
to be on, keep in mind the winning side is
(09:04):
going to be the Allied side. Churchill was delighted with
the message that Donovan conveyed in the region, he sent
a cable to Roosevelt saying that Donovan had been a
heartwarming flame.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
And you've been listening to Douglas Waller tell the story
of wild Bill Donovan, and what a wild story it is.
Born poor in Buffalo, Columbia, you and law school, and
then right into the middle of World War One where
he becomes a Medal of Honor recipient and describes himself
as enjoying combat. Politics follows, and then the Second World
(09:40):
War and the life of espionage when we come back
more of this remarkable story. While Bill Donovan's story here
on our American story, and we continue with our American
(10:11):
stories and with the story of wild Bill Donovan. Telling
that story is Douglas Waller, an author of the best
seller Wild Bill Donovan. Let's pick up where we last
left off.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Churchill also supplied a British plane to take Donovan around
to the different countries, and British escorts officers to open
doors for him and also to keep an eye on
to report back to London to make sure he stayed
own message. One of those escort officers was Ian Fleming,
who wrote the James Bond novel. The State Department, though,
(10:43):
wasn't so pleased with this trip, because here you had
somebody with no official government standing in either the US
government or the British government, strong arming Balkan leaders behind
closed doors, and in fact, at one point, senior State
Department aids discussed the the possibility of whether Donovan should
be prosecuted for violating the Logan Act, which makes it
(11:05):
a crime for a private citizen to negotiate on behalf
of the US government. Roosevelt, however, was only too happy
to have Donovan out there freelancing because, keep in mind
nineteen forty going into forty one, Roosevelt has no foreign
intelligence service to speak of. There were tiny foreign espionage
units in the Navy and the Army, but they were
(11:27):
largely dumping grounds for poor performing officers. Roosevelt is facing
a very tough re election fight for an unprecedented third term.
He's running against Wendell Wilkie. He's a very strong candidate.
Roosevelt was actually seriously worried that he was going to
lose that race. And here he is making major foreign
policy decisions overseas, largely blind to what lay ahead. Of
(11:50):
him overseas. In fact, it worried him so much at
times that he would become physically ill. When Donovan returns
from those two European trips, that's when our spy story begins.
In July nineteen forty one, Roosevelt signed an executive order.
It made Donovan his Coordinator of Information. A year later,
(12:12):
the organization be redesignated the OSS the Office of Strategic Services,
but it started out as the Coordinator of Information. It
was just a one page document he signed, very vaguely written.
It said, Colonel Donovan, which had been his World War
One rank, will collect information of national security interests for me,
and will do other unspecified jobs. In fact, the document
(12:35):
was so vague that members of Roosevelt's cabinet scratched their
heads and wondered, what in the heck is Franklin doing here,
appointing this Republican Wall Street lawyer who had been mentioned
as a possible presidential candidate for the GOP, to this
nefarious position in the administration doing all kinds of unspecified things.
(12:55):
Donovan said that he began his organization really from minus zero,
which is really the case.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
He only began with one guy, which was himself. In
the beginning.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
He was kind of like a player in a pickup
basketball game, looking for agents and operations anywhere he could
find him. So, for example, the Phillips Lamp Company, they
made lamps, sold lamps worldwide.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
They're still in business.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Donovan arranged privately with the Phillips Lamp Company that when
its salesman went overseas, particularly into occupied countries, they would
report back to the OSS on anything they saw that
might be of interest or of military value. The Eastman
Kodak Company my day, you know, they made Brownie cameras.
Back then, the Eastman Kodak Company had thousands of camera
(13:43):
clubs around the country. Donovan arranged for those camera clubs
to send him photos that tourists had taken when they
were overseas on vacation, particularly militarily important sites. Donovan had
a project code named Cigar where he secretly had ticket
agents for PanAm stations throughout Africa that would report back
(14:08):
to him whenever Abver or Gestapo agents moved into the
airports or came in or came out on different flights.
He cooked up all kinds of wild schemes when he
was OSS director. He's opened to really any idea that
crossed his desk. He kept two thousand dollars in his
desk drawer at all times, and that was to pay
for informants for information when he was roaming around Washington.
(14:30):
I don't think you'd find a CIA director today keeping
two grand.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
In his desk.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
He had a research and development chief, a guy named
Stanley Lovell, who was a very famous New England inventor
in his own right, and he was the guy who
created all the spy gadgets for Donovan. Donovan used to
call him his professor Moriarty, after the Sherlock Holmes character.
Stanley Lovell built the things like the miniature cameras that
(14:55):
spies used, the pistols with silencers, pencil like explosive devices
that could be used to detonate charges or for discreet assassinations.
Donovan was also very very interested in truth drugs and
how they might be able to be secretly administered to
an unwitting official to get him to spill the beans
on different secrets. So one time they decided to test
(15:17):
the truth drugs out on a New York mobster guy
named Little Aggie. There was an ossauficer who had been
a New York City cop who had busted Little Oggie
a number of times and eventually befriended the gangster. So
one day he invited Aggie up to his apartment for
some smokes and a chat. Well. Laced within the cigarettes
(15:39):
was a truth drug. It was tetrahydrous cycling. And so
Little Oggie starts puffing away, puffing away, slowly, getting a
silly grin on his face and chuckling and telling the
officer about working for Lucky Luciano and all the mob
hits he's carried out, and all the congressman he's bribed.
Of course, Little Oggie's secrets were safe with Donovan. He
couldn't bring him to try would give away the truth drugs.
(16:03):
He had all the other kind of wild ideas that
he would propose to Roosevelt. One of them was that
he proposed that Roosevelt would have a button at his
desk that he could punch at any time, and it
would put him in instant radio communication with every radio
in America, So that way, if the Japanese were going
to bomb Los Angeles, or the Germans were going to
(16:23):
attack New York, Roosevelt could alert everybody Roosevelt ignored that idea.
But Roosevelt was a spy aficionado in his own right,
ever since he was a teenager. He always enjoyed subterfusion, intrigue,
and keeping secrets, And in fact, Roosevelt sent ideas to
Donovan that were kind of off the wall too. One
(16:45):
of them was bats that you know, bats that fly.
They were gonna fit these bats with incendiary devices, time
around them, and they're gonna fly over Japan. Drop the
bats out of the plane, and the bats would fly
into the paper and wood homes in Japan, into the eves.
(17:06):
The incendiary devices would go off and it burned down Japan.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Great idea.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Someone had written eleanor with the idea. She passed it
along to Franklin. Franklin thought it was cool and gave
it to Donovan. So Stanley Lovell and his guys went
out to the Midwest somewhere, got a bunch of these bats,
fitted them with the incendiary devices, took them up in
a plane, dropped them out of the plane. Guess what
happened to the bats. They all sank like stone. There
(17:31):
was no idea the way that idea was.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Going to work.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
But Roosevelt didn't mind the failures, and Donovan was willing
to try anything. In addition to being the father of
the modern CIA, Donovan is also the father of modern
special operations. If you go down to Tampa, Florida, to
the headquarters of the US Special Operations Command, they have
(17:54):
in the main foyer in a glass case Donovan's uniform.
There a lot of memorabilia from him. Donovan loved his commandos.
He would talk in kind of that soft purr and say,
you know, I know this is a dangerous mission, but
if I could, I would go with you, and he
actually meant it. In fact, it got to be kind
of a joke within OSS circles, you know about you know,
(18:17):
Donovan coming and putting his arm around an agent. This
is an easy you know, if I could go with you,
I would That meant you were headed for trouble. In fact,
at one point he went to Roosevelt said, you know,
I'd like to command a you know, a division of
guerrillas in the Philippines. MacArthur didn't think too highly of
that idea.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
And you've been listening to Douglas Waller tell the story
of wild Bill Donovan, particularly his exploits along with Roosevelt
around World War Two and the formation of the OSS
in the end, the modern precursor to the CIA. And
when we come back more of this remarkable story wild
Bill Donovan's story here on our American story, and we
(19:39):
continue with our American stories and with Douglas Waller, author
of While Bill Donovan, the spymaster who created the OSS
and modern American espionage, let's pick up where we last
left off.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
He is also considered the father of what we called
today modern information warfare, things like psychological operations and cyber warfare.
In Donovan's day, though, it was done with the technology
that was really pretty crude, and it was called morale
operations back then, and it consisted mainly of newspapers, leaflets,
(20:17):
radios and rumors. So, for example, Donovan's agents spread rumors
in international papers New York Times, Associated Press or whatever
that top Nazis were fleeing Germany and going to hide
out in Argentina.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Who was going to leave the German army high and dry?
Speaker 3 (20:34):
But I mean another syops plan they tried out was
Stanley Lovels had a group of scientists concoct a set
of female hormones, and if they could find Hitler's vegetables
and inject it in there, it would make his mustache
fall awesome given a falsetto voice, which of course would
(20:55):
be a real bummer for the fure. Donovan turned out
to be a horrible manager. In the four years he
ran the OSS. He violated every rule they teach at
Harvard Business School and Public Administration School, and at one
point his own senior aides there tried to oust him. Donovan,
who by then had launched enough coups to smell one
(21:16):
on it being launched on himself, squashed it like a bug.
But and to his credit, though he was a very
charismatic leader, he rarely ever issued an order or a command.
He was usually always a request, and his agents would
follow him loyally and blindly, and eventually Donovan built a
spy organization of over ten thousand espionage agents, research analysts, commandos,
(21:41):
and support staff scattered in OSS stations all over the world.
They mounted a number of covert operations for the Torch
invasion of North Africa in November nineteen forty two, did
a lot of analysis of the Vishi French defenses there.
For the Army invading in They had little operations going
(22:02):
on in Asia. Douglas MacArthur, the commander of the Southwest
Pacific Theater, banned the OSS from his theater.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Didn't want to have anything to do with him.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
They had extensive operations before and after the Normandy landing
in France. His research analysts did a considerable amount of
analy topographic analysis as the beaches of Normandy for.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
The invading armies.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
He had an economist on his staff who picked out
bombing targets for half Arnold's eight Air Force. He had
hundreds of commandos and spies that dropped into occupied France
before and after the invasion, on many of them in
very dangerous missions. Donovan himself also liked to go in
on every Allied landing, which horrified his senior staff, because
(22:47):
the last place you want your top spymaster with all
those secrets in his head is at the front, where
he might be captured and he would be a very
valuable prize for the other side. General George Marshall, the
chief of Staff the Army, thought he had Donovan prohibited
from going in on the Normandy landing, and so did
Dwight Eyes and Power commanded the European Forces.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Donovan, though, managed to talk.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
His way aboard a Navy heavy cruiser and a land
at Utah Beach the second day after the first wave.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
He gets to the beach.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
And a Germans measuresmith flies by straight to the beach
and he has to dive under the jeep for cover,
dusts himself off, then walks inland about three or four
miles looking for some of his operatives there. He weren't
going to find him, but he thought you'd just go
in there and look for him. He gets pinned down
by a German machine gun nest he's with another aid.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
He reaches into.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
His jacket pocket to pull out his L pill. That's
a potassium cyanide capsule every OSS agent carried that he
could chomp an out on and kill yourself instantly, so.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
You want to be tortured.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
Realized though that he left his L pill at Claridge's
Hotel in London. In fact, he had his aid radio
London as soon as they got back to the beach
because he was worried a maid might come in there
and mistake it for an aspirin. It took Donovan almost
two years to really build up.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
His spy organization to get into this fight.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
Now, that sounds like a long time, and keep in
mind it took the US Army almost that amount of time,
so unprepared were we for World War Two. Like any
other intelligence agency, Donovan also had his intelligence failures. One
of the most notable ones was the Vessel case. Donovan
thought he had a silver Bullet agent planted inside the
(24:33):
Vatican who was supplying him with verbatim transcripts of papal
conversations that.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Pius was popious was having.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
With not only was senior Vatican and envoys all around
the world, but also with foreign diplomats at the Vatican,
including the Japanese ambassador. There turned out Vessel was an
Italian pornographer with a very vivid imagination and a real
talent for hating dialogue and snookered Donovan's organization. He had
(25:04):
ferocious feuds with j. Edgar Hoover, the director of the FBI.
Hoover thought Donovan's organization was the biggest collection of amateurs
he'd ever seen, and truth be told, it was a
collection of amateurs.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
In the beginning.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
Now, in any war, generals and admirals on the same
side will fight among themselves. There's always fierce bureaucratic battles
in World War II was no exception. But in the
case of Donovan, the bureaucratic battles became even more ferocious
because conventional generals and admirals just didn't understand what this
(25:38):
guy was about.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
I mean, when Donovan started.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
Talking about little Loggie and sex hormones for Hitler, they
thought the guy was deranged. Donovan would also show up
to Pentagon meetings, usually late, immaculately tailored in his general's uniform.
He bought it from Wessel's in New York, and on
the uniform he would have sewn on it just his
Medal of Honor ribbon, as a not so subtle reminder
(26:04):
to all the generals and admirals in the room with
their rows of ribbon, all that fruit salad, that he
had the only one that really counted.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Out in the field.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
Though he could be what one of his aides said
was incorrigibly civilian, he would show up and his fatigues all.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Wrinkled, look like he just got out of bed.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Sometimes he'd be wearing a Paisley ascot with him. Again
as a reminder to everybody around him. This was an
unconventional guy, and he was running an unconventional unit. Eventually,
Donovan couldn't overcome his political enemies. He had drafted a
plan for a post war Central Intelligence Agency CIA after
(26:44):
the war. He wanted to lead that agency. Walter Trohan,
who was a reporter for the McCormick Patterson newspaper chain
Trohan got leaked to him a copy of Donovan's secret
plan to set up a post war CIA, and he
published the entire plan in the Chicago Tribune, the Washington
(27:04):
Times Herald, and a New York paper on the same day,
along with a very inflammatory story accusing Donovan of wanting
to set up a quote Gestapo like organization that was
going to spy not only on people overseas but Americans
at home. Back then, if you accused any organization of
being gestopo like that about sank it politically, and it
(27:28):
did with Franklin Roosevelt.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
He basically shelled the plan.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
On September twentieth, nineteen forty five, Truman, this is after
the war's over. Truman shuts down the OSS and parcels
out its functions to the Pentagon and the State Department.
Now Truman was not deaf and dumb to the dangers
that lay ahead of him overseas. I mean, he was
this pretty savvy president. He could see and he was
(27:53):
going to see the Cold War rolling out, and he
realized he needed a foreign intelligence service. He just didn't
want to have Donovan is oss to be any part
of that. In nineteen forty seven, Truman organizes the Central
Intelligence Agency as part of the Defense Department Act. Donovan
wanted to lead that CIA in nineteen forty seven. In fact,
(28:14):
he had a surrogate's lobby Truman to make him CIA director,
but Truman wasn't going to have any part of that,
particularly after Donovan.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Had said some mean things about Truman on the campaign trail.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Presidents usually don't forget that kind of stuff that's said
about him. Nineteen fifty three, Eisenhower becomes president, a fellow
Republican like Donovan. I could thought Donovan had done some
fine worship in Europe. Donovan thought he had his best
chance to be CIA director then. Instead, though, Eisenhower appoints
(28:44):
Alan Dulles as CIA director and a.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Terrific job on the production by Greg Hengler and a
special thanks to Douglas Waller. He's the author of the
best seller while Bill Donovan, the spymaster who created the
OSS and modern American espionage. Pick it up at your
local bookstore or wherever you get your books online, and
by the way, Wile Bill Donovan died at the age
of seventy six from complications of vascular dementia in February
(29:12):
of nineteen fifty nine at Walter Reed Army Medical Center
in Washington, d C. Shortly before his death, he was
visited by President Eisenhower, who later told a friend that
Donovan was the last hero. Upon learning of his death,
the CIA sent a cable to its station chiefs. It read, quote,
the man more responsible than any other of the existence
(29:35):
of the Central Intelligence Agency has passed away. The story
of Wile Bill Donovan here on our American Stories
Speaker 3 (30:11):
In La
Host
Lee Habeeb
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