Evening star., 1945-09-12
Co-ordinuted InteIIiqence

Much of the story of the Office of
Strategic Services has yet to be told,
but enough of it is known to make
clear that this agency, operating di-
rectly under the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, has more than justified it's
existence. Today, however, it is in
a process of liquidation scheduled
to be completed by next February
at the latest, after Which-unlesS
Congress takes appropriate action in
the meantime-the United States
will once again have the odd and
somewhat hazardous distinction of
being the only major power in the
world without a permanent system
of co-ordinated global intelligence
When OSS was set up in June of
1912, with General Donovan as it's
director, it gave US, for the first time
in our history, something which
every other important country long
had had-an independent foreign
secret service reporting to the high
est levels of governmental authority
Before it came into being, we had no
such service worthy of the name.
There were only the strictly limited
operations of the Army's Military
Intelligence Service, the Navy's Of
flee of Naval Intelligence and the
fact-gathering overseas units of sew
eral Federal departments, all of
which picked up bits and pieces of
information separately from each
other without any real effort being
made to coordinate and interpret
the whole as a guide for the de-
velopment of our diplomatic and
military policy.
OSS, of course, has not been per-
feet, but in time of very great dan
ger it's creation served to fill a Seri-
Gus gap in our intelligence setup and
to achieve more than a little meas
ure of coordination in interpreting
and processing vast volume of in
formation bearing significantly upon
military operations. AS an arm of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, its func-
tionS, broadly speaking, fell into two
categorieS during the war. The first
of these - direct action - involved
special projects like espionage in
enemy countries and the use of
agents (many of whom paid with
liunS do ori17 fn fn
ment and organize guerrilla war
fare and prepare the way for Allied
landings. But these projects, though
highly valuable as in North Africa
and dramatic as in Thailand, prob
ably were of less Importance than
the second category of OSS func-
tions-research and analysis, the
often dull and dreary business of in
tegrating and evaluating dry statis-
tical data upon which air, land and
sea strategy could be based.
With the war over, OSS must nee
essarily be dissolved, but the United
States will be making a sad mistake,
indeed, If something comparable to
it is not established permanently.
The logic of experience and the ex-
ample set by other major powers
should make obvious that we need a
centralized foreign intelligence sys-
tenn to keep Americas mind in
formed and Americas eyes open as
never before, the all-important value
of this being that it would be a guar
antee against ignorance of the OBJ
jectiveS and intentions of = other
countries and thus be most helpful
to those who must shape the diplo-
matte and military policies of the
Nation in the years ahead
Certain aspects of the idea, as re-
portedly envisioned by General Don
ovan, may be debatable, but the idea
itself is basically sound, and Con-
gress should act upon it. The less in
the dark we are about the rest of
the world, the better equipped we
shall be to play our peace role in it.