Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1945-11-01
News a
BEHIND y
THENE'''l|l,!lI|'||IEI|y1
By PAUL MALLON
Released by Western Newspaper Union.
ATOMIC BOMB CREATES
SUPER-SPY SYSTEM NEED
By PAUL MALLON

ATOMlC BOMB CREATES
SUPER-SPY SYSTEM NEED
WASHINGTON-Major General
Wild Bill Donovan bowed out of
the first real American intelli-
gence service (OSS) with a some
what cool-sounding response from
President Truman to his idea of
developing his line of effort fur
Their for peace. Mr.. Truman cut
up OSS, sending part to the War
Department, but most to State.
The Donovan notion of hiring
someone like Sumner Welles, the
ex-diplomat, to keep intimate and
independent watch on the inner
international world, was left hang
ing in air-somewhat foggy air.
General Donovan has never been
a glamour boy. He is a rather
crusty soldier-lawyer. Those who
know what he did in the conf
Dental special agent part of the
war say his work in the Balkans
particularly was excellent and
could have been done by no one
else as well. Into his organiza-
ton, however, crept number of
persons who did not fit the best
nature of the endeavor and gave
it distaste with Congress. | think
this fairly sums up OSS. 1t did
great work, but was not popular.
Il can never learn what accom-
plishes popularity in this era when
a bank robber can possibly attain
it by merely being for the 30-hour
week or some such social innova-
tion.)
In the wake Of this peculiar con-
dition, congressman are arising to
shout "There will be no American
Gestapo," and 1 assume also they
mean NO oGPU or NKDV. In
deed there will not. But there is
a grave danger that the first vital
necessity for a secure postwar
world will be ignored and shunted
aside by muddleheaded political
thinking about it.
If you thought Pearl Harbor a
surprise and blitz warfare sudden
as lightning, you are already old
fashioned and obsolete in your
thinking. The next war will start
like a flash-the brilliant binding
flash of the atomic bomb. If our
defenses were archaic last time,
they will be pitiful next time un-
less our officials know everything
going on in this world. Advance
knowledge is more essential to de-
tense in a future world than a
superior air force, an army or
fleet.
Not the Fascists or the Com
munist nations, but the British,
a democratic nation, have the
best world intelligence. It was
built up through generations.
Their survival depended upon it,
because their little islands had
absolutely nothing to justify
their superior position in the
world, except an awareness of
the facts of national existences
and a superior shrewdness in
using them. That is what we
need-only a better one.
1t cannot be an army enterprise
because the army covers only one
phase of world facts influencing
peace and security. 1t cannot be
navy, marine corps, or merely all
three together, because diplomacy
must be founded upon such in
formation. (The British even move
commercially from such realistic
ground news.) 1t cannot be split,
or you will have each department
performing again the coordination
they showed about Pearl Harbor-
namely none.
INDEPENDENT BUREAU
NEEDED
Consequently it must be an in
dependent bureau covering at
least these government elements
and probably more Justice De-
partment and FBI.) Furthermore,
the head must be a man whose
character and personality guar
antee full pursuit of the business
to be done, and a complete dis
avowal of any political implica-
tons in the work. He must not
be a leftist or right or even a
professional Democrat or Repub-
lican. That service must lean
over backwards to keep itself po-
litically inviolable, and beyond
even the faintest suspicion Of po-
litical use. (The British know
how to do it,
The only limit on its appro-
priations should be our need of
information. If we need the
information-get 1t. If the
spenders want to let Treasury
money loose, here is one place
where they could get something
out of it. Some interested par
fious ,riah "a limit fha sauna IT