Office Of Strategic Services Essay

The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was created by an executive order on June 13th 1942 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was a direct descendant of the Coordinator of Information office that was created the year before. Both of these agencies were headed by World War 1 Medal of Honor recipient General William J. Donovan. The OSS was the first United States national intelligence agency. Previous intelligence organizations such as the Office of Naval Intelligence, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Military Intelligence Division existed prior to the OSS however their compartmentalization and failure to share information made it difficult to fully utilize the information collected by the country as a whole. With the onset of World War 2 it was clear that this could not continue. The OSS was created with sole purpose of assisting the United States and the Allies in winning the war; it was an intelligence unit with a kinetic actioning arm.

When the OSS was created there was a significant need for training. The British Security Coordination assisted in a large amount of this training with the development of Camp X, a training site for espionage and guerilla warfare for the Allies

While the Secret Intelligence and X-2 (counter intelligence) Branches would be the predecessor to the Central Intelligence Agency, the Special Operations Branch would eventually lead to the development of Special Forces and eventually a plethora of Special Operations Units in the United States. This is possibly the reason that the original OSS insignia is now used by the United States Special Operations Command. The OSS Research and Development Branch developed trade craft devices such as hidden maps, matchbook cameras, and silenced pistols which contributed to the OSS’s overall operational success and laid the groundwork for many tradecraft techniques still used by intelligence agencies