 OSS insignia[1] | |
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | June 13, 1942 |
| Preceding agency | |
| Dissolved | October 1, 1945 |
| Superseding agencies | |
| Employees | 13,000 estimated[2] |
| Agency executives |
|
TheOffice of Strategic Services (OSS) was the firstintelligence agency of theUnited States, formed duringWorld War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of theJoint Chiefs of Staff (JCS)[3] to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for all branches of theUnited States Armed Forces. Other OSS functions included the use of propaganda,subversion, and post-war planning.
The OSS was dissolved a month after the end of the war. Intelligence tasks were soon resumed and carried over by its successors, theStrategic Services Unit (SSU), theDepartment of State'sBureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), and theCentral Intelligence Group (CIG), the intermediary precursor to the independentCentral Intelligence Agency (CIA).
On December 14, 2016, the organization was collectively honored with aCongressional Gold Medal.[4]
Before the OSS, the various departments of the executive branch, including theState,Treasury,Navy, andWar Departments, conducted American intelligence activities on anad hoc basis, with no overall direction, coordination, or control. TheUS Army andUS Navy had separate code-breaking departments:Signal Intelligence Service andOP-20-G. (A previous code-breaking operation of the State Department, theMI-8, run byHerbert Yardley, had been shut down in 1929 by Secretary of StateHenry Stimson, deeming it an inappropriate function for the diplomatic arm, because "gentlemen don't read each other's mail."[5]) TheFBI was responsible for domestic security and anti-espionage operations.
PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt was concerned about American intelligence deficiencies. On the suggestion ofWilliam Stephenson, the senior British intelligence officer in the western hemisphere, Roosevelt requested thatWilliam J. Donovan draft a plan for an intelligence service based on the BritishSecret Intelligence Service (MI6) andSpecial Operations Executive (SOE). Donovan envisioned a single agency responsible for foreign intelligence and special operations involvingcommandos,disinformation,partisan andguerrilla activities.[6] Donovan worked closely with Australian-born British intelligence officerCharles Howard 'Dick' Ellis, who has been credited with writing the blueprint.
Said Ellis:
I was soon requested to draft a blueprint for an American intelligence agency, the equivalent of BSC [British Security Co-ordination] and based on these British wartime improvisations... detailed tables of organisation were disclosed to Washington... among these were the organisational tables that led to the birth of General William Donovan's OSS.[7]
After submitting his (and Ellis's) work, "Memorandum of Establishment of Service of Strategic Information", Donovan was appointed "Coordinator of Information" on July 11, 1941, heading the new organization known as theOffice of the Coordinator of Information (COI).
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Ellis, described as Donovan's "right-hand man", "effectively ran the organization".[8]
Writes Fink:
Ellis was sent from New York byWilliam Stephenson "to Washington to open a sub-station to facilitate daily liaison with Donovan, who reciprocated by sending [future Director of Central Intelligence, DCI]Allen Welsh Dulles to liaise with BSC in the Rockefeller Center". According to Thomas F. Troy, paraphrasing Stephenson, Ellis 'was the tradecraft expert, the organization man, the one who furnished Bill Donovan with charts and memoranda on running an intelligence organization".[9]
Donovan had responsibilities but no actual powers and the existing US agencies were skeptical if not hostile to the British. Until some months after Pearl Harbor, the bulk of OSS intelligence came from the UK.British Security Co-ordination (BSC), under the direction of Ellis, trained the first OSS agents in Canada, until training stations were set up in the US with guidance from BSC instructors, who also provided information on how the SOE was arranged and managed. The British immediately made available theirshort-wave broadcasting capabilities to Europe, Africa, and the Far East and provided equipment for agents until American production was established.[10]
Writes Fink:
William Casey, who headed up OSS's Europe-based human-intelligence operations, the Secret Intelligence Branch, and went on to become director of the CIA, wrote in his autobiography,The Secret War Against Hitler, that Ellis was not only writing blueprints but involved in on-the-ground, logistical programs: "Dick Ellis, [an] experienced British pro, helped establish training centres, mostly around Washington." United States Assistant Secretary of StateAdolf Berle commented: "The really active head of the intelligence section in [William] Donovan's [OSS] group is [Ellis] ... in other words, [Stephenson's] assistant in the British intelligence [sic] is running Donovan's intelligence service."[11]
The Office of Strategic Services was established by a Presidential military order issued by President Roosevelt on June 13, 1942, to collect and analyze strategic information required by theJoint Chiefs of Staff and to conduct special operations not assigned to other agencies. During the war, the OSS supplied policymakers with facts and estimates, but the OSS never had jurisdiction over all foreign intelligence activities. TheFBI was left responsible for intelligence work in Latin America, and the Army and Navy continued to develop and rely on their own sources of intelligence.
Donald Downes, who was developing counterintelligence capabilities in Washington, explained the situation in his memoir:
Edgar Hoover was out for Donovan's scalp and any type of co-operation was pretty well one-sided. Not only OSS, but the British Secret Intelligence, many of whose investigations were bound to lead to America, were constantly being hounded by the FBI... A friend of ours in the Department of Justice had warned us that Edgar Hoover believed we were 'penetrating' embassies and that he was annoyed.[12]
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OSS proved especially useful in providing a worldwide overview of the German war effort, its strengths and weaknesses. In direct operations it was successful in supportingOperation Torch in French North Africa in 1942, where it identified pro-Allied potential supporters and located landing sites. OSS operations in neutral countries, especiallyStockholm,Sweden, provided in-depth information on German advanced technology. TheMadrid station set up agent networks in France that supported the Allied invasion ofsouthern France in 1944. Most famous were the operations inSwitzerland run byAllen Dulles that provided extensive information on German strength,air defenses,submarine production, and theV-1 andV-2 weapons. It revealed some of the secret German efforts inchemical andbiological warfare. Switzerland's station also supportedresistance fighters inFrance,Austria andItaly, and helped with thesurrender of German forces in Italy in 1945.[13]
For the duration ofWorld War II, the Office of Strategic Services was conducting multiple activities and missions, including collectingintelligence by spying, performing acts ofsabotage, wagingpropaganda war, organizing and coordinating anti-Nazi resistance groups in Europe, and providing military training for anti-Japanese guerrilla movements in Asia, among other things.[14] At the height of its influence during World War II, the OSS employed almost 24,000 people.[15]
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From 1943 to 1945, the OSS played a major role in trainingKuomintang troops in China andBurma, and recruitedKachin and other indigenous irregular forces for sabotage as well as guides for Allied forces inBurma fighting the Japanese Army. Among other activities, the OSS helped arm, train, and supplyresistance movements in areasoccupied by theAxis powers duringWorld War II, includingMao Zedong'sRed Army in China (known as theDixie Mission) and theViet Minh inFrench Indochina. OSS officerArchimedes Patti played a central role in OSS operations inFrench Indochina and met frequently withHo Chi Minh in 1945.[16]
One of the greatest accomplishments of the OSS during World War II was its penetration ofNazi Germany by OSS operatives. The OSS was responsible for training German and Austrian individuals for missions inside Germany. Some of these agents included exiled communists and Socialist party members, labor activists, anti-Nazi prisoners-of-war, and German and Jewish refugees. The OSS also recruited and ran one of the war's most important spies, the German diplomatFritz Kolbe.
From 1943 the OSS was in contact with the Austrian resistance group around KaplanHeinrich Maier. As a result, plans and production facilities forV-2 rockets,Tiger tanks and aircraft (Messerschmitt Bf 109,Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet, etc.) were passed on to Allied general staffs in order to enable Allied bombers to get accurate air strikes. The Maier group informed very early about the mass murder of Jews through its contacts with the Semperit factory near Auschwitz. The group was gradually dismantled by the German authorities because of a double agent who worked for both the OSS and the Gestapo. This uncovered a transfer of money from the Americans to Vienna via Istanbul and Budapest, and most of the members were executed after a People's Court hearing.[17][18]
In 1943, the Office of Strategic Services set up operations in Istanbul.[19] Turkey, as a neutral country during the Second World War, was a place where both the Axis and Allied powers had spy networks. The railroads connecting central Asia with Europe, as well as Turkey's close proximity to the Balkan states, placed it at a crossroads of intelligence gathering. The goal of the OSS Istanbul operation called Project Net-1 was to infiltrate and extenuate subversive action in the old Ottoman andAustro-Hungarian Empires.[19]
The head of operations at OSS Istanbul was a banker from Chicago named Lanning "Packy" Macfarland, who maintained a cover story as a banker for the Americanlend-lease program.[20] Macfarland hired Alfred Schwarz,[21] an Austrian businessman (* 25. April 1904 inProstějov,Austria-Hungary; † 13. August 1988 inLucerne,Switzerland) who came to be known as "Dogwood" and ended up establishing the Dogwood information chain.[22] Dogwood in turn hired a personal assistant named Walter Arndt and established himself as an employee of the Istanbul Western Electrik Kompani.[22] Through Schwarz and Arndt the OSS was able to infiltrateanti-fascist groups in Austria, Hungary, and Germany. Schwarz was able to convince Romanian, Bulgarian, Hungarian, and Swiss diplomatic couriers to smuggle American intelligence information into these territories and establish contact with elements antagonistic to the Nazis and their collaborators.[23] Couriers and agents memorized information and produced analytical reports; when they were not able to memorize effectively they recorded information onmicrofilm and hid it in their shoes or hollowed pencils.[24] Through this process information about the Nazi regime made its way to Macfarland and the OSS in Istanbul and eventually to Washington.
While the OSS "Dogwood-chain" produced a lot of information, its reliability was increasingly questioned by British intelligence. By May 1944, through collaboration between the OSS, British intelligence, Cairo, and Washington, the entire Dogwood-chain was found to be unreliable and dangerous.[24] Planting phony information into the OSS was intended to misdirect the resources of the Allies. Schwarz's Dogwood-chain, which was the largest American intelligence gathering tool in occupied territory, was shortly thereafter shut down.[25]
The OSS purchased Soviet code and cipher material (or Finnish information on them) from émigréFinnish army officers in late 1944. Secretary of StateEdward Stettinius, Jr., protested that this violated an agreement President Roosevelt made with the Soviet Union not to interfere with Soviet cipher traffic from the United States. General Donovan might have copied the papers before returning them the following January, but there is no record ofArlington Hall receiving them, and CIA and NSA archives have no surviving copies. This codebook was in fact used as part of theVenonadecryption effort, which helped uncover large-scale Soviet espionage in North America.[26]
RYPE was the codename of the airborne unit who was dropped in the Norwegian mountains of Snåsa on March 24, 1945, to carry out sabotage actions behind enemy lines. From the base at the Gjefsjøen mountain farm, the group conducted successful railroad sabotages, with the intention of preventing the withdrawal of German forces from northern Norway.Operasjon Rype was the only U.S. operation on German-occupied Norwegian soil during WW2. The group consisted mainly of Norwegian Americans recruited from the99th Infantry Battalion. Operasjon Rype was led byWilliam Colby.[27]
The OSS sent four teams of two under Captain Stephen Vinciguerra (codenameAlgonquin, teams Alsace, Poissy, S&S and Student), withOperation Varsity in March 1945 to infiltrate and report from behind enemy lines, but none succeeded. Team S&S had two agents in Wehrmacht uniforms and a capturedKϋbelwagen; to report by radio. But the Kϋbelwagen was put out of action while in the glider; three tires and the long-range radio were shot up (German gunners were told to attack the gliders not the tow planes).[28]
The OSS espionage and sabotage operations produced a steady demand for highly specialized equipment.[14] General Donovan invited experts, organized workshops, and funded labs that later formed the core of the Research & Development Branch.[29] Boston chemistStanley P. Lovell became its first head, and Donovan humorously called him his "Professor Moriarty".[30]: 101 Throughout the war years, the OSS Research & Development successfully adapted Allied weapons and espionage equipment, and produced its own line of novel spy tools and gadgets, including silenced pistols, lightweight sub-machine guns, "Beano" grenades that exploded upon impact,explosives disguised as lumps of coal ("Black Joe") or bags of Chinese flour ("Aunt Jemima"), acetone time delay fuses forlimpet mines, compasses hidden in uniform buttons, playing cards that concealed maps, a 16mm Kodak camera in the shape of a matchbox, tasteless poison tablets ("K" and "L" pills), and cigarettes laced withtetrahydrocannabinol acetate (an extract of Indian hemp) to induce uncontrollable chattiness.[30][31][32]
The OSS also developed innovative communication equipment such as wiretap gadgets, electronic beacons for locating agents, and the"Joan-Eleanor" portable radio system that made it possible for operatives on the ground to establish secure contact with a plane that was preparing to land or drop cargo. The OSS Research & Development also printed fake German and Japanese-issued identification cards, and various passes, ration cards, and counterfeit money.[33]
On August 28, 1943, Stanley Lovell was asked to make a presentation in front of a hostileJoint Chiefs of Staff, who were skeptical of OSS plans beyond collecting military intelligence and were ready to split the OSS between the Army and the Navy.[34]: 5–7 While explaining the purpose and mission of his department and introducing various gadgets and tools, he reportedly casually dropped into a waste basket a Hedy, a panic-inducing explosive device in the shape of a firecracker, which shortly produced a loud shrieking sound followed by a deafening boom. The presentation was interrupted and did not resume since everyone in the room fled. In reality, the Hedy, jokingly named after Hollywood movie starHedy Lamarr for her ability to distract men, later saved the lives of some trapped OSS operatives.[35]: 184–185
Not all projects worked. Some ideas were odd, such as a failed attempt to use insects to spread anthrax in Spain.[36]: 150–151 Stanley Lovell was later quoted saying, "It was my policy to consider any method whatever that might aid the war, however unorthodox or untried".[37]
In 1939, a young physician namedChristian J. Lambertsen developed an oxygenrebreather set (theLambertsen Amphibious Respiratory Unit) and demonstrated it to the OSS—after already being rejected by the U.S. Navy—in a pool at theShoreham Hotel in Washington D.C., in 1942.[38][39] The OSS not only bought into the concept, they hired Lambertsen to lead the program and build up the dive element for the organization.[39] His responsibilities included training and developing methods of combining self-contained diving and swimmer delivery including the Lambertsen Amphibious Respiratory Unit for the OSS "Operational Swimmer Group".[38][40] Growing involvement of the OSS with coastal infiltration and water-based sabotage eventually led to creation of theOSS Maritime Unit.
The bulk of the OSS, after the expansion out of and away from COI, eventually found itself headquartered at a complex near 23rd Street and E Street in Washington, D.C.[41] This complex was unassuming, appearing to be a mix of normal government offices and apartment buildings to nearby residents and office workers.[42] It is known as the "Navy Hill Complex," "Potomac Hill Complex," and the "E Street Complex."[43] TheOSS Society and State Department have engaged in efforts with the National Park Service to add the Headquarters complex to the National Register of Historic Places.[44][45]
AtCamp X, nearWhitby, Ontario, an "assassination and elimination" training program was operated by the BritishSpecial Operations Executive, assigning exceptional masters in the art of knife-wielding combat, such asWilliam E. Fairbairn andEric A. Sykes, to instruct trainees.[46] Many members of the Office of Strategic Services also were trained there. It was dubbed "the school of mayhem and murder" byGeorge Hunter White who trained at the facility in the 1940's.[47][48][49]
Beginning in January 1941,Colonel Millard Preston Goodfellow, creator and Director of theSpecial Operations Branch (at this time still known as SA/G within the COI), negotiated with theNational Park Service to obtain three tracts of land to be dedicated as training camps for both SA/G and SA/B.[50] In March, he assignedGarland H. Williams to be the Training Director of these facilities.[50]
Commander N.G.A Woolley was loaned to COI by the British Navy and helped Donovan and Goodfellow to organize underwater training and craft landing.[50]
From these incipient beginnings, the Office of Strategic Services opened camps in the United States, and finally abroad.Prince William Forest Park (then known as Chopawamsic Recreational Demonstration Area) was the site of an OSS training camp that operated from 1942 to 1945. Area "C", consisting of approximately 6,000 acres (24 km2), was used extensively for communications training, whereas Area "A" was used for training some of the OGs (Operational Groups).[51]Catoctin Mountain Park, now the location ofCamp David, was the site of OSS training Area "B" where the first Special Operations, or SO, were trained.[52]Special Operations was modeled after Great Britain'sSpecial Operations Executive, which included parachute, sabotage, self-defense, weapons, and leadership training to support guerrilla or partisan resistance.[53] Considered most mysterious of all was the "cloak and dagger" Secret Intelligence, or SI branch.[54] Secret Intelligence employed "country estates as schools for introducing recruits into the murky world of espionage. Thus, it established Training Areas E and RTU-11 ("the Farm") in spacious manor houses with surrounding horse farms."[55]Morale Operations training included psychological warfare and propaganda.[56] TheCongressional Country Club (Area F) inBethesda, Maryland, was the primary OSS training facility. The Facilities of theCatalina Island Marine Institute atToyon Bay onSanta Catalina Island,Calif., are composed (in part) of a former OSS survival training camp. The National Park Service commissioned a study of OSS National Park training facilities by Professor John Chambers of Rutgers University.[57]
The main OSS training camps abroad were located initially in Great Britain, French Algeria, and Egypt; later as the Allies advanced, a school was established in southern Italy. In the Far East, OSS training facilities were established in India, Ceylon, and then China. TheLondon branch of the OSS, its first overseas facility, was at 70 Grosvenor Street, W1. In addition to training local agents, the overseas OSS schools also provided advanced training and field exercises for graduates of the training camps in the United States and for Americans who enlisted in the OSS in the war zones. The most famous of the latter wasVirginia Hall in France.[57]
The OSS's Mediterranean training center in Cairo, Egypt, known to many as theSpy School, was a lavish palace belonging toKing Farouk's brother-in-law, calledRas el Kanayas.[58][59][self-published source?] It was modeled after the SOE's training facilitySTS 102 in Haifa, Palestine.[60][self-published source?] Americans whose heritage stemmed fromItaly,Yugoslavia, andGreece were trained at the "Spy School"[61] and also sent for parachute, weapons, and commando training, and Morse code and encryption lessons at STS 102.[62][63][64] After completion of their spy training, these agents were sent back on missions to theBalkans andItaly where their accents would not pose a problem for their assimilation.[65][66]
OSS soldiers were primarily inducted from theUnited States Armed Forces. Among the few foreign nationals were PrinceSerge Obolensky and other displaced people from the former czarist Russia.
Donovan sought independent thinkers, saying. "I'd rather have a young lieutenant with enough guts to disobey a direct order than a colonel too regimented to think for himself." Seeking intelligent, quick-witted people who could think out-of-the box, he chose them from all walks of life, backgrounds, without distinction to culture or religion. Inspired by Britain'sSpecial Operations Executive, he had clinical psychologists evaluate OSS candidates, including at Station S in northern Virginia near today'sDulles International Airport,[67] whose records describe a quest for independent thought, effective intelligence, and interpersonal skills.[68] In months, he formed an organization that soon rivalled Great Britain'sSecret Intelligence Service.
One such agent wasIvy Leaguepolyglot andJewish Americanbaseball catcherMoe Berg, who played 15 seasons in the major leagues. As a Secret Intelligence agent, he was dispatched to seek information on German physicistWerner Heisenberg and his knowledge on theatomic bomb.[69] One of the most highly decorated and flamboyant OSS soldiers was USMarineColonelPeter Ortiz. Enlisting early in the war, as aFrench Foreign Legionnaire, he went on to join the OSS and to be the most highly decorated US Marine in the OSS duringWorld War II.[70]
Julia Child, who later authored cookbooks, worked directly under Donovan.[71]
René JoyeuseM.D.,MS,FACS was a Swiss, French and American soldier, physician and researcher, who distinguished himself as an agent of Allied intelligence in German-occupied France during World War II. He received the US Army Distinguished Service Cross for his actions with the OSS, after the war he became a Physician, Researcher and was a co-founder of The American Trauma Society.[72][73]
"Jumping Joe" Savoldi (code name Sampson) was recruited by the OSS in 1942 because of his hand-to-hand combat and language skills as well as his deep knowledge of the Italian geography andBenito Mussolini's compound. He was assigned to theSpecial Operations Branch and took part in missions in North Africa, Italy, and France during 1943–1945.[74][75][76]
One of the forefathers of today's commandos was Navy LieutenantJack Taylor. He was sequestered by the OSS early in the war and had a long career behind enemy lines.[77]
Taro andMitsu Yashima, both Japanese political dissidents who were imprisoned in Japan for protesting its militarist regime, worked for the OSS in psychological warfare against the Japanese Empire.[78][79]
Nisei linguists
In late 1943, a representative from OSS visited the 442nd Infantry Regiment looking to recruit volunteers willing to undertake "extremely hazardous assignment."[80] All selected wereNisei. The recruits were assigned to OSS Detachments 101 and 202, in the China-Burma-India Theater. "Once deployed, they were to interrogate prisoners, translate documents, monitor radio communications, and conduct covert operations... Detachment 101 and 102's clandestine operations were extremely successful."[80]
The names of all 13,000 OSS personnel and documents of their OSS service were closely guarded secrets until they were released by the USNational Archives on August 14, 2008. Among the 24,000 names were those ofSterling Hayden,Milton Wolff,Carl C. Cable,Julia Child,Ralph Bunche,Arthur Goldberg,Saul K. Padover,Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.,Bruce Sundlun,William Colby,René Joyeuse, andJohn Ford.[81][15][82] The 750,000 pages in the 35,000 personnel files include applications of people who were not recruited or hired, as well as the service records of those who served.[83]
Of the estimated 13,000 people who served in the OSS during World War II, more than 4,000 were women. Their work in a wide range of roles—espionage, intelligence analysis, research, communications, cartography, clerical work, and more—contributed to the organization's wartime success and helped shift gender norms in the decades that followed.[84] Among them wereJulia Child, who served in Washington, D.C.,Ceylon, andChina, where she handled the movement of classified documents in India;[85]Marion A. Frieswyk, who as the first female intelligence cartographer for the Cartography Section helped create high-precision maps used in Allied military operations;[86] andEloise Page, William Donovan's secretary, nicknamed the "Iron Butterfly" for her manner and rank.[87]
Many worked on black propaganda in the MO department. Some gained internal renown as "glamour girls", such asVirginia Hall, singerMarlene Dietrich,[88]Betty McIntosh, andBarbara Lauwers. InSisterhood of Spies, McIntosh reflects on the women's ability to "understand gossip in a way men never could".[89] Lauwers worked onOperation Sauerkraut,[90] which dispatched OSS to Allied prisoner-of-war camps to find and train German and Czech POWs to travel back across enemy lines to spread black propaganda meant to dismay Axis troops. Black propaganda for psychological effect was one of Donovan's key initiatives,[91] inspired by the Nazis. Lauwers created the "League of Lonely War Women" to demoralize German soldiers:[88] it spoke of a "custom" under which German soldiers on leave could find companionship by pinning a heart to their lapel, implying that the wives and partners of soldiers were being unfaithful at home.[92]
Many women had familial or spousal connection to the war effort Jane Hutton-Smith, wife and daughter to military officers, worked as the Washington manager of Far East MO, and trained field agents in spreading propaganda against Japanese soldiers. Her weeklyRumour Mill session with the staff involved spreading "devastating lies" about the wellbeing of the families of Japanese soldiers, creating misinformation on planned attacks, and disrupting "puppet" relations between Japan and China.[89] She and her colleagues generally spoke Japanese, Russian, or had other linguistic skills.
Women served as liaisons with resistance groups in France, Yugoslavia, and elsewhere, shaping U.S. relations with these nations during and after the war. Hall helped organize, supply and train theFrench resistance.[93] NovelistMary Bancroft acted as a liaison between OSS officer Allen Dulles and German resistance groups.[94][95]
OSS women had direct engagement with foreign nationals and Allied counterparts, shaping wartime diplomacy[96] and postwar foreign policy by building trust with international partners and establishing precedents for female involvement in foreign service, which had long-term soft power affects.[84] Many went to work for the CIA or State Department.
On September 20, 1945, PresidentHarry S. Truman signed Executive Order 9621, terminating the OSS.[97] Due to administrative error, the order only allowed the agency ten days to close.[98] The State Department took over theResearch and Analysis Branch (R&A); it became theBureau of Intelligence and Research, The War Department took over theSecret Intelligence (SI) andCounter-Espionage (X-2) Branches, which were then housed in the newStrategic Services Unit (SSU). Brigadier GeneralJohn Magruder (formerly Donovan's Deputy Director for Intelligence in OSS) became the new SSU director. He oversaw the liquidation of the OSS and managed the institutional preservation of its clandestine intelligence capability.[99]
In January 1946, President Truman created theCentral Intelligence Group (CIG),[100] which was the direct precursor to the CIA. SSU assets, which now constituted a streamlined "nucleus" of clandestine intelligence, were transferred to the CIG in mid-1946 and reconstituted as the Office of Special Operations (OSO). TheNational Security Act of 1947 established theCentral Intelligence Agency, which then took up some OSS functions. The direct descendant of the paramilitary component of the OSS is the CIASpecial Activities Division.[101]
Today, the joint-branchUnited States Special Operations Command, founded in 1987, uses the same spearhead design on its insignia, as homage to its indirect lineage. TheDefense Intelligence Agency currently manages the OSS' mandate to provide strategic military intelligence to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of Defense and to coordinate human espionage activities across the United States Armed Forces (through theDefense Clandestine Service) and was awarded status as an OSS Heritage organization by theOSS Society.
