Douglas C. Waller

Bill Donovan was the founder of the OSS (Office of Strategic Services) which was the World War II forerunner of today's CIA (Central Intelligence Agency).

Waller traces Donovan's life from childhood to death, but the majority of the book focuses on the OSS and World War II. He relates Donovan's childhood in Buffalo, NY and shows it shaped him as an adult. He then details Donovan's business, military, and political career showing the connections he made and networking he developed that would be important later on.

Alongside this is the tale of Donovan's family life, one of almost constant separation, absent parenthood, and tragedy.

Waller details Donovan's skills and shortcomings as a leader and how both pushed the OSS ahead and held it back, leading to mistakes. At the same time, the book also shows just how fragmented and chaotic US intelligence efforts during World War II were; it also details the political and personal conflicts that kept intelligence efforts divided.… (meer)

An extensively researched and written book about the head of the OSS, which was created during WWII. The author gives full credit to everything that Wild Bill Donovan accomplished, but also was not afraid to point out his significant flaws as an individual. The almost-obsessive involvement that Donovan had in the OSS’s activities in the field clearly had some inhibitive effects, and ruined any chance of a family life and marriage, but his involvement also ended up helping to create the template for the CIA to be formed after the war’s end. Donovan also went through some tragedies involving his family which softens the criticism to some extent.
What is clearly discussed in the book is the infighting between the different service branches that wanted their own intelligence services along with J. Edgar Hoover’s attempts to stop Donovan so Hoover could himself have the power, control and glory of the intelligence world. True to form, Hoover created false stories, spied on the OSS and tried to build his own empire to disrupt Donovan’s efforts. I was aware that Hoover created problems for many people in the US, but his involvement in trying to stop Donovan was a new storyline to me. Just gives more reason to despise what Hoover did.… (meer)