OSS--Of Swashbuckling Sages
16 April 2008
The Nation, April 21, 2007
Robert Dreyfuss, in "Hothead McCain" [March 24], describes the Office of Strategic Services, predecessor of the CIA, as a "rambunctious, often out-of-control World War II-era covert-ops team." Led by the legendary "Wild Bill" Donovan, the OSS was a visionary, daring, innovative, unorthodox, effective intelligence organization. It abetted Allied victories in North Africa, Europe, Southeast Asia and elsewhere. Donovan recruited an array of "glorious amateurs," as he called them, including Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Ralph Bunche, Arthur Goldberg, Julia Child, John Ford [and Nation puzzle setter Frank W. Lewis--Ed.]. Many OSS personnel--including my father--risked their lives volunteering for missions behind enemy lines.
Creating a new intelligence service patterned after the OSS is an intriguing notion that deserves serious consideration, not Dreyfuss's casual dismissal.
Charles Pinck, president
The OSS Society
Robert Dreyfuss, in "Hothead McCain" [March 24], describes the Office of Strategic Services, predecessor of the CIA, as a "rambunctious, often out-of-control World War II-era covert-ops team." Led by the legendary "Wild Bill" Donovan, the OSS was a visionary, daring, innovative, unorthodox, effective intelligence organization. It abetted Allied victories in North Africa, Europe, Southeast Asia and elsewhere. Donovan recruited an array of "glorious amateurs," as he called them, including Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Ralph Bunche, Arthur Goldberg, Julia Child, John Ford [and Nation puzzle setter Frank W. Lewis--Ed.]. Many OSS personnel--including my father--risked their lives volunteering for missions behind enemy lines.
Creating a new intelligence service patterned after the OSS is an intriguing notion that deserves serious consideration, not Dreyfuss's casual dismissal.
Charles Pinck, president
The OSS Society
The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America
11 April 2008 Filed in: Dan
Pinck
By Hugh Wilford
Harvard University Press, 342 pages
Reviewed by Dan Pinck
Mr. Wilford’s book is a surgical incision into the intelligence life of Frank Gardner Wisner, a preeminent cold warrior who served in the operational cockpit of our international attempts to rollback the spread of communism. That we achieved our goal is due in part to many of the schemes and strategies developed and set in motion by Mr. Wisner and his colleagues at the CIA. He took risks and made mistakes that come with the territory. If we intend to praise him, we should praise ourselves. If we care to heap calumny on him for his mistakes, we should blame ourselves. If a person is involved in operations and doesn’t take risks and doesn’t make mistakes, that person is not doing his or her job. (Inevitably, some mistakes are inexcusable.)
As there are no easy answers, there are no easy questions. In framing my review or observations, I would like to ask Frank Wisner what he thinks of this book. My feeling is that he would give it a High Pass; in fact, he would commend it for limning the major points in his career and especially the influence of his mentor, George F. Kennan, the principal architect of our earliest Cold War strategies and tactics. And I’d like to contemplate whether Mr. Wisner, had he lived a life almost as long as Mr. Kennan, who died in 2005 at age 101 and who retained his mental sharpness and severe skepticism until the end and repudiated some of his earliest assumptions, -- whether Mr. Wisner would have changed his bedrock outlook on containing communism. I’d like to think he would have changed some of the tunes that he played on his Mighty Wurlitzer. Mr. Wisner called his covert operation a Mighty Wurlitzer on which he could play any propaganda or operational tune.
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Harvard University Press, 342 pages
Reviewed by Dan Pinck
Mr. Wilford’s book is a surgical incision into the intelligence life of Frank Gardner Wisner, a preeminent cold warrior who served in the operational cockpit of our international attempts to rollback the spread of communism. That we achieved our goal is due in part to many of the schemes and strategies developed and set in motion by Mr. Wisner and his colleagues at the CIA. He took risks and made mistakes that come with the territory. If we intend to praise him, we should praise ourselves. If we care to heap calumny on him for his mistakes, we should blame ourselves. If a person is involved in operations and doesn’t take risks and doesn’t make mistakes, that person is not doing his or her job. (Inevitably, some mistakes are inexcusable.)
As there are no easy answers, there are no easy questions. In framing my review or observations, I would like to ask Frank Wisner what he thinks of this book. My feeling is that he would give it a High Pass; in fact, he would commend it for limning the major points in his career and especially the influence of his mentor, George F. Kennan, the principal architect of our earliest Cold War strategies and tactics. And I’d like to contemplate whether Mr. Wisner, had he lived a life almost as long as Mr. Kennan, who died in 2005 at age 101 and who retained his mental sharpness and severe skepticism until the end and repudiated some of his earliest assumptions, -- whether Mr. Wisner would have changed his bedrock outlook on containing communism. I’d like to think he would have changed some of the tunes that he played on his Mighty Wurlitzer. Mr. Wisner called his covert operation a Mighty Wurlitzer on which he could play any propaganda or operational tune.
Read More...
In The Ruins of Empire: The Japanese Surrender And The Battle for Postwar Asia
25 March 2008 Filed in: Dan
Pinck
By Ronald H. Spector
Random House, 2007
Reviewed by Dan Pinck
This book is difficult for me to assess and I don’t mind saying this. Mr. Spector is a historian with a commendable reputation. He has written six or seven books that skillfully illuminate past wars, including World War II and Vietnam. Given the wide-angle scope and boldness of the thesis in his new book, I’m puzzled by its execution and the style or manner in which picks at some important facts. In some respects, his history is excitingly sound and in other respects, it’s somewhat scattered. I add that it’s possible that his book demolishes some of my thoughts about war and peace in Asia, and it dumps some of assumptions in a waste paper basket. But never mind. This goes with the territory of anyone who tries to capture China during the Second World War, as well as before and after it. When you add French Indochina, Great Britain, and the Netherlands to the mix, and Japan after their surrender, you’ve got an imposing swath of history. How to pick and choose? In this review, I propose to suggest what the context is, not to cover the entire, postwar geopolitical and military history of Asia. That’s a complex task for me. I expect I will concentrate on mainland China, with a few excursions to other nations. Along the way, I will undoubtedly reveal some of my eccentricities and biases.
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Random House, 2007
Reviewed by Dan Pinck
This book is difficult for me to assess and I don’t mind saying this. Mr. Spector is a historian with a commendable reputation. He has written six or seven books that skillfully illuminate past wars, including World War II and Vietnam. Given the wide-angle scope and boldness of the thesis in his new book, I’m puzzled by its execution and the style or manner in which picks at some important facts. In some respects, his history is excitingly sound and in other respects, it’s somewhat scattered. I add that it’s possible that his book demolishes some of my thoughts about war and peace in Asia, and it dumps some of assumptions in a waste paper basket. But never mind. This goes with the territory of anyone who tries to capture China during the Second World War, as well as before and after it. When you add French Indochina, Great Britain, and the Netherlands to the mix, and Japan after their surrender, you’ve got an imposing swath of history. How to pick and choose? In this review, I propose to suggest what the context is, not to cover the entire, postwar geopolitical and military history of Asia. That’s a complex task for me. I expect I will concentrate on mainland China, with a few excursions to other nations. Along the way, I will undoubtedly reveal some of my eccentricities and biases.
Read More...
The Hunt For Nazi Spies: Fighting Espionage in Vichy France
11 March 2008
By Simon Kitson
University of Chicago Press, 208 pages
Reviewed by Joseph Goulden
A glance at the title of Simon Kitson’s new book made me blink: The Hunt For Nazi Spies: Fighting Espionage in Vichy France.
Now wait a moment: the French capitulated to German invaders in 1940 and set up a puppet government, based in Vichy, under Marshal Philippe Petain. Thus how and why was the French security service able to ferret out German spies and arrest them? Kitson, a British professor, put his hands on 1,400 boxes of Vichy counterespionage records that the Soviets seized and took back of Moscow at war’s end. What he found, in these three tons of papers, certainly bears out his claim to have unfolded “a previously unknown chapter of World War II.”
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University of Chicago Press, 208 pages
Reviewed by Joseph Goulden
A glance at the title of Simon Kitson’s new book made me blink: The Hunt For Nazi Spies: Fighting Espionage in Vichy France.
Now wait a moment: the French capitulated to German invaders in 1940 and set up a puppet government, based in Vichy, under Marshal Philippe Petain. Thus how and why was the French security service able to ferret out German spies and arrest them? Kitson, a British professor, put his hands on 1,400 boxes of Vichy counterespionage records that the Soviets seized and took back of Moscow at war’s end. What he found, in these three tons of papers, certainly bears out his claim to have unfolded “a previously unknown chapter of World War II.”
Read More...
Endgame, 1945: The Missing Final Chapter of World War II
12 February 2008 Filed in: Dan
Pinck
By David Stafford
Little, Brown and Company
Reviewed by Dan Pinck
Read Mr. Stafford’s book slowly; and read it twice. Endgame, 1945 is masterfully conceived and superbly executed. It ranks among the better histories of Germany’s unfathomable brutality in the Second World War. You might be inclined to ask: What’s new about that? My answer is: A lot that’s new and that what isn’t new compels repeating. You may learn more than you want to know, as I did.
Until the publication of his new book, Mr. Stafford was a historian and writer of note. With his new book, he becomes a noted historian and writer. It is a scholarly book that might be underrated and even misunderstood because it is so well written. Great art is simple. Simplicity requires the greatest art, as we know. Endgame, 1945 is the total package. There’s not a word or a sentence that I would change in this 581-page book. Of course, in this encomium, I probably should add that this is my opinion. But I’d bet you a used Iron Cross Class 1 that my judgment is merited.
Read More...
Little, Brown and Company
Reviewed by Dan Pinck
Read Mr. Stafford’s book slowly; and read it twice. Endgame, 1945 is masterfully conceived and superbly executed. It ranks among the better histories of Germany’s unfathomable brutality in the Second World War. You might be inclined to ask: What’s new about that? My answer is: A lot that’s new and that what isn’t new compels repeating. You may learn more than you want to know, as I did.
Until the publication of his new book, Mr. Stafford was a historian and writer of note. With his new book, he becomes a noted historian and writer. It is a scholarly book that might be underrated and even misunderstood because it is so well written. Great art is simple. Simplicity requires the greatest art, as we know. Endgame, 1945 is the total package. There’s not a word or a sentence that I would change in this 581-page book. Of course, in this encomium, I probably should add that this is my opinion. But I’d bet you a used Iron Cross Class 1 that my judgment is merited.
Read More...