The Bizarre Ways America’s First Spy Agency Tried to Overthrow Hitler

At the start of World War II the United States had no civilian agency dedicated to gathering foreign intelligence. Not that Americans never spied: The Army and Navy both had intelligence branches, and even private companies like General Electric sponsored corporate espionage. But the genteel Ivy Leaguers who ruled the federal government tended to view such activity as immoral, even dirty. As President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s secretary of war, Henry Stimson, once said, “Gentlemen don’t read each other’s mail.” This squeamishness put the United States at a disadvantage compared with Great Britain, Germany, and Russia, all of which had sophisticated intelligence bureaus and happily spied on adversaries and allies alike.

Pearl Harbor finally forced the U.S. government to admit its shortcomings and establish the Office of Strategic Services. Most people know it today as the precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency, but OSS’s mandate was broader than that. In addition to espionage, it carried