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    Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage
    Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage
    Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage
    Audiobook14 hours

    Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage

    Written by Douglas Waller

    Narrated by Johnny Heller

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    He was one of America's most exciting and secretive generals-the man Franklin Roosevelt made his top spy in World War II. A mythic figure whose legacy is still intensely debated, "Wild Bill" Donovan was director of the Office of Strategic Services (the country's first national intelligence agency) and the father of today's CIA. Donovan introduced the nation to the dark arts of covert warfare on a scale it had never seen before. Now, veteran journalist Douglas Waller has mined government documents and private archives throughout the United States and England, drawn on thousands of pages of recently declassified documents, and interviewed scores of Donovan's relatives, friends, and associates to produce a riveting biography of one of the most powerful men in modern espionage.

    The son of poor Irish Catholic parents, William Joseph Donovan married into Protestant wealth and fought heroically in World War I, where he earned the nickname "Wild Bill" for his intense leadership. After the war he made millions as a lawyer on Wall Street until FDR tapped him to be his strategic intelligence chief. A charismatic leader, Donovan was revered by his secret agents. Yet at times he was reckless, risking his life unnecessarily in war zones and engaging in extramarital affairs that became fodder for his political enemies.

    Wild Bill Donovan reads like an action-packed spy thriller, with stories of daring young men and women in Donovan's OSS sneaking behind enemy lines for sabotage, breaking into Washington embassies to steal secrets, plotting to topple Adolf Hitler, and suffering brutal torture or death when they were captured by the Gestapo. It is also a tale of political intrigue, of infighting at the highest levels of government, of powerful men pitted against one another. Deftly separating fact from fiction, Waller investigates the successes and the occasional spectacular failures of Donovan's intelligence career, making for a gripping and revealing portrait of this most controversial spymaster.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateMar 28, 2011
    ISBN9781452671666
    Author

    Douglas Waller

    Douglas Waller is a former correspondent for Newsweek and Time, where he covered the CIA, Pentagon, State Department, White House, and Congress. He is the author of the bestsellers Wild Bill Donovan, Big Red, and The Commandos, as well as critically acclaimed works such as Disciples, the story of four CIA directors who fought for Donovan in World War II, and A Question of Loyalty, a biography of General Billy Mitchell. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.

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    Reviews for Wild Bill Donovan

    3.5/5

    44 ratings6 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Great history lesson of the 20th century for US and World History.
    • 4/5
      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.
    • 4/5
      Quick! Name the current head of the CIA. Even if you could do it, you probably had to think about it. Today's spy chiefs keep a low profile.

      Not so "Wild Bill" Donovan, chosen by FDR to head the CIA's predecessor, the Office for Strategic Services (OSS) during World War II. Donovan was a pretty flamboyant character, regularly appeared in Washington's gossip columns even during the war. A winner of the Medal of Honor (though he had to lobby for it) for his heroism in World War I, a successful trial lawyer, prosecutor of bootleggers and candidate for New York governor, he led a dynamic and colorful life even before his OSS service.

      There are probably plenty of stories that are to be told about these pre-war identities of his, but this book wisely reserves its bulk for Donovan's wartime work. And there are certainly stories here. Despite heading up the nation's intelligence service, Donovan didn't feel that should keep him far from the action. He itched to go ashore with the troops during amphibious landings, and though he was expressly forbidden to do that on D-Day, found a way to get on the beach soon after the first assault. Within hours, he was pinned down by a German machine gun nest. One shudders to think what could have happened if the nation's spy chief fell captive to the Nazis!

      The reader is left to draw his own conclusions. The biographer, Douglas Waller, narrates Donovan's life straightforwardly without sensation or hyperbole. But the era was filled with big personalities, and Donovan was one of them.
    • 3/5
      Great charisma, accomplishments, creativity, and courage defined Wild Bill Donovan. Medal of Honor winner as well as several other top awards. His vision for his spy agency deeply impacted the CIA and what and who they became.

      He, like many people, also had some deep flaws. He was not faithful to his wife leading or at least contributing to their estrangement while married, and her deep unhappiness. Very sad.
    • 3/5
      Satisfactory overview of Donovan and the OSS. Well-researched and meticulous. Tends to focus on bureaucratic infighting as well as espionage, and some of the material can be a bit baffling to those not well-versed in WW2 history.
    • 2/5
      Great personality. Wonderful story. Poor writing, yet personality and story shine. What could a good writer dlo?