Famous personnel included in opened OSS files

[katty]

more: http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20080815/a_archives15.art.htm?loc=interstitialskip

Famous personnel included in opened OSS files
Precursor to CIA 'was the most eclectic group'
By Andrea Stone and Emily Bazar
USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Actors, financiers and socialites. The personnel files of the nation's World War II intelligence agency at times resembles a cocktail party guest list rather than a spy network.

Veterans of the agency say that's how William Donovan, director of the Office of Strategic Services, wanted it.

"The OSS was the most eclectic group of people ever organized in an intelligence agency," said William vanden Heuvel, the former diplomat who was the legendary spymaster's executive assistant.

How eclectic was revealed Thursday when the National Archives opened 750,000 pages of personnel records on more than 35,000 employees who worked for the spy agency that led to the Central Intelligence Agency. The records include employment applications, pay stubs, job assignments and mission citations for nobodies and notables.

Some, such as future chef Julia Child, Major League Baseball player Moe Berg and actress Marlene Dietrich, have become so well-known for espionage that the International Spy Museum here features them in an exhibit. Some, such as historian Arthur Schlesinger, wrote reports on the enemy. Future Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg worked in the analysis division, which vanden Heuvel said produced psychological profiles of Nazi leaders.

Among the nuggets in the files:

[Joanne98]

1. Arthur Schlesinger

[TomInTib]

2. I knew this guy who was on the ground floor of OSS.

Ray Harris.

Total wild man. He was in with Donovan, Dulles, all of them.

At his funeral service (one of the few times Ray was ever inside a church), the preacher (who, of course, had never even met Ray) delivered the standard, "If Ray could talk to you today, he would tell you to get to know your Lord and Saviour....blah,blah...".

The place erupted in peals of laughter.

People were laughing so hard, they were crying.