The Agency: Inside the CIA Page #3

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Somebody once said that i

ithe Germans wanna know

where the next invasion

was gonna take place,

they should follow General

Donovan, 'cause he,

he was always there, you know?

He was at the front.

Even went behind enemy lines

on more than one occasion

during the war. So,

imagine you're an OSS guy

somewhere and you're

risking your life

behind enemy lines, and

General Donovan shows up,

you know? Well, if

he's willing to risk

his life, obviously

you're willing to risk

yours. So, he led by example,

and I think that made

a huge difference.

Under Donovan's leadership,

the OSS flourished,

but the major test of

World War II espionage

was still to come.

The OSS may have been

the direct predecessor

to the Central

Intelligence AgAgcy,

bubuit was the British that

were considered the spymasters

on the eve of World War II.

The British are the masters

of intelligence, and

always have been,

Bill Donovan, who had

been head of OSS,

learned a lot from the British

about their organization, how

they went after conducting

intelligence. After

some hesitation,

British intelligence began

training and coordinating

with their American

counterparts.

The British were

renowned for careful

and highly-detailed

planning of operations.

The OSS, on the other hand,

took a different approach.

You know, General Donovan

was famous for telling

OSS personnel that

you couldn't succeed

without taking chances.

He described it

as calculated recklessness.

The OSS I Inched

far-reaching raids

on Gerern forces,

even parachuting

directly into Germany

at one point. This

calculated recklessness

made the Germans take notice,

and America intelligence

began to blossom in advance

of the invasion of Europe.

Allied intelligence had deceived

the German defenders in France

that invasion forces

were preparing to attack

the Port of Calais, a target

many miles to the east

from their intended

landing site of Normandy.

There were a number of

contributions of intelligence

to deceiving the Germans

as to where we would land

when we invaded Europe.

The largest

amphibious invasion

in the history of the world

was about to take place,

and intelligence services

were working around the clock

Intelligence turned

the tide of the war.

Right in that one battle.

As Allied soldiers began

pouring ashore at Normandy,

the German reserve forces

remained at Calais, waiting

to prevent an invasion...

an invasion straight

from the minds

of Allied intelligence officers.

After the landing,

small teams of OSS

operational units

moved in. And these

were 15 to 30 men

teams sent in to Europe to

work behind enemy lines

with resistance groups, and

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