NEED TO KNOW

An intriguing account about the seeds that would sprout into America’s intelligence agencies.

Reynolds, a Marine Corps veteran and author of Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy, has worked in the field for years, including as the historian for the CIA Museum. He notes that in the years before 1941, there was hardly an intelligence system at all. Certain sections of the Army and Navy were dedicated to codebreaking and surveillance, but there was little cross-agency coordination. Franklin Roosevelt, who was often more concerned with informal connections and centralizing the flow of information, did not help matters. Consequently, in the 1930s, amateurs conducted most of the nonmilitary intelligence work, and many of these mercurial characters could be found among the back corridors of the White House and the State Department. A surprising number of them were spy novelists (Ian Fleming strolls through these pages). One of the central characters is William “Wild Bill” Donovan, who, after studying Britain’s intelligence system, managed to convince Roosevelt of the need for an organization that could combine analysis and operations. When war broke out, Donovan established and led the Office of Strategic Services. Despite questions about its overall effectiveness, writes Reynolds, it notched some important successes—even as the political whirlpool of Washington, D.C., caused significant problems. For example, J. Edgar Hoover was constantly seeking to expand the role of the FBI, and military leaders were always suspicious of Donovan. Still, the OSS became “a prototype that would endure—that of an intelligence agency with branches for espionage, analysis, special operations, and counterintelligence”—i.e., the CIA. The author covers this vast, complex, character-rich history with a level of detail that occasionally overwhelms (the list of principal characters offers some help). Nonetheless, for anyone interested in understanding the roots of intelligence agencies in the U.S., Reynolds offers abundant, insightful information.

A comprehensive, authoritative examination of the genesis of America’s national security apparatus.