Among those in the Operational Groups (OGs) during the final days of the war in Europe was Aaron Bank. Leader of the proposed Operation Iron Cross to capture or kill Adolf Hitler, Bank found that he was in command of a unit without a mission when Hitler stayed in Berlin and committed suicide in his bunker. It had been thought that Hitler would flee to the “Alpine Redoubt” on the German/Austrian border, where German leadership reportedly planned to make a last stand. With the European war over, Bank was inserted into what was then Indochina to operate with Ho Chi Minh, who was fighting the Japanese in a guerrilla war. Considerably impressed with Ho and his obvious popularity, Bank recommended to headquarters that Ho be allowed to form a coalition government. He was ignored. Bank would later push for the creation of an Army special operations unit modeled on the OSS OGs. He is known today as the father of U.S. Army Special Forces, and was the first commander of 10th Special Forces Group, itself formed in part by OSS veterans. Ironically, Special Forces would become famous through their early operations during the Vietnam War, fighting Ho Chi Minh.
As World War II entered its final months, Donovan began looking at the likely postwar landscape, and he did not like what he was seeing. Though at that moment an ally, the Communist Soviet Union was politically and philosophically at the opposite pole from the Western democracies, and he knew it was only a matter of time before the United States and the Soviet Union would be opposing each other on the world stage.
He began laying the groundwork with Roosevelt beginning with an April 4 memo outlining his plans for a postwar intelligence agency. Roosevelt ordered it circulated to the State, War, and Navy departments and other agencies for comment.
The beginning of the end of that dream came on April 12, 1945, when Roosevelt, in ill health, died of a cerebral hemorrhage. His successor, Harry Truman, did not share Roosevelt´s love for cloak-and-dagger, and of the 12 agencies on the list to receive the April 4 memo, all but one, the Foreign Economic Administration, had either shot it down or offered no comment. Donovan´s first meeting with Truman came on May 14, a little more than a month after Truman became president, and it was a disaster.
The OSS also operated extensively in the Pacific theater. OSS Deer Team in 1945. Pictured are Lt. Réne Défourneaux (standing, second from left), Viet Minh leader Ho Chi Minh (standing, third from left), team leader Maj. Allison Thomas (center), Vo Nguyen Giap (in suit), Henry Prunier, and Paul Hoagland, far right. Kneeling at left are Lawrence Vogt and Aaron Squires. U.S. Army Center of Military History via Wikimedia Commons
Though the handwriting was on the wall, the OSS lingered on for months because it was the only agency that had documents and staff needed by the American delegation for the war crimes trials in Nuremberg. Finally, on Thursday, Sept. 20, 1945, President Truman signed the executive order abolishing the OSS and dividing its functions between the War and State departments.
Though Donovan´s OSS did not survive the war, his ideas did. Along with the U.S. Army’s Special Forces’ OSS heritage, the U.S. Navy’s SEAL teams descended in part from the OSS Maritime Unit. Lessons learned in the heat of battle were also used in creating the OSS successor as an intelligence agency. On Sept. 18, 1947, Truman authorized the CIA, almost two years to the day after he had disbanded the OSS. Men who cut their teeth in the OSS – Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, William Colby, and Bill Casey – would go on to run the agency, along with other members of the fellowship of “glorious amateurs.”
This article first appeared in the Special Operations Outlook 2018-2019 Edition publication.