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Intelligence Professionalism: a Study of Developing Intelligence Professionalism in the Office of Strategic Services in Italy and the Central Mediterranean 1941-1945

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Intelligence Professionalism: a Study of Developing Intelligence Professionalism in the Office of Strategic Services in Italy and the Central Mediterranean 1941-1945 INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONALISM: A STUDY OF DEVELOPING INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONALISM IN THE OFFICE OF STRATEGIC SERVICES IN ITALY AND THE CENTRAL MEDITERRANEAN 1941-1945 A Dissertation Submitted to The Temple University Graduate Board In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY by Erik K. Griebling August 2017 Examining Committee Members: Jay Lockenour, Advisor, History Department Gregory Urwin, History Department Eileen Ryan, History Department Ronald Granieri, Univ. of Pennsylvania, History Department ABSTRACT The legacy of the wartime Office of Strategic Services (OSS) as the forerunner of the post-war Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is well chronicled. However, the professional path of those involved in covert American Intelligence special operations has been almost completely neglected. Popular writers have focused on OSS heroics while CIA-insiders have meticulously detailed the bureaucratic struggles fought by the OSS in Washington, D.C. The special skills and organization developed by the OSS were unlike any ever before utilized by an American institution. The OSS built an organizational and operational capability that sought to take advantage of resistance in German-occupied territory through the collection of secret intelligence and special operations supporting resistance groups. To accomplish this, the OSS established and utilized inventive new methods of recruitment, training, and operations to lay the groundwork for the new professional path of the American Intelligence officer. An analysis of OSS field operations in the Mediterranean Theater during the Second World War yields the best insight into this nascent professionalism as it grew from ideas into reality. The OSS developed its own definition of intelligence while grappling with incorporating old and new standards of professional behavior into the organization and among its members. Covert training and recruitment materials generously provided by British agents such as William Stephenson gave the OSS the jump start it needed to begin to forge a new path in subversive operations. British covert intelligence embodied traditional field craft, but OSS members would be the missionaries of a new uniquely American specialized covert operations working for American interests in conjunction with partisans in enemy-controlled territory. OSS members hailed from a wide-variety of American business, military, academic, and civilian backgrounds, bringing with them new ideas and old conceptions of what it meant to be a professional. While ultimately unsuccessful in maintaining its existence after the war, the OSS established a new path forward for American Intelligence which recognized the groundbreaking work done by the OSS and incorporated many facets of that into the new CIA. i This paper is dedicated to my mother and father, without whose help and support it would never have seen completion. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to acknowledge the help and assistance of my parents with my research and assistance editing this dissertation. Their gracious support in pouring over thousands of documents and many late nights will never be forgotten. I would also like to acknowledge the assistance of the kind and talented archivists at the National Archives II Building in College Park, Maryland. They helped me find the documents I needed and prevented me from groping in the dark, lost in the maze of OSS documents. Special praise must go to William Cunliffe who willingly assisted me online and in person with many of my tedious questions regarding documentation. Lastly, I would like to thank my professors at Temple University, Jay Lockenour, Gregory Urwin, Petra Goedde, Eileen Ryan, and Ronald Granieri of the Foreign Policy Research Institute without whose support and helping hands I could never have accomplished this effort. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................................................... i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................................................. iii LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................................................ vii LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................................................... vii INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................ ix CHAPTER 1: COI AND OSS characterize INTELLIGENCE ................................................................................. 1 Intelligence Constraints ............................................................................................................................ 1 Forming the COI ........................................................................................................................................ 5 Resistance to the New Agency ................................................................................................................ 11 OSS Scope Defined .................................................................................................................................. 14 OSS and State Department Relations ..................................................................................................... 16 COI/OSS Defines Intelligence .................................................................................................................. 21 OSS Conceptualization of Intelligence .................................................................................................... 25 Functions of Intelligence ......................................................................................................................... 29 Intelligence Decided ................................................................................................................................ 33 CHAPTER 2: THE OFFICE OF STRATEGIC SERVICES’ PROFESSIONAL PATH .................................................. 36 Defining Professionalism ......................................................................................................................... 36 OSS/Military Relations ............................................................................................................................ 40 OSS and the Military Professional ........................................................................................................... 41 OSS Militarization: A Marriage of Convenience ...................................................................................... 44 CHAPTER 3: TRANSFORMING OSS STRUCTURE .......................................................................................... 52 Reorganizations Attempt to Solve Organizational Issues ....................................................................... 53 Committee Seeks to Improve OSS Organizational Structure in Washington ..................................... 53 OSS Theater Organizational Problems ................................................................................................ 60 The Creation of the Strategic Services Officer in the Theater ............................................................ 64 OSS Reorganizations ............................................................................................................................... 66 May 1944 ............................................................................................................................................ 67 July 1944 ............................................................................................................................................. 71 Fall and Winter 1944 ........................................................................................................................... 78 Morale Issues Associated with Reorganizations ................................................................................. 82 iv Ligurean Sea: 1900 hours, June 22, 1944 ............................................................................................... 84 CHAPTER 4: RECRUITMENT AND TRAINING................................................................................................ 95 Finding the Right People ......................................................................................................................... 95 Issues in Recruitment ............................................................................................................................ 101 Schools and Training ............................................................................................................................. 105 Schools & Training Branch Takes Charge .............................................................................................. 108 MEDTO Field Training Intensifies .......................................................................................................... 115 CHAPTER 5: OSS PROFESSIONALISM IN ACTION IN NORTH AFRICA, EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN, AND SICILY ......................................................................................................................................................... 119 North Africa ..........................................................................................................................................
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