Wild Bill and Intrepid; Donovan, Stephenson, and the Origin of CIA

New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. xii, 259, [1] pages. Includes Preface, Acknowledgments, List of Abbreviations, Notes, Bibliography, and Index. Part One covers Intrepid in Bermuda; Part Two covers The Coordinator of Information and British Intelligence: An Essay on Origins; Part Three: Questions and Controversies. Thomas F. Troy was a career CIA officer, teacher and lecturer, and pioneering historian of the CIA's origins. He joined CIA in 1951. Tom found his niche in the Office of Training, where from the outset he was recognized as an outstanding, even visionary, teacher. Tom helped create the area training program, including the courses on the Middle East and North Africa regions. During the mid-1960s, he developed the Vietnam Orientation Course, an effort the chief of the Far East Division of the Directorate of Plans, William Colby, particularly praised. He became interested in the Agency's history. The director of training, a former OSS officer, approved an unofficial project for Tom to write a history of the origins of OSS under William Donovan and its transformation into CIA. The result, Donovan and the CIA: A History of the Establishment of the Central Intelligence Agency, was initially published internally in two spiral-bound volumes classified SECRET. An unclassified paperback edition appeared in 1979. The work remains a benchmark for scholarship and documentation. It was given an award by the National Intelligence Study Center in 1981 as the best non-fiction book of the year. Tom also wrote Wild Bill and Intrepid: Donovan, Stephenson and the Origins of the CIA, which drew on interviews with Sir William Stephenson. Sir William Samuel Stephenson CC MC DFC, (23 January 1897 - 31 January 1989) was a Canadian soldier, airman, businessman, inventor, spymaster, and the senior representative of British Security Coordination (BSC) for the entire western hemisphere during World War II. He is best known by his wartime intelligence codename Intrepid. Many people consider him to be one of the real-life inspirations for James Bond. Ian Fleming himself once wrote, "James Bond is a highly romanticized version of a true spy. The real thing is ... William Stephenson." As head of the British Security Coordination, Stephenson handed over British scientific secrets to Franklin D. Roosevelt and relayed American secrets to Winston Churchill. In addition, Stephenson has been credited with changing American public opinion from an isolationist stance to a supportive tendency regarding America's entry into World War II. Stephenson became a close adviser to Roosevelt, and suggested that he put Stephenson's good friend William J. "Wild Bill" Donovan in charge of all U.S. intelligence services. Donovan founded the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which in 1947 would become the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). As senior representative of British intelligence in the western hemisphere, Stephenson was one of the few persons in the hemisphere who were authorized to view raw Ultra transcripts of German Enigma ciphers that had been decrypted at Britain's Bletchley Park facility. He was trusted by Churchill to decide what Ultra information to pass along to various branches of the U.S. and Canadian governments. William Joseph ("Wild Bill") Donovan (January 1, 1883 - February 8, 1959) was an American soldier, lawyer, intelligence officer and diplomat, best known for serving as the head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency, during World War II. He is regarded as the founding father of the CIA, and a statue of him stands in the lobby of the CIA headquarters building in Langley, Virginia. A decorated veteran of World War I, Donovan is the only person to have received all four of the United States' highest awards: the Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, the Distinguished Service Medal, and the National Security Medal. He is also a recipient of the Silver Star and Purple Heart, as well as decorations from a number of other nations for his service during both World Wars. At the start of WWII, Donovan was confident of Britain's chances and enamored of the possibility of founding an American intelligence service modeled on that of the British. He strongly urged Roosevelt to give Churchill the aid he requested. Roosevelt wanted to provide such aid, and asked Donovan to use his knowledge of the law to figure out how to skirt the congressional ban on selling armaments to the United Kingdom. Donovan met frequently in New York with William Stephenson, a spy for MI6 who was known as "Intrepid". Donovan and Stephenson, according to Evan Thomas, "eventually became so close that they were known as 'Big Bill' and 'Little Bill'." Donovan, Douglas Waller has said, "could not have formed the OSS without the British, who provided intelligence, trainers, organizational charts and advice - all with the idea of making OSS an adjunct to British intelligence. But Donovan wanted to mount his own operations." On July 11, 1941, Roosevelt signed an order naming Donovan Coordinator of Information (COI). "At the time," Evan Thomas has written, "the U.S. government had no formal spy agency. In this gripping book, a former Central Intelligence Agency staff officer unveils the true story of the birth of CIA, arguing that the role of the British in the CIA`s formation was much more important than has been believed. Basing his story on interviews with key players and formerly secret American and British archives, the author addresses controversial claims and notions about the collaboration between William J. ("Wild Bill") Donovan, the CIA`s first chief, and William S. ("Intrepid") Stephenson, director of British intelligence in the U.S. during World War II. Was the CIA solely an American accomplishment--the work of "Wild Bill" Donovan--as CIA tradition has held? Or was it, in fact, established through the workings of Bill Stephenson, the legendary "Intrepid" who directed British intelligence in the U.S. during World War II?