By John Solomon
How the government's punishing of the exposure of official wrongdoing can linger for years
The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was a United States intelligence agency formed during World War II. It was the wartime intelligence agency, and it was the predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). This agency was formed in order to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for the branches of the United States military. - Source: Wikipedia
Seventeen years after his death, former Director of Central Intelligence William E. Colby remains a controversial figure among many persons in and around the intelligence community. Did he betray generations of fellow officers by going public with a so-called "family jewels" list of CIA misdeeds over the years? Or did the disclosure save the agency from dissolution by an angry Congress?
The U.S. Navy conducting intelligence operations in the inner regions of China? Including arming and directing guerrilla bands to fight the Japanese?
Indicators that an OSS Society event is under way: the official party favor is an elegant martini glass, strolling violinists play "The Ballad of the Green Berets" and multiple conversations begin with such phrases as "General, I haven't seen you since Afghanistan."
Quintessential American and true intellectual, she brought common sense to the crazy-quilt world of international politics. She gave no quarter to strong men pursuing her agenda to bring down tyrannies, in the process helping formulate what later became known as the Reagan Doctrine.
Massaging poultry, dropping food and utensils, and warbling her way through boeuf bourguignon and coq au vin, Julia Child left an indelible mark on American food.
He's suave, he's svelte, he's funny, he wears a nice tuxedo and he knows when to sit. What better guest, then, for the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner? He's Uggie — the canine star of the Oscar-winning film "The Artist."
Polished, agile Mitt Romney is a pollster's darling.
The U.S. military and the CIA failed to agree on implementing a key recommendation of the commission that investigated the 9/11 terrorist attacks: Give special-operations commandos the lead for all covert military action.
Don't feel too bad for any golfer who hacks his way into one of the 96 sand bunkers on Congressional Country Club's Blue Course during the U.S. Open this week. No matter how treacherous his plight, he'll have it easier than Betty McIntosh did when she slithered through those bunkers face-down carrying a .32-caliber rifle back in 1945.
At hand is a book that is a classic - and blatantly egregious - instance of a publisher pulling a bait-and-switch sting on an unwary reader. Judging from the title, one would assume it deals with the famed food maven and her husband. Well, one would be wrong: Julia Child is but a bit player in the volume, which is essentially the story of her Office of Strategic Services (OSS) colleague and longtime friend Jane Foster, a California socialite whose appetite for far-left causes led her to the fringes of - if not total immersion into - Soviet espionage.
William Donovan is an authentic American hero, the man who single-handedly founded our country's first unified intelligence service. Unfortunately, much of what was written about him in the past was clumsy hagiography, based on information that Donovan and aides hand-fed to writers; one book was even vetted by his law firm.
Several "old boys" who were around for the founding of the CIA in 1947 like repeating a mantra, "The Brits taught us everything we know - but by no means did they teach us everything that they know." The quip, of course, stemmed from the wartime Office of Strategic Services' reliance on the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) - formally, MI6 - as a tutor on espionage and spy tradecraft.
AMERICAN GUERRILLA: THE FORGOTTEN HEROICS OF RUSSELL W. VOLCKMANN
