Special Activities Center: Difference between revisions

While the [[World War II]] [[Office of Strategic Services]] (OSS) was technically a military agency under the [[Joint Chiefs of Staff]], in practice, it was fairly autonomous and enjoyed direct access to [[List of Presidents of the United States|President]] [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]]. Major General [[William Joseph Donovan]] was the head of the OSS. Donovan was a soldier and Medal of Honor recipient from World War I. He was also a lawyer and former classmate of Roosevelt at [[Columbia Law School]].<ref>''Wild Bill Donovan: The Last Hero'', Anthony Cave Brown, New York: Times Books, 1982 {{ISBN?}}{{page?|date=September 2022}}</ref>  Like its successor the CIA, the OSS included both [[HUMINT|human intelligence functions]] and special operations paramilitary functions. Its Secret Intelligence Division was responsible for espionage, while the [[Operation Jedburgh|Jedburgh]] teams, a U.S.-U.K.-French collaboration, were forerunners of groups that create guerrilla units, such as the U.S. Army Special Forces and the CIA. The OSS's Operational Groups were larger U.S. units that carried out direct action behind enemy lines. Even during World War II, the idea of intelligence and special operations units not under strict military control was controversial. The OSS operated primarily in the [[European Theater of Operations]] and to some extent in the [[China-Burma-India Theater]], although [[General of the Army (United States)|General of the Army]] [[Douglas MacArthur]] was extremely reluctant to have any OSS personnel within his area of operations.