3. Memorandum From the Director of the Office of Strategic Services
(Donovan) to
President Truman0
Washington, August 25, 1945.
I enclose copy of letter I have sent to the Director of the Budget, advising
him that the liquidation of OSS should be
complete about January
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1, 1946, and
pointing out the necessity of designating an agency to take over its
functions and its assets.
Also, I enclose a Statement of Principles which I believe should govern the
establishment of a central intelligence agency.
This matter you have stated you wished to explore with me before coming to a
decision. I hope you may find time to discuss it before I leave for Germany
on the War Crimes Case within the next two weeks.
Attachment 1
Washington, August 25, 1945.
Letter From the Director of the Office of Strategic
Services (Donovan) to the
Director of the Bureau of the Budget (Smith)
My Dear Mr. Smith: In answer to your communication of
August 23, 19451 in
reference to further reduction of personnel, we are working under what
is in effect a liquidation budget. Within its provisions we have taken
steps to terminate many of our operational (as distinct from
intelligence) activities and to reduce the remaining parts to a size
consistent with present obligations in the Far East, in the occupation
of Germany and Austria, and in the maintenance of missions in the Middle
East and on the Asiatic and European continents.
As our liquidation proceeds it will become increasingly difficult to
exercise our functions so that we have found it necessary to set up a
liquidating committee with procedures and controls to provide for the
gradual elimination of our services in step with the orderly reduction
of personnel.2
It is our estimate, however, with the strictest economy of manpower and
of funds the effectiveness of OSS as a
War Agency will end as of January 1, or at the latest February 1, 1946,
at which time liquidation should be completed. At that point I wish to
return to private life. Therefore, in considering the disposition to be
made of the assets created by OSS, I
speak as a private citizen concerned with the future of his country.
In our Government today there is no permanent agency to take over the
functions which OSS will have then
ceased to perform. These functions
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while carried on as incident to the war are in reality essential in
the effective discharge by this nation of its responsibilities in the
organization and maintenance of the peace.
Since last November, I have pointed out the immediate necessity of
setting up such an agency to take over the valuable assets created by
OSS. Among these assets was the
establishment for the first time in our nation’s history of a foreign
secret intelligence service which reported information as seen through
American eyes. As an integral and inseparable part of this service there
is a group of specialists to analyze and evaluate the material for
presentation to those who determine national policy.
It is not easy to set up a modern intelligence system. It is more
difficult to do so in time of peace than in time of war.
It is important therefore that it be done before the War Agency has
disappeared so that profit may be made of its experience and “know how”
in deciding how the new agency may best be conducted.
I have already submitted a plan for the establishment of a centralized
system.3 However, the discussion of that proposal indicated
the need of an agreement upon certain fundamental principles before a
detailed plan is formulated. If those concerned could agree upon the
principles within which such a system should be established, acceptance
of a common plan would be more easily achieved.
Accordingly, I attach a statement of principles, the soundness of which I
believe has been established by study and by practical experience.
Sincerely,
Attachment 2
Paper by the Director of the Office of Strategic
Services (Donovan)
Principles—The Soundness Of Which It Is Believed Has
Been Established By Our Own Experience And A First-Hand Study Of The
Systems Of Other Nations—Which Should Govern The Establishment Of A
Centralized United States Foreign Intelligence System.
The formulation of national policy both in its political and military
aspects is influenced and determined by knowledge (or ignorance) of the
aims, capabilities, intentions and policies of other nations.
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All major powers except the United States have had for a long time past
permanent worldwide intelligence services, reporting directly to the
highest echelons of their Governments. Prior to the present war, the
United States had no foreign secret intelligence service. It never has
had and does not now have a coordinated intelligence system.
The defects and dangers of this situation have been generally recognized.
Adherence to the following would remedy this defect in peace as well as
war so that American policy could be based upon information obtained
through its own sources on foreign intentions, capabilities and
developments as seen and interpreted by Americans.
- 1.
- That each Department of Government should have its own
intelligence bureau for the collection and processing of such
informational material as it finds necessary in the actual
performance of its functions and duties. Such a bureau should be
under the sole control of the Department head and should not be
encroached upon or impaired by the functions granted any other
Governmental intelligence agency. Because secret intelligence covers
all fields and because of possible embarrassment, no executive
department should be permitted to engage in secret intelligence but
in a proper case call upon the central agency for service.
- 2.
- That in addition to the intelligence unit for each Department
there should be established a national centralized foreign
intelligence agency which should have the authority:
- A.
- To serve all Departments of the Government.
- B.
- To procure and obtain political, economic, psychological,
sociological, military and other information which may bear
upon the national interest and which has been collected by
the different Governmental Departments or agencies.
- C.
- To collect when necessary supplemental information either
at its own instance or at the request of any Governmental
Department by open or secret means from other and various
sources.
- D.
- To integrate, analyze, process and disseminate, to
authorized Governmental agencies and officials, intelligence
in the form of strategic interpretive studies.
- 3.
- That such an agency should be prohibited from carrying on
clandestine activities within the United States and should be
forbidden the exercise of any police functions either at home or
abroad.
- 4.
- That since the nature of its work requires it to have status it
should be independent of any Department of the Government (since it
is obliged to serve all and must be free of the natural bias of an
operating Department). It should be under a Director, appointed by
the President, and be administered under Presidential direction, or
in the event of a General Manager being appointed, should be
established in the Executive Office of the President, under his
direction.
- 5.
- That subject to the approval of the President or the General
Manager, the policy of such a service should be determined by the
Director
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with the advice and
assistance of a Board on which the Secretaries of State, War, Navy
and Treasury should be represented.
- 6.
- That this agency, as the sole agency for secret intelligence,
should be authorized, in the foreign field only, to carry on
services such as espionage, counter-espionage and those special
operations (including morale and psychological) designed to
anticipate and counter any attempted penetration and subversion of
our national security by enemy action.
- 7.
- That such a service should have an independent budget granted
directly by the Congress.
- 8.
- That it should be authorized to have its own system of codes and
should be furnished facilities by Departments of Government proper
and necessary for the performance of its duties.
- 9.
- That such a service should include in its staff specialists
(within Governmental Departments, civil and military, and in private
life) professionally trained in analysis of information and
possessing a high degree of linguistic, regional or functional
competence, to analyze, coordinate and evaluate incoming
information, to make special intelligence reports, and to provide
guidance for the collecting branches of the agency.
- 10.
- That in time of war or unlimited national emergency, all programs
of such agency in areas of actual and projected military operations
shall be coordinated with military plans, and shall be subject to
the approval of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or if there be a
consolidation of the armed services, under the supreme commander.
Parts of such programs which are to be executed in the theater of
military operations shall be subject to control of the military
commander.
