Second World War spy ring to open its files

Anne Barrowclough
London Times
Thursday, Aug 14, 2008

One was a historian and assistant to John Kennedy, another was the chef who first introduced French cuisine to American households, and a third was the father of Stewart Copeland, drummer for the band The Police.

In their every day lives they had nothing in common but Arthur Schlesinger Jr, Julia Childs and Miles Copeland shared a secret life – serving in an international spy ring at a time when Hitler was threatening the world.

Their work and that of thousands of other members of the Office of Strategic Services, an early version of the CIA, will be revealed today when previously classified files are opened by the National Archives in the USA. For the first time, the files identifiying nearly 24,000 spies who formed the first centralised intelligence agency will be released and the vast spy network of military and civilian operatives exposed.

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Members of the OSS, which was created by President Franklin Roosevelt in World War II to help fight Nazism, included historians, actors, lawyers and athletes. They created propoganda, infiltrated enemy ranks and encouraged resistance amongst foreign troops.

In the service of the OSS, Julia Childs helped develop a shark repellent to ensure that sharks would not explode ordnance that was targeting U-boats, while Kermit Roosevelt, the son of President Thedodore Roosevelt, set up a militia of Inuit.

Others members of the service include Ernest Hemingway’s son John, Arthur Goldberg, who went on to become a Supreme Court judge and President Roosevelt’s other son, Quentin.

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