In 1942, President Roosevelt established America's first centralized intelligence agency, exclusively run by civilians instead of the Military.
Ironically, the President chose retired Army General to be its architect. General "Wild Bill" Donovan, with the help of future James Bond author, Admiral Ian Fleming, began recruiting young men and women to be foreign intelligence officers for "The OSS" during World War II.
A bit of a snob, Donovan limited his search to the Ivy League campuses of Harvard, Yale and Princeton. Which is how the CIA's tradition of being a Skull & Bones/WASP agency first began.
(Note in Spielberg's film MUNICH all CIA agents have blond-haired and blue-eyes. Although by the 1980s, this stereotype began to change as the racial demographics of nation changed).
Anyway my question is...
Since these Agents skipped the military, going from campus to OSS training, where they just assigned military ranks? Or like their FBI rivals, were they just referred to as "Agents
2007-07-15
03:25:38
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6 answers
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asked by
nitejrny282
2
in
Military