WASHINGTON – Famed chef Julia Child shared a secret with Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg and Chicago White Sox catcher Moe Berg at a time when the Nazis threatened the world.
They served in an international spy ring managed by the Office of Strategic Services, an early version of the CIA created during World War II by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The secret comes out tomorrow, along with all the names and previously classified files identifying nearly 24,000 spies who formed the first centralized intelligence effort by the United States. The National Archives, which this week released the names found in the records, will make available for the first time all 750,000 pages identifying the vast network of military and civilian operatives.
They were soldiers, actors, historians, lawyers, athletes, professors, reporters. But for several years during World War II, they were known simply as the OSS. They studied military plans, created propaganda and infiltrated enemy ranks.
Among the 35,000 OSS personnel files are applications, commendations and handwritten notes identifying young recruits who, like Child, Goldberg and Berg, earned greater acclaim in other fields.
They included Arthur Schlesinger Jr., a historian and special assistant to President John F. Kennedy; Sterling Hayden, an actor whose work included a role in “The Godfather;” and Thomas Braden, whose “Eight Is Enough” book inspired the 1970s television series.
Other notables identified in the files include John Hemingway, son of author Ernest Hemingway; Quentin and Kermit Roosevelt, sons of Theodore Roosevelt, and Miles Copeland, father of Stewart Copeland, drummer for the band the Police.
The release of the OSS personnel files uncloaks one of the last secrets from the wartime intelligence agency, which was folded into the CIA in 1947.
“I think it’s terrific,” said Elizabeth McIntosh, 93, a former OSS agent now living in Woodbridge, Va. “They’ve finally, after all these years, they’ve gotten the names out.”
The CIA had resisted releasing OSS records for decades. But former CIA Director William Casey, himself an OSS veteran, cleared the way for opening up the documents starting in 1981. AP