Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The first chapter of this thesis provides the background of the Labor Branch and the OSS as a whole. From the OSS’s inception in 1942 through its postwar transformation into the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), I cover the evolution of the foreign intelligence community in the United States. This includes sections on the politics within the OSS, the reasons the Labor Branch has not been a focal point of OSS research, and quirks about the Labor Branch that make it stand out from the rest of the OSS. The Labor Branch’s specific role in the infiltration of Germany is also discussed in chapter one. Chapter two is an extension of the materials presented in the first chapter. It focuses on a section of the Labor Branch called Bach Section. This section was devoted to making the infiltration of Germany possible by creating cover stories, forging documents, and preparing agents to go to Germany in the midst of Nazism and be able to survive, gather intelligence, and create resistance networks. The bravery, intelligence, and will of the Bach Section are clear in this chapter, and the reader will recognize that, without the Labor Branch and their colleagues at the Bach Section, no one, be they with the OSS or British intelligence, would have had much success in infiltrating Germany during World War II. My third chapter is a bit more complicated than the first two. In it, I discuss the nuances of writing historical fiction responsibly and as a viable means of public history. As guidance, I undertake a discussion of the OSS in published works of fiction. I give an overview of the way different novelists handle the bureaucracy, agents, accomplishments, and failures of the OSS, revealing what I feel each does effectively and poorly. While discussing each of the potential strengths and pitfalls of historical fiction, especially as seen in the OSS novels, I then provide real examples of how historical fiction might work with a case study involving the OSS Labor Branch. One particular OSS mission, known as the Hammer Mission, serves as my example. I detail different parts of the mission, the men who participated, their training, and the mission itself and discuss how to use these details within a novel.

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The legacy of the wartime Office of Strategic Services (OSS) as the forerunner of the post-war Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is well chronicled. However, the professional path of those involved in covert American Intelligence special operations has been almost completely neglected. Popular writers have focused on OSS heroics while CIA-insiders have meticulously detailed the bureaucratic struggles fought by the OSS in Washington, D.C. The special skills and organization developed by the OSS were unlike any ever before utilized by an American institution. The OSS built an organizational and operational capability that sought to take advantage of resistance in German-occupied territory through the collection of secret intelligence and special operations supporting resistance groups. To accomplish this, the OSS established and utilized inventive new methods of recruitment, training, and operations to lay the groundwork for the new professional path of the American Intelligence officer. An analysis of OSS field operations in the Mediterranean Theater during the Second World War yields the best insight into this nascent professionalism as it grew from ideas into reality. The OSS developed its own definition of intelligence while grappling with incorporating old and new standards of professional behavior into the organization and among its members. Covert training and recruitment materials generously provided by British agents such as William Stephenson gave the OSS the jump start it needed to begin to forge a new path in subversive operations. British covert intelligence embodied traditional field craft, but OSS members would be the missionaries of a new uniquely American specialized covert operations working for American interests in conjunction with partisans in enemy-controlled territory. OSS members hailed from a wide-variety of American business, military, academic, and civilian backgrounds, bringing with them new ideas and old conceptions of what it meant to be a professional. While ultimately unsuccessful in maintaining its existence after the war, the OSS established a new path forward for American Intelligence which recognized the groundbreaking work done by the OSS and incorporated many facets of that into the new CIA. / History

Both after World War I and during World War II Franz L. Neumann confronted the question of how to bring about a genuine democratization of Germany. In both instances he advocated an economic and social revolution in theory but in practice he acquiesced in the failure of the revolutionary forces. The inconsistencies in Neumann's theoretical works, his double emigration and his passage through the Office of Strategic Services witness the German-Jewish socialist's revolutionary dilemma and the cycle of repetition-displacement that both sustained and trapped him in his troubled position. The trademark of the OSS Research and Analysis Branch, which was to misrecognize a stylistic "neutrality" for an institutional one, suited Neumann's emigration tactic of fighting a political battle under the cover of scholarly discourse. At the same time, with that he accepted a neutralization of his "radical" agenda for post-war German de-nazification and re-democratization.

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The United States engagement in Vietnam began during the Second World War. With military bases established in China, the U.S. took part in fighting the Japanese troops in the Pacific theatre. When France surrendered to Nazi Germany in 1940, Japan would take over the French Indochina and the war would spread to Vietnam as well. In order to collect intelligence on Japanese targets, the Americans needed to operate secret services on the ground. After the Japanese coup de main in 1945, they would eventually partner with Ho Chi Minh and his organization Viet Minh. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the wartime predecessor of the CIA, provided intelligence training and equipment, while the Viet Minh would assist with valuable information on Japanese troops. To some extent, the OSS helped Ho Chi Minh and Viet Minh accede to power in Vietnam after the war.

This study explores the foundations of US counterinsurgency policy and doctrine in order to better understand the main historical influences on that policy and doctrine and how those influences have informed the current US approach to counterinsurgency. The results of this study indicate the US experience in counterinsurgency during the Greek Civil War and the Huk Rebellion in the Philippines had a significant influence on the development of US counterinsurgency policy and doctrine following World War II through the Kennedy presidency. In addition, despite a major diversion from the lessons of Greece and the Philippines during the Vietnam War, the lessons were re-institutionalized in US counterinsurgency policy and doctrine following the war and continue to have significant influence today, though in a highly sanitized and, therefore, misleading form. As a result, a major disconnect has developed between the “rhetoric and reality” of US counterinsurgency policy. This disconnect has resulted from the fact that many references that provide a more complete and accurate picture of the actual policies and actions taken to successfully defeat the insurgencies have remained out of the reach of non-government researchers and the general public. Accordingly, many subsequent studies of counterinsurgency overlook, or only provide a cursory treatment of, aspects that may have had a critical impact on the success of past US counterinsurgency operations. One such aspect is the role of US direct intervention in the internal affairs of a supported country. Another is the role of covert action operations in support of counterinsurgency operations. As a result, the counterinsurgency policies and doctrines that have been developed over the years are largely based on false assumptions, a flawed understanding of the facts, and a misunderstanding of the contexts concerning the cases because of misleading, or at least seriously incomplete, portrayals of the counterinsurgency operations.