Office of Strategic Services
The wartime intelligence and sabotage service that preceded the CIA, 1942 to 1945
Overview
The OSS was created in 1942 under General William Donovan as the first centralized American intelligence service. It ran espionage and sabotage behind Axis lines, supported resistance networks, and pioneered the research and analysis method that later defined CIA analytical work. Disbanded in 1945, its veterans formed the core of the CIA created in 1947 and influenced Army Special Forces doctrine. Four future CIA directors served in its ranks, making it the institutional ancestor of modern American intelligence. Donovan argued that analysis and action belonged together, a principle still debated in service charters today.
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