Founded on June 13, 1942, Wild Bill Donovan headed what wartime intelligence agency that eventually became the CIA?
History of espionage Japan religiously, but set it up so that the Army and Navy briefed him on alternating days. Finally he turned to William (Wild Bill) Donovan to run a new agency the Office of the Coordinator of Information (COI) which in 1942 became the Office of Strategic Services or OSS. It became Roosevelt's most trusted source of secrets, and after the war OSS eventually became the CIA. The COI had a staff of 2,300 in June 1942; OSS reached 5,000 personnel by September 1943. In all 35,000 men and women served in the OSS by the time it closed in 1947.
William J. Donovan who was known as "Intrepid". Donovan and Stephenson, according to Evan Thomas, "eventually became so close that they were known as 'Big Bill' and 'Little Bill'." Donovan, Douglas Waller has said, "could not have formed the OSS without the British, who provided intelligence, trainers, organizational charts and advice – all with the idea of making OSS an adjunct to British intelligence. But Donovan wanted to mount his own operations." On July 11, 1941, Roosevelt signed an order naming Donovan Coordinator of Information (COI). "At the time," Evan Thomas has written, "the U.S. government had no formal spy agency. In 1929,