Wild Bill Donovan

by Douglas Waller

  370 to Saigon: Warner, “The Office of Strategic Services: America’s First Intelligence Agency,” p. 22; Richard Harris Smith, pp. 305–8; Smith, Shadow Warriors, pp. 326–28; WJD memos to HST, Sept. 27 and 28, 1945, Fr: 549–57, R: 25, M1642, RG226, NA; Paul Helliwell letter to Bernard Fall, Oct. 14, 1954, B: 9A, WJDP, MHI; Dwight D. Eisenhower interview, July 28, 1964, OH-14, DDEL, pp. 24–28; Ferrell, The Eisenhower Diaries, p. 190.

  370 into Vietnam: WVHD, pp. 25–26, 36, 108, 143–45, 152, WJDP, MHI; vanden Heuvel, March 11 and Aug. 13, 2008.

  371 administration of John F. Kennedy: Vanden Heuvel, March 11 and Aug. 13, 2008; Blair, p. 33; Raymond de Jaegher letter to WJD, April 7, 195, B: 5A, WJDP, MHI; WJD letter to DDE, Feb. 5, 1956, B: 8, Names Series, AWF, DDEL; WJD notes for Speech on April 23, “Speech Material Notes” binder, B: 127A, WJDP, MHI.

  371 toward Ruth: WVHD, pp. 89, 98, 142–47. The SAC bombers would come to Thailand later in the 1960s, when the United States entered the war in Vietnam.

  372 in meetings: WVHD, pp. 27, 100–101, 132, WJDP, MHI; vanden Heuvel, Aug. 13, 2008; John E. Tobin interview, June 30, 1980, p. 2, B: Interviews—Teitelbaum to Withrow 1979-undated, WJD, MHI.

  372 leave Thailand: WVHD, p. 172, WJDP, MHI; Bonsal memo to Walter Robertson, March 12, 1954, Robertson memo to JFD, March 12, 1954, B: 1, Personnel Series, JFDP, DDEL; vanden Heuvel, Aug. 13, 2008.

  373 public assignment: Vanden Heuvel, Feb. 3 and April 4, 2009; WVHD, pp. 142, 149, 153–54, 161 170, WJDP, MHI; Ford, p. 328; DDE memo to JFD, May, 26, 1954, WJD letter to DDE, May 7, 1954, and DDE response, May 26, 1954, B: 8, Name Series, B: 7, Diary Series, AWF, DDEL; John Hanes letter to Walter Robertson, June 16, 1954, Name File (Strictly Confidential) D-F, B: 1, Personnel Series, JFDP, DDEL; Memorandum for the President on Resignation of WJD, Sept. 3, 1954, OF 8-F Donovan File, WHCF, DDEL; Bangkok cable to JFD, Nov. 17, 1954, B: 588, State Department Decimal File, RG59, NA; J.W.H. memo to JFD Aug. 30, 1954, B: 1, General Correspondence and Memoranda File, JFDP, DDEL; L. B. Nichols memo to JEH, Jan. 8, 1953, B: 16, E: 14B, RG65, NA; W.K.S. note to WBS, Nov. 9, 1954, B: 6, Personnel Series, JFDP, DDEL; “Bill Donovan, Ex-Envoy, Represents Thai in U.S.,” Washington Star, Feb. 21, 1956; JFD memorandum of conversation with DDE, April 4, 1955, B: 3, White House Memoranda Series, JFDP, DDEL.

  CHAPTER 34: WALTER REED

  374 polite responses: DDE letter to WJD, May 11, 1956, B: 8, Name Series, AWF, DDEL; WJD Appointment to President’s Commission on Veterans’ Pensions, March 30, 1956, B: 7, Records of the President’s Commission on Veterans’ Pensions, DDEL; DDE letter to WJD, Dec. 28, 1956, B: 867, Alphabetical File, WHCF, DDEL.

  374 “in the papers”: Vanden Heuvel, Feb. 3, 2009; Mary Jean Eisenhower, July 31, 2009; Ferrell, Off the Record, pp. 347–48.

  375 “staunch ally” had made: Chester, pp. 1–20, 206–9; “Red ‘Come Home’ Drive Gaining in Free World, Survey Reveals,” New York Times, March 28, 1956; Report of Donovan Commission of IRC on Communist Redefection Campaigns, B: 3B, WJDP, MHI; Special Report to the Board of Directors on IRC Hungarian Refugee Relief, Dec. 12, 1956, B: 11, Files of the President’s Committee for Hungarian Refugee Relief, DDEL; vanden Heuvel, Aug. 13, 2008; John O’Daniel letters to Jerry Persons, May 20, 1956, and to Adams, May 7, 1956, B: 784, PPF, Central Files, DDEL.

  375–376 Bill and Ruth to and cried: Tippaparn Donovan, Jan. 24, 2008; Gilbert, 2007-9; Friant, Feb. 18, 2008; McKay, Feb. 18, 2008; David G. Donovan, 2007-9; Schulte, March 2, 2008; Wise, Jan. 27, 2008; Mary Donovan appointment diary entries for July 1955, B: 132C, WJDP, MHI; Death certificate for Mary Grandin Donovan, July 26, 1955, Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Registry of Vital Records and Statistics; Estate of Mary Grandin Donovan, Clerk’s Office, Clarke County, Va.; Brown, pp. 829–30; vanden Heuvel, April 15, 2009; Banta, Jan. 28, 2008.

  376 in New York: Gilbert, Oct. 29, 2007; Friant, Feb. 18, 2008; David G. Donovan, Nov. 15, 2007.

  377 and colleagues: Smith, OHC, pp. 45–47; vanden Heuvel, Feb. 3, 2009; Interview with Ralstone R. Irvine, Aug. 12, 1980, B: Interviews—Bancroft to Sherwood 1945-undated, WJDP, MHI; John E. Tobin interview, June 30, 1980, pp. 1–4, Donald Rumsey interview, pp. 3–4, B: Interviews—Teitelbaum to Withrow 1979-undated, WJD, MHI; James Murphy interview, April 28, 1981, B: 6, RDP, MHI.

  377 cruel sentence: Lasker, OHC, pp. 63–64, 352, 504; vanden Heuvel, June 10, 2008, Feb. 3, 2009; Brown, pp. 830–33; WJD Death Certificate, District of Columbia Department of Public Health, Feb. 9, 1959.

  378 medal, beaming: “Gen. Donovan Ill; Condition Is Improving,” Louisville Courier-Express, April 16, 1957; Robert Schulz note to Ann Whitman with George Leisure letter to DDE, March 27, 1957, RRD letter to DDE, April 6, 1957, George Leisure letter to DDE, April 9, 1957, B: 975, PPF, CF, DDEL; RRD letter to Corey Ford, undated, OCD letter to Corey Ford, Oct. 7, 1968, B: 136B, WJDP, MHI; Citation for WJD for National Security Medal, April 2, 1957, Sherman Adams letter to AWD, April 1, 1957, B: 647, Official File, WHCF, DDEL; Corey Ford interview with Vincent Donovan, November 1967, pp. 6–8, B:1, Part 1, GU.

  379 seventy-four years old: vanden Heuvel, Feb. 3, 2009; DDE letters to George Leisure, April 2, and to WJD, April 1, 1957, RRD letter to DDE, April 3, 1957, B: 975, PPF, CF, DDEL; Walter Berry letter to Thomas Corcoran, May 17, 1957, B: 56, TCP, LOC.

  379 became his prison: Chacon, Jan. 11, 2010; author tour of Building One, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Dec. 11, 2008; McIntosh, April 7, 2009. Another myth that endures from previous profiles of Donovan (Brown, p. 830): On Eisenhower’s orders Donovan was placed in the Pershing Suite at Walter Reed. That was not the case. The Pershing Suite’s three rooms on the third floor of Building One were reserved for generals more senior than Donovan. He was put in a more modest single room in Ward Four on the second floor.

  379–381 A stream to during one: Chacon, Jan. 11, 2010; Donald Rumsey interview, p. 17, B: Interviews—Teitelbaum to Withrow 1979-undated, WJDP, MHI; Corey Ford interview with Vincent Donovan, November 1967, p. 21, B:1, Part 1, GU; Smith, OHC, pp. 47–48; vanden Heuvel, Feb. 3, 2009; Louis Mountbatten Speech, March 21, 1966, B: 137A, WJDP, MHI; Hood, Dec. 11, 2008; David Crockett interview, June 16–17, 1981, B: 6, RDP, MHI; McIntosh, April 7, 2009; Grayson L. Kirk, OHC, p. 17; Jones, Sept. 26, 2007, and book manuscript supplied to author. The story of Donovan escaping Walter Reed became wildly inflated in accounts over the years. Some versions had him running down the road from the hospital in his nightgown, believing he was being chased by the Nazis or communists (Dunlop, p. 3). The true story was far milder, says Armando Chacon, the Army medic who cared for him. Dressed in his suit and tie, Donovan was found walking to the nurses’ quarters.

  381 waiting car: Dunlop, pp. 1–2; Robarge, Aug. 21, 2009.

  381 radio announced: David G. Donovan, Nov. 15, 2007; Associated Press report on WJD death, Feb. 8, 1959, DGD.

  382 of the lung: WJD Death Certificate, District of Columbia Department of Public Health, Feb. 9, 1959; Chacon, Jan. 11, 2010; Crockett, OHP, p. 31; vanden Heuvel, June 10, 2008.

  383 the front row: “Funeral Services Are Held in Capital for Gen. Donovan,” Buffalo Evening News, Feb. 11, 1959; Excerpts of sermon delivered by the Right Rev. John Cartwright Feb. 11, 1959, B: “World War I, Political Campaigns, etc.,” WJDP, MHI; Gilbert, Jan. 12, 2008; David G. Donovan, Nov. 15, 2007.

  384 of syphilis: “Gen. Donovan’s Distinguished Career,” New York Herald Tribune, Feb. 9, 1959; “William J. Donovan,” New York Times, Feb. 10, 1959; DB “Tribute to Wm. Donovan, Letters to the Editor,” New York Times, Feb. 15, 1959; AWD, “A Tribute to General Donovan,” March 30, 1959, Book Dispatch No. 1179, B: “World War I, Political Campaigns, etc.,” WJDP, MHI; JEH letter to RRD, Feb. 9, 1959, 94-4-4672-52, RRD letter to JEH, March 11, 1959, 94-4-4672-54, FBI; R. R. Roach memo to A. B. Belmont, Feb. 13, 1959, 94-4-4672-53, FBI; Gentry, pp. 460–61.

  EPILOGUE

  385 weigh her down: Estate of WJD, Clerk’s Office, Clarke County, Va.; Gilbert, Oct. 29, 2007; RRD letter to Corey Ford, March 18, 1959, B: 13
6B, WJDP, MHI.

  385–386 Seven months to proportions right: “No Successes, No Failures and Unsung Heroes—Dedicated, Selfless People Are ‘Spies’ for America,” Buffalo Evening New, Nov. 14, 1959; Cornerstone Laying of the Central Intelligence Agency Building, Nov. 3, 1959, CIA brochure, B: 119A, WJDP, MHI; CIA Observes 50th Anniversary of Original Headquarters Building Cornerstone Laying, CIA Web site, https://www.cia.gov; David G. Donovan, Sept. 22, 2007.

  386 only friends: Estate of Ruth Donovan, Estate of David R. Donovan, Clerk’s Office, Clarke County, Va.; Tippaparn Donovan, Jan. 24, 2008; OCD letter to RRD, April 18, 1974, Dick O’Neill letter to RRD, June 17, 1974, B: “World War I, Political Campaigns, etc.,” WJDP, MHI; Gilbert, Oct. 29, 2007, Jan. 12, 2008; “Ruth Donovan, on Board of School, OSS Chief’s Widow,” Washington Post, Dec. 13, 1977.

  387 Ruth wanted: RRD letter to Cornelius Ryan, B: 1B, WJDP, MHI; Interview with OCD, p. 204, B: “Oral History Interviews—OCD, Activities in Europe 1941–89,” WJDP, MHI; OCD letter to William vanden Heuvel, June 17, 1958, letter to RRD, April 21, 1958, B: 136B, WJDP, MHI.

  387–389 Donovan’s true to was remembered: Helms, OHP, p. 7; Hughes, OHP, pp. 19–20; Crockett, OHP, p. 35; Kingsley, Jan. 1, 2008; Schlesinger, OHP, p. 43; Brown, pp. 786–87; Questionnaire of OSS members, B: 120C, WJDP, MHI; JM memo to Robert A. Lovett, Oct. 26, 1945, Fr: 916–51, R: 1, “Failure of the German Intelligence Service,” Fr: 737, 740–53, R: 52, M1642, RG226, NA.

  Acknowledgments

  MANY HANDS MADE this book a reality. I first want to thank Paul McCarthy, a creative consultant and friend, who helped me conceive the idea for a biography of William J. Donovan. As she has been for my other books, my literary agent, Kristine Dahl, was a steadfast and invaluable adviser in bringing this volume to publication. For the Donovan biography, I also benefited from a number of research grants. I want to thank the U.S. Army Military History Institute, which awarded me a General and Mrs. Matthew B. Ridgway Research Grant to spend nearly two months wading through the voluminous collection of Donovan personal papers at the Institute. A generous grant from the Gilder Lehrman Fellowship Program enabled me to spend a week in New York researching the many reminiscences of people who knew Donovan, which are housed at Columbia University’s Oral History Research Office. A Lubin-Winant Research Fellowship from the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute helped me spend two weeks at the FDR Presidential Library in Hyde Park, New York, which has a considerable amount of White House material dealing with Donovan and the OSS. I spent several weeks at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri, thanks to a research grant from the Harry S. Truman Library Institute. The Eisenhower Foundation also helped me with a research grant to travel to Abilene, Kansas, to pore through World War II OSS material and records from Donovan’s service as ambassador to Thailand at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library.

  A lot has been written about William J. Donovan, yet much of his life and work remained shrouded in mystery and myth when I began this project. This book benefited from his three previous biographies, written more than a quarter century ago. Fortunately, the three authors also left their papers and research materials with archives, which I was able to review to check their facts. I soon discovered that all three biographies must be read with caution. Corey Ford, who was selected by the Donovan family and the Donovan-Leisure law firm to write a biography of the general, produced Donovan of OSS in 1970, which was largely a hagiography that ended up being edited by the firm. British historian Anthony Cave Brown’s The Last Hero in 1982 had access for the first time to Donovan’s OSS office records, which the general photographed and took to his law firm before Truman closed down the agency. But Brown’s book, which was subsidized by the Donovan law firm, contains numerous errors and instances of wild speculation about what Donovan was doing as OSS director. Richard Dunlop’s Donovan: America’s Master Spy, also published in 1982, depends heavily on the reminiscences of former OSS officers and friends to tell Donovan’s story. But as any historian or biographer knows, memories of events that happened many decades earlier can often be faulty. I discovered that the documentary evidence sometimes contradicted the recollections in Dunlop’s book. The OSS records that have been declassified since these three books were published helped me correct many of the false stories and myths about Donovan that have endured over the years.

  A number of valuable histories of the OSS have been written, which helped greatly in my research. (I must caution that this biography could not hope to recount every operation Donovan’s agency launched during the war; to do them all justice would take up another book.) In-house government histories must always be viewed with some skepticism, but I found the two-volume War Report of the OSS that Donovan’s agency produced for the most part to be surprisingly accurate and candid. Richard Harris Smith’s OSS: The Secret History of America’s First Central Intelligence Agency and Christof Mauch’s The Shadow War Against Hitler were valuable resources. Bradley F. Smith’s The Shadow Warriors takes a hard, though somewhat harsh, look at OSS failures and successes during the war. CIA historian Thomas F. Troy produced for his agency a comprehensive and densely researched bureaucratic history of the OSS, which was declassified and published in book form in 1981, titled Donovan and the CIA. Fortunately I was able to review the thousands of pages of government documents Troy collected for that official history, which are at the National Archives. Before he died, Tom also shared with me other important material on Donovan from his private files. I am also deeply grateful to Curt Gentry, the author of an excellent biography of J. Edgar Hoover, who shared with me a critical aspect of his research into the nasty bureaucratic battle the FBI director waged against Donovan.

  A historical biographer soon discovers his best friend is the archivist. I had some of the best in the business helping me in repositories around the United States and in England. Millions of pages of OSS records, including Donovan’s office and administrative files, are housed at the National Archives in Suitland, Maryland, where I practically lived for almost a year. I cannot thank enough archivist and OSS expert Larry McDonald for being my guide and mentor, helping me navigate through this complex set of records, and fielding phone calls from me at all hours of the day and night when I couldn’t find something. Before he died, John Taylor (the dean of the Archive’s OSS records) gave me valuable tips on finding documents buried in the OSS files. Also helping me track down Donovan-related documents in many other National Archives collections were Tim Nenninger, Bill Cunliffe, Mitchell Yockelson, David Langbart, Stephen Underhill, Timothy Mulligan, and Paul Brown. David Keough was indispensable guiding me through Donovan’s personal papers at the Army’s Military History Institute stored in more than 350 boxes. He also pointed me to other Institute collections that had important OSS material and spent hours sharing with me his insights on military history. At the FDR Library, Robert Clark directed me to many fascinating gems in the collection, which revealed Roosevelt’s complicated relationship with Donovan. He also suffered countless e-mails from me after I left with follow-up questions. At the Truman Library, Liz Safly took me under her wing in the reading room (as she had over the years for thousands of other researchers) while Randy Sowell helped me dig up hundreds of pages of documents, many of them not seen by previous biographers, on Truman’s chilly relationship with Donovan. At the Eisenhower Library, David Haight enthusiastically tracked down Donovan records from Ike’s presidency and his days as supreme allied commander in Europe.

  Daun van Ee and the staff in the Library of Congress’s Manuscript Division helped me track Donovan-related documents in the papers of nearly twenty military and political figures. Archivist Carol Leadenham helped me hunt for Donovan material (some of it still unprocessed) in the papers of nearly two dozen OSS officers and World War II figures housed at the Hoover Institution Archives. Claire Germain, Thomas Mills, and Brian Eden were my able and enthusiastic guides for the Cornell University Law Library collection of Donovan’s extensive Nuremberg tria
ls papers. William Seibert at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis helped me retrieve the military records of Donovan’s son, David. I am grateful to Nicholas Scheetz and Scott Taylor at Georgetown University Library’s Special Collections Division, who arranged for me to view Anthony Cave Brown’s papers on deposit there. The staff at Columbia’s Oral History Research Office carted to my desk hundreds of reminiscences by people who knew Donovan. John Fox, the FBI’s historian, helped me decipher the Bureau’s cataloguing system during the Hoover era for Donovan-related files. David Robarge, the CIA’s historian, cheerfully fielded my many questions and requests for information from his agency’s files on the OSS. Archivists at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, Princeton University Library, Yale University Library, and Virginia Historical Society also found important records for me.

  In Buffalo, Marsha Joy Sullivan rooted through boxes and dusty file drawers in the basement of Nardin Academy to find Donovan’s elementary school records for me. Joseph Bieron collected for me important school records from Saint Joseph’s Collegiate Institute, which Donovan attended as a teenager. Jennifer Potter rummaged through archives at Niagara University to find me Donovan’s academic records and articles he wrote for college publications. Cynthia Van Ness at the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society found for me important files in its archives on Buffalo at the turn of the century, Donovan’s parents, his early law practice, and Ruth Rumsey’s family. The staff at the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library found city directories, census data, and news clippings for Donovan’s years in Buffalo. My thanks also to members of the Buffalo Cavalry Association who provided me news articles and documents from Troop I, which Donovan commanded.

  Overseas, the staff at London’s National Archives at Kew could not have been more helpful in retrieving records that dealt with Donovan from the Special Operations Executive, Cabinet Office, Foreign Office, and Prime Minister’s Office. I also want to thank archivist Neil Cobbett, who helped me hunt through the British collection, and historian Steven Kippax, who shared not only a desk with me at the Archives but also research material he had collected on the SOE. Allen Packwood and the staff of the Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge helped me find a number of Donovan-related documents in Churchill’s government and personal papers. I also want to thank Maria Persinos, who translated for me hundreds of pages of captured German military, intelligence, and foreign office documents on Donovan and the OSS, which the National Archives at Suitland retains in its microfilm collection.