BILL DONOVAN PROFESSIONAL

'He didn't know what a baseball bat was versus a golf club. 'He didn't know a damn thing about sports,' said the paper's publisher, Bob Zollinger. He was working the police beat at the Lexington Herald in his early 20s when a sergeant who was Navajo recommended that he go to the Navajo Nation nearly 700 miles away and be a reporter.ĭonovan first was hired as a sports editor at the Gallup Independent. Raised in Newport, Kentucky, Donovan attended nearby Georgetown College. Showdown: How a Native American tribe changed the gambling industry by standing up to the FBI 'I have never ever seen him angry, judgmental or stressed.' 'Dad always lived in the moment in the best way,' she said. Her dad saved her the embarrassment by doing an impromptu comedy show in front of the whole school, she said. She recalled a magic show that went awry when she was in grade school in Gallup, New Mexico, and Donovan was part of the act. He had two children: Cunningham and Richard Donovan, and two grandchildren.Ĭunningham said her father showed her the importance of quick wit, patience and kindness. Initially he recruited peers, friends on Wall Street from prominent families.Donovan moved to California in 2018 to be closer to his children but continued writing under a Los Angeles dateline for the Navajo Times, an outlet he was fired from several times over stories he wrote critical of the tribal government. How did Donovan recruit people for the OSS?

These two canny politicians saw value in each other and set aside their political differences to work together. Fast forward to 1940–41: Roosevelt was preparing America for war, and Donovan was an internationalist. Donovan said all kinds of mean things about Roosevelt, who had surrogates go after Donovan. In 1932 Donovan-a conservative Republican who thought that Roosevelt’s New Deal was a communist plot to take over America-ran for governor of New York. How did the Roosevelt-Donovan relationship start? Even before the OSS was set up, FDR sent Donovan on two very important diplomatic missions. This really worried Franklin Roosevelt, who in 1940–41 had to make major foreign-policy decisions largely blind. The Army and Navy had small foreign intelligence units, with some attachés overseas. have an intelligence apparatus at the outset of World War II? After he set up his law firm in New York, he became an international lawyer who worked deals overseas-and collected information that was valuable to clients and to the U.S.

BILL DONOVAN PROFESSIONAL

His professional background prepared him considerably to be a spymaster. If you’re setting up an unconventional organization that was going to do unusual things, Donovan was your type of guy.

He had a very creative mind and was open to all kinds of ideas. Why did Roosevelt choose him to head the OSS? Donovan’s OSS agents revered him, and people in the Pentagon thought he was as evil as Hitler. I’ve always been attracted to controversial figures. Waller’s portrait of Donovan is comprehensive and compelling and reveals the secrets of the man who almost single-handedly created modern American espionage. Charismatic and driven, Donovan was revered by his agents, analysts and covert operatives-who numbered more than 10,000 by war’s end-yet was mistrusted and undermined by many in the nation’s military and political hierarchy. Although Donovan was a bona fide military hero-he won the Medal of Honor in World War I while leading an infantry battalion of the 42nd Division-his selection by President Franklin Roosevelt to be America’s first modern-day spymaster was hugely controversial.

Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in World War II. In his new book Wild Bill Donovan (Free Press, 2011) former Newsweek and Time journalist-turned-military historian Douglas Waller takes an in-depth look at the life, times and legacy of the man who created and led the U.S. Interview with 'Wild Bill' Donovan Biographer Douglas Waller | HistoryNet Close

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