The National Archives has just released contents of this country's WWII-era OSS files. The OSS, you may remember, started as the Office of Strategic Services and eventually morphed into that Alias show. Several celebrity names were mentioned in the documents, the most interesting being your favorite kook in the kitchen...
Walter Mess, who handled covert OSS operations in Poland and North Africa, said he kept quiet for more than 50 years, only recently telling his wife of 62 years about his OSS activity.
"I was told to keep my mouth shut," said Mess, now 93 and living in Falls Church, Va.
The files provide new information even for those most familiar with the agency. Charles Pinck, president of the OSS Society created by former OSS agents and their relatives, said the nearly 24,000 employees included in the archives far exceed previous estimates of 13,000.
The newly released documents will clarify these and other issues, Cunliffe said.
"We're saying the OSS was a lot bigger than they were saying," he said.
Besides our man in North Africa, we have to thank Julia Child, movie star Sterling Hayden, historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and thousands more:
Child's file shows that in her OSS application, she included a note expressing regret she left an earlier department store job hastily because she did not get along with her boss, said William Cunliffe, an archivist who has worked extensively with the OSS records at the National Archives.
The OSS files offer details about other agents, including Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, major league catcher Moe Berg... John Hemingway, son of author Ernest Hemingway; Kermit Roosevelt, son of President Theodore Roosevelt; and Miles Copeland, father of Stewart Copeland, drummer for the band The Police. [AP/Yahoo]
Unfortunately, the news stories don't relate exactly what Julia (and the others) did for the OSS? We'd love it if she turned out to have been a badass assassin like the Daniel Craig James Bond or a kickass cleaner/sweeper or whatever it's called-- you know, like the Julia Stiles character in the Bourne movies. Any ideas?
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