Casey McDermott
SIS 510
Dr. Jensen
November 25, 2014
Annotated Bibliography
These five books are connected through the history of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). However, the five novels take on different perspectives of the OSS and give different views of what occurred while the agency existed.
McIntosh, Elizabeth. Sisterhood of Spies: The Women of the OSS. Annapolis: Naval Institute
Press, 1998. Print
America’s first organized female agents could be found in Donovan’s OSS. They were movies stars, debutantes, wives of wealthy men, and Ivy Leaguers. The areas of expertise were diverse including research, economics, geography, political science, history, culture, and language. The women of the OSS risked their lives in daring…show more content… She gained useful skills by spending time in Europe including language skills, understanding of foreign cultures, and geography. She also developed the ability to be able to slip into a new identity from enjoying acting. Hall’s dream was to be a Foreign Service Officer. However, her goal was never reached because a government reviewer denied her for testing under the guise of her lost leg. She was one of the many women to fall victim to a man and a bureaucracy who had no time for deviation from the norm. After being rejected by the State Department, Hall worked as an ambulance driver for the wounded French soldiers. Then she was offered a position as a Special Operations Executive (SOE) agent in the F…show more content… There is an emphasis on not only the organizational chaos of the OSS but also on the political conflicts that wracked the OSS from its inception. The OSS employed officers of all political, social, and educational perspectives, as well as members of the wealthiest families, which allowed for optimized performance of agents within their field and offered the broadest spectrum of competing hypotheses. The book travels by region rather than by chronological time which shows the growth of the OSS through the roles it played within areas of the world including Italy, France, Germany, UK, Switzerland, China, Vietnam, Africa, India and Yugoslavia. There are stories that expose the valor of many agents including an agent who dressed up as a peasant farmer and approached a German tank at a vital crossroad. He yelled “mail” in German and tossed grenades into the tank which destroyed the tank and opened up the crossroad for the Allies. There were also stories of errors including an agent whose gear including the lethal tablet to use in case of capture but was actually dropped behind Allied
