âEntertaining historyâŠDonovan was a combination of bold innovator and imprudent rule bender, which made him not only a remarkable wartime leader but also an extraordinary figure in American historyâ (The New York Times Book Review).
He was one of Americaâs most exciting and secretive generalsâthe man Franklin Roosevelt made his top spy in World War II. A mythic figure whose legacy is still intensely debated, âWild Billâ Donovan was director of the Office of Strategic Services (the countryâs first national intelligence agency) and the father of todayâs CIA. Donovan introduced the nation to the dark arts of covert warfare on a scale it had never seen before. Now, veteran journalist Douglas Waller has mined government and private archives throughout the United States and England, drawn on thousands of pages of recently declassified documents, and interviewed scores of Donovanâs relatives, friends, and associates to produce a riveting biography of one of the most powerful men in modern espionage.
Wild Bill Donovan reads like an action-packed spy thriller, with stories of daring young men and women in the OSS sneaking behind enemy lines for sabotage, breaking into Washington embassies to steal secrets, plotting to topple Adolf Hitler, and suffering brutal torture or death when they were captured by the Gestapo. It is also a tale of political intrigue, of infighting at the highest levels of government, of powerful men pitted against one another.
Separating fact from fiction, Waller investigates the successes and the occasional spectacular failures of Donovanâs intelligence career. It makes for a gripping and revealing portrait of this most controversial spymaster.