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CNN Live Saturday

OSS Veterans Talk About the Spy Business -- Then and Now

Aired June 08, 2002 - 12:01   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD: During world war II, they invented out of the box thinking, attempting the unbelievable to frighten America's enemies, like trying to fit bombs on bats' wings, but there is one thing that the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS, never did, and that is give up secrets. CNN National Security correspondent David Ensor explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Veterans of America's World War II spy agency gathered on its 60th anniversary to hear CIA director George Tenet say that just as the attack on Pearl Harbor sent them to war, so September 11 has galvanized U.S. intelligence.

GEORGE TENET, CIA DIRECTOR: What was true then is true now. It is your path that we follow, your result -- victory -- that we must achieve.

ENSOR: History does repeat itself. The problem is it is not only the good stuff. General Bill Donovan, the head of the OSS -- Office of Strategic Services -- the CIA precursor, had a bitter rivalry with the FBI. There was some nasty finger pointing, just like this week. It got so bad that FBI director J. Edgar Hoover actually spied on the spies.

EDWIN PUTZELL, FORMER OSS OFFICER: He put a female mole into the message center in Washington, and this gal ran off extra copies of messages, confidential quoted messages that came in, translated them, and through Mr. Hoover you saw them -- many of them appear verbatim in Drew Pearson's column in the Washington newspaper. And that infuriated General Donovan, who went to the president with it and had it stopped.

ENSOR (on camera): Something else this week that is not really new, government reorganization, Washington's traditional response to crises. President Truman, for example, reorganized the World War II OSS into this organization, the CIA.

Intelligence veterans I spoke with are not opposed to the reorganization of domestic security agencies that President Bush wants, but they argue it will not be the solution.

ROBERT KEHOE, FORMER OSS OFFICER: It is a typical government reaction. Well, let's reorganize. And that doesn't -- I don't think that does anything in itself.

JOHN WALLER, FORMER OSS OFFICER: The battle being fought today is going to be won or lost on the basis of the caliber of the people, who is doing what in key places. Not what the wiring diagram says, but who are the people.

ENSOR (voice-over): History is repeating itself in some in some ways, too, that please OSS veterans. For much of the Cold War there were precious few paramilitary officers. But the first American casualty in Afghanistan, Mike Spann, was one, working with the Northern Alliance against the Taliban. He was doing just what Conrad Lagood (ph) did in World War II.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He parachuted into southwest France to link up with the marquis (ph) in that area, and together they ran an operation to blow up a German train.

ENSOR: That is the kind of history they study at the CIA and try to repeat. David Ensor, CNN, Langley, Virginia.

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