Coldwar: CIA

In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed William Donovan as head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), an organization that was given the responsibility of espionage and for helping the resistance movement in Europe. He was helped in this by William Stephenson and Britain's MI6 chief, Stewart Menzies. Donovan was given the rank of major general and during the Second World War he built up a team of 16,000 agents working behind enemy lines. The growth …

…sending in small units to seize radio stations or to work with resistance groups. As far as we were able, we went to the minority groups of different nationalities in this country and trained volunteers for hazardous work. Most of these were American citizens of the racial origin and of the language of the country which we were seeking to liberate. Thus we had units going to Greece, Yugoslavia, France, Italy, China, Indochina, and Siam.