The Rest Is Classified - 110. The Man Behind The CIA: Charming Mussolini and Stealing From MI6 (Ep 1)

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

“Wild” Bill Donovan laid the template for the formation of the modern CIA, but this wasn’t the way his life was supposed to turn out. A working class boy from Buffalo, Bill dreamt of something better for himself. These dreams took him to the trenches of Belgium and the beaches of Normandy, then to the halls of power themselves.  This is the story of the man behind the CIA. From decorated war hero to an eccentric establishment figure, listen as David and Gordon tell the story of Wild Bill Donovan. ------------------- Make someone a Declassified Club Member this Christmas – go deeper into the world of espionage with exclusive Q&As, interviews with top intelligence insiders, regular livestreams, ad-free listening, early access to episodes and live show tickets, and weekly deep dives into original spy stories. Members also get curated reading lists, special book discounts, prize draws, and access to our private chat community. Just go to ⁠https://therestisclassified.supportingcast.fm/gifts⁠ And of course, you can still join for yourself any time at ⁠therestisclassified.com⁠ or on Apple Podcasts. ------------------- THE REST IS CLASSIFIED LIVE 2026: Buy your tickets ⁠⁠HERE⁠⁠ to see David and Gordon live on stage at London’s Southbank Centre on 31 January. ------------------- Try Attio for free at ⁠⁠https://www.attio.com/tric⁠⁠ ------------------- EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ ⁠⁠https://nordvpn.com/restisclassified⁠⁠ Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee  ------------------- Email: ⁠[e-mail]⁠ Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@restisclassified Social Producer: Emma Jackson Producer: Becki Hills Head of History: Dom Johnson Exec Producer: Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For exclusive interviews, bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, first look at live show tickets, a weekly newsletter, and discounted books, join the Declassified Club at the Rest is Classified.com. This episode is sponsored by HP. Most people are not counter-espionage experts, but that won't stop them getting targeted by cybercriminals, seeking to extract their secrets. HP understands that approximately 4 in 10 UK businesses have reported cyber breaches in the past 12 months alone. That's why HP business laptops, desktops, and workstations bought directly on HP store

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Santa gets cookies. You get Rhesus. Nothing else is Rhesus. We have come to the end of an unusual experiment. This experiment was to determine whether a group of Americans constituting a cross-section of racial origins, abilities, temperaments and talents could meet in risk an encounter with the long-established and well-trained army organizations. When I speak of your achievements, that does not mean that we did not make

mistakes. We were not afraid to make mistakes because we were not afraid to try things that had not been tried before. You must also have the conviction that this agency in which you played a part was an effective force. Well, welcome to the rest is classified. I'm David McCloskey. And I'm Gordon Carrera. and that was Major General William Donovan, speaking on September 24th, 1945, at the final gathering, tragic, of personnel of the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services. And Gordon, in this very special and wonderful week of Christmas, we have a special Christmas treat for all of our listeners. we are going to be looking at the life and times of this extraordinary man, William Donovan. I guess we could say this is a pairing with our episode last Christmas on Mansfield Coming,

the founder of British intelligence, because this time we are looking at the man who founded not quite the CIA, but who I think we should probably see as the modern founder of the Central Intelligence Agency. That's right, Bill Donovan, wild Bill Donovan. Let's give him his full name. His Christian name, his full Christian name. His Christian, Wild Bill. You didn't get, by the way, for those not watching on video, you didn't get the Christmas memo. I've got my kind of Christmas velvet jacket on. You haven't got a Christmas jumper or anything like that. Maybe, maybe we're recording too early for you quite to be in the spirit. Gordon has a smoking jacket on that is not quite in Willy Wonka territory, but close. And,

While Bill Donovan territory. And I am wearing Nutcracker socks, which you cannot see if you're watching on video because they are on my feet. But I am very, I'm very Christmassy from the feet down, from the feet down. Very good. Yes. Well, speaking of the feet down, last time we did Mansfield coming, the man who famously would stab himself in his wooden leg with a penknife to see how new recruits would deal with it in MI6 at the start, the First World War. This time we're looking at a kind of, yeah, a parallel founding figure this time on the American side. I'm not quite sure he's, I mean, he's wild.

I'm not sure he's quite as crazy and as eccentric as the Brit in true American style. He's got his own eccentricities, but he's close, isn't he? He is close. He's definitely a character, I think. Yeah, I think he's close. What does it say about the intelligence organizations in our two countries, Gordon, that they were both founded by men who were arguably insane? What does that say? What does that tell you? As we'll see, we're just teasing it, but Donovan, I mean, you're right, he doesn't stab himself in the leg while he's conducting interviews. But I mean, as we'll see, I mean, he's, he's pretty bonkers too, right? I mean, he's not a normal. This is not a normal guy. Not a normal guy. No, no. But it's a good question because how far do their kind of cultures, their individual personalities affect the cultures of the organization? There's a kind of eccentricity to the early

And what Bill Donovan will see is this kind of larger-than-life, gung-ho, reckless, I think it's one way of putting it, brave, adventuring leader of the early American intelligence community, which I think does play a part, doesn't it, in what CIA becomes and its early culture? I think it is fair to say that even if Donovan does not found or does not lead the CIA in its early years. And the CIA is founded in 1914. 47. Donovan's going to lead the office of strategic services during the Second World War, as we will see. But the CIA is, I think, formed to some extent, in the image of the organization that Donovan created and led. And I think there is a kind of in some parts of the CIA, I guess what you'd call maybe a tip of the spear mentality and wanting to be right where the action is. And frankly, being one of the first organizations that the US government might rely on for covert action or for collecting information in very sort of hostile parts of the globe that is in line very much with the organization that Bill Donovan created and really his

personality. I mean, it really is a story that is chock full of insane characters. We're going to focus on Bill Donovan, but he, I mean, he recruits a team of people that is, I would say, less than conventional, Gordon. Glorious amateurs. glorious amateurs. And I think it was Donovan who believed that the ideal agent, or case officer, rather, was a PhD who could win a bar fight, which is a great description, I think, of what I hope to be someday. Yeah, McGeorge Bundy said the OSS was a remarkable institution, half cops and robbers, and half faculty meeting, which I think is a great way of describing it. Donovan himself is this extraordinary character, certainly larger than life. But it's also a

as we'll come to a institutional warfare of kind of, you know, backbiting and fighting, but also on the British side, you know, the Brits play a big role in this story. And you've got characters like Ian Fleming, who goes on to write the James Bond novels, as well as the shadowy figures like J. Edgar Hoover and Alan Dulles and others. And we're going to have guns being fired in the White House. So there's plenty of action and intrigue, I think, in the story of Wild Bill Donovan. I mean, he is extraordinary as well, because it's this kind of personal, as we'll see, it's personal bravery.

I mean, you can't imagine, I don't know, current chiefs of CIA or MI6 doing the kinds of things, as we'll see, he'll do, where you can just pitch up in a war zone or in a front-line operation. It's kind of hard to imagine, isn't it? It is hard to imagine Bill Burns or John Ratcliffe showing up randomly, as we'll see, just kind of appearing in the midst of operations, unannounced. Yes, it is, hello, you know, I'm here. Yeah, that is, that is hard to imagine.

Although, you know what, Gordon, we're getting, I don't know if you're aware of this, we're getting a large new ballroom attached to our White House. And I hear that guns will be allowed. Guns will be allowed. Oh, yeah. So we might be bringing gunfire in the White House back. It's coming back after all these years. I also think, Gordon, I mean, you're, you know, you're being too modest.

Is this the story of the greatest influence operation in the history of British intelligence? Well, those who are cynically minded in Washington might think that this was a case of the Brits playing the Americans and influencing them and trying to get what they want. But I'm not sure it entirely works out in the British way. I mean, there is a conspiratorial view that the Brits are always kind of cunningly manipulating the Americans. I think, as we'll see, that's not quite the case, although a little bit of that. But like all good stories, Gordon, this one begins in Buffalo, New York. In Buffalo, New York, New Year's Day, 1883. So his background is interesting. A first generation Irish immigrant family, working class background, so pretty poor, but with a kind of deep commitment to books and learnings.

I guess what you notice that from the start, he's got this drive, that kind of classic American drive to make something of himself, to improve himself, to kind of go from humble origins to being part of the elite. He's certainly got that, hasn't it? It starts at Niagara University and then transfers to Colombia, more prestigious, more of a route into the elite. elite. He's smart and athletic, quarterback for the varsity football team, as well as rowing and cross-country running. And then 905 goes to Columbia Law School. Now, crucial connection. A classmate, though not necessarily a close friend, is Franklin Delano Roosevelt, FDR. And I think FDR, it's right, isn't it? FDR is a bit of a higher social status, I think, McDonovan at this time. So I don't think they're kind of quite moving in the same circles. But I think FDR admire

as Donovan, because Donovan is the kind of sports hero of the college. And that lays some interesting roots for an important relationship, which will come later. And I guess after graduating from Columbia Law School, he unsurprisingly goes into legal practice in Buffalo. I have to say that knowing where Wild Bill is going to end up, it is hard to imagine him as a lawyer in Buffalo, which I guess is why he doesn't stay for very long. But he's a good-looking guy, isn't he, Gordon? He's good with the ladies. Piercing blue eyes, like one of the hosts on this podcast. He dates lots of well-off establishment types.

And in 1914, he's going to marry Ruth Rumzel, who is an heiress from Buffalo. Yeah. And I guess she is from the kind of Protestant elite of the town. He's a kind of working-class Catholic boy. It's fair to say, I don't think the marriage is an entirely happy one. He may stray at various points, I think, as we'll learn. But also he just, his ambition, his driving ambition means he's, you just get this feeling, he's always going away, he's always traveling, he's always on the move. There's not much of a kind of family life there.

Very soon, actually, you know, get married in 1914, very soon he's going away because his heroes are men of action, you know, as kind of sportsmen, military types. And he and a group of young men around their own Army National Guard cavalry unit. It's known by them as the businessman's troupe, but others call it the silk stocking boys. These are not very intimidating names. I think they should have gone back to the drawing board on the name of the unit. I'll also say, because Gordon, we know, we know from the long history together over the past year on this podcast that you love minimizing the personal relations, family relations, and these kind of shows that you love it. Not this one. You get your rocks off kind of editing, editing out the family stuff.

So I've gone for the listeners who really care about the stuff. I've got some entries from Ruth's journal that I'll be reading, her diary to really kind of bring that to life as Gordon has so, you know, sort of callously minimized it. But yes, go on. Then 1916, his unit is called into federal service for the Mexican border campaign to hunt for Pancho Villa. I mean, well, that's a great fact, isn't it? And he arrives, close to you, David, southern border of Texas, 1916. By now he's a major, though. And then, of course, he gets his chance for action because it's World War I and the US is joining World War I.

And this is the kind of making of Donovan and of the legend. He is part of the 69th Fighting Irish Regiment of New York. Better name. That's better than the Silk Stocking Boys. Yeah. Which becomes part of the 165th Infantry and the 42ndnd, Rainbow Division formed from National Guard units, the division's chief of staff was Douglas MacArthur, later an important general. They're going to end up rivals, first of many

rivalries. Now, this is where the legend of Wild Bill comes from. One theory says the nickname Wild Bill came from his ferociousness on the football field at Columbia. But according to Douglas Waller, who's author of the by far the best book on Donovan called Wild Bill Donovan, the spymaster who created the OSS. It came from pushing his men and himself. So he's training his men, so he runs them in full packs on a three-mile obstacle course over walls, under barbed wire through icy streams, up and down the hills. The men are collapsing, they're gasping for air, and he says, what the hell does the matter with you guys? And he's 35 years old, and he's been carrying the same load as all these younger men, and he says, I haven't lost my breath. And a trooper in the

back whom Donovan couldn't see shouted, but hell, we're not as wild as you are, Bill. I mean, that's how to get a nickname. And supposedly he kind of goes, oh, I hate this nickname. It's so awful. But actually, Ruth, his wife, says deep down he loves it. I mean, who wouldn't love a nickname like being Wild Bill? That's a great nickname. But wasn't there a rumor that he was named Wild Bill after a New York Yankees pitcher who, maybe actually was the manager during the First World War, who was very, he threw the ball very fast, but he didn't throw it very accurately. So there's all kinds of, I like the war story better, though. That's better than just being named after a random pitcher.

Yeah. And the thing is, he does live up to the name in war because he's a really demanding leader, but he leads by example and from the front. And this is the kind of one of the facets of his character. He's totally fearless. I mean, some people think he really actually enjoys combat. So July 1918, he gets awarded the. Distinguished Service Cross for Valor during the Marn campaign. And according to the citation,

he leads his battalion in advance of the division for four days, all the while under shell and machine gunfire. The enemy are on three sides of him. He's repeatedly and persistently counter-attacked and is wounded twice. And the Irish Regiment loses nearly half his men. A few months later, his kind of reputation for near-suicidal bravery is cemented at Linder-Esce-Jean. I hope I pronounced that right, which is a big battle, which is actually something of a military defeat, which is interesting. Your French has gotten a lot better on the podcast. I've been practicing. I don't want to be humiliated by you. I was going to say, your French has gotten... After our early Rainbow Warrior episode. But anyway, here at this battle of Landre and St. George, Donovan personally

leads an assaulting wave against a heavily fortified German position. And his unit is full of nervous new recruits. And then in this act, which is very him, of theatrical leadership. He ignores the custom of covering or stripping off his own insignia or rank in case he's targeted by enemy snipers. And he goes forward wearing his medals, wearing his rank, making himself a target to inspire his men. And he's reportedly heard shouting, they can't hit me and they won't hit you. And during this battle, he gets shot into his leg, refuses to be evacuated, continues with his unit organizing, reorganizing positions, you know, leading them for like five hours. By the end, he's groggy and barely conscious, but he survives.

Well, yet another overlap with Mansfield coming is serious leg problems. Mansfield coming in that car wreck had apparently, well, according to the legend, cut off his own leg after the to extract himself. The car accident. From the car wreck. And now we hear we have Wild Bill. being machine-gunned in the leg during the First World War. So yet another spooky overlap between our sort of transatlantic spy master founders. And what's interesting, he's a bit of a rule breaker. And Douglas MacArthur, who's kind of in command there, thinks Donovan pushes his units too far forward and is, quote, running wild.

But he finishes the war as one of the most highly decorated soldiers in World War, possibly the most highly decorated American in World War I. This is kind of serious bravery. He's got multiple medals, multiple citations. And so this legend is born of a daring, kind of brilliant, theatrical, rule-breaking, kind of reckless leader and soldier who doesn't shy from the fight and wants to be where the action is, which I guess is the model which is going to be created for OSS. I mean, I guess another theme emerging here in his struggles against MacArthur is going to be,

and maybe it's just another feature of him relishing conflict, because Wild Bill seems to get along with nobody else inside the D.C. establishment and inside the Pentagon. But maybe there, Gordon, with Wild Bill emerging from the trenches of World War I hero, let's take a break and we come back. we will see how he begins to found the modern OSS. This episode is brought to you by Atio, the CRM for the AI era. Now, David, people think that SpyCraft is just car chases and secret codes, but an awful lot of it is just idling around, waiting for the action. It's a bit like starting your own business. You think it's going to be as easy as creating and selling a product,

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straight away, 1919, he goes on a combined vacation and business trip to Japan, China and Korea with his wife, with Ruth. But then almost immediately he gets asked by, I think, an American ambassador, would you mind going to Siberia for a little bit of extra work? And he ditches Ruth. Straight away. I mean, he's only just finished the war. And he's back at it. Yeah. He's back into action. And so he's asked to go on a mission to evaluate the state of forces in the Russian Civil War and also what Japan is up to in what's now the Soviet Union. So poor old Ruth, she heads back, back to the US, Eloden, I guess a little bitter. I promised listeners that there would be entries from Ruth Donovan's diary. And here's one from this era. And it actually

appears several times. Bill out bed early. This was a very common entry in Ruth's diary in this time period after the war. So he's just gone constantly and she goes to bed early. So he's doing his lawyering, but then he gets appointed to some interesting positions. From 1922 to 24, he serves as the U.S. attorney for the Western District of New York. And he becomes a big crime buster going after gangs, making lots of enemies, but of course, this is also that bizarre period of American life called Prohibition, David, which seems impossible to understand for any foreigner when alcohol was banned. Well, it's a drug, Gordon. It's a drug. It's not good for you.

Yeah, that's why it never passes your lips. So Donovan is here kind of enforcing that. Amongst other things, he does a big raid on something called the Saturn Club in Buffalo. which is where the city elite drinks. But unfortunately, he is also a member of the Saturn Club and his wife's family are very influential in the Saturn Club. I mean, I guess he's putting his duties first, but I don't think they entirely ever forgive him

for raiding their speakeasy club. See, this makes the behavior on the battlefield, I think, make even more sense because he actually just loves fighting. But I guess then after his stint, as the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of New York, he is brought back to Washington. Yeah, President Calvin Coolidge, who's a Republican, appoints him Assistant Attorney General. First, the criminal division, later, antitrust division.

Now here, the kind of bureaucratic warfare really begins, because he's going to meet the man who will become his nemesis, his arch rival, none other than Jay Edgar Hoover. Hoover, of course, is made first director of the Bureau of Investigation. in 1924, which then gets renamed the FBI in 1935. This is the origin of the Phoebes, isn't it, David? That's right. Well, they're not quite your nemesis, but your, your rival, I guess. We've established in recent episodes, perhaps, that my nemesis is the defense intelligence

agency. But on any given day, my bureaucratic bugaboos could be shifting to all manner of other institutions that are not the central intelligence agency. But yes, go on. Donovan is actually Hoover's boss in Washington at first. And, of course, he starts intervening, and then he starts clashing with Hoover. And then I love the fact they both basically start keeping dirt on each other. It's like, welcome to Washington.

They're basically going to start files on each other and kind of maneuvering against each other. It's the start of a pretty bitter feud right from, you know, kind of the mid-20s onwards for a good 20 years, if not 30 years, I guess. Well, and I guess Donovan is sort of dabbling in politics at this. time, right? I mean, he runs unsuccessfully to be the lieutenant governor of New York. Later, he's a Republican candidate to succeed FDR as governor in 1932. But I guess this also be a theme of Bill Donovan is that he's not a great campaigner. I would say he's actually terrible at politics, as we'll see from the number of conflicts that he has with everybody that he interacts with in Washington. He's also poorly organized, I would say. So he's not, he's not maybe

your ideal politician. He's not the front guy. Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? Because I think he thought, and a lot of people around him, thought he would end up president. He's working up the Republican Party, but he never quite makes it as an elected politician. So in parallel, he's going to have found a big Wall Street law firm, particularly because he hoped to be made Attorney General in 1929. He doesn't get the nod. But then it's interesting because he's a Republican. FDR is now president. Donovan is quite critical, I think, of FDR and the New Deal and does interviews having a go at it.

And yet there's a kind of back-channel friendship relationship between those two men, which I think is really interesting because FDR has always admired Donovan because of his sportsmanship back when they were university students. And also, I think they're kind of, you get the feeling they're both internationalists. And that's going to play a big role in the coming year. as Donovan takes all this interesting role because he's going to travel the world as a lawyer, but also kind of keep in contact with people in Washington, including FDR, about what he's seeing.

And this is partly, I guess, a result, David, which seems strange that the U.S. didn't have an intelligence service collecting foreign intelligence at that time, did it? No, and I mean, there's a great line in Tib Weiner's book on the CIA, which is called Legacy of Ashes, and in this kind of early period. period before you actually have a central intelligence agency, Tim Weiner says that most of what the U.S. government knew about the world could fit into a couple filing cabinets inside the Department of State, right? So there wasn't an official intelligence presence abroad. And as a result, I guess, guys like Bill Donovan, who are traveling extensively and have a deep

kind of bench of international contacts end up becoming kind of the unofficial intelligence service. that FDR that the American president will use to understand what's going on in the world because there just aren't CIA stations around the world. And frankly, there's a lot of capitals where the U.S. doesn't even have an embassy or an ambassador. So our ability to just collect information was so limited, which is almost impossible to imagine today. Yeah. And so it's interesting because Donovan goes primarily as a lawyer and as a businessman on all these trips representing clients. But for instance, he goes to Rome, and Mussolini has just taken power, the kind of fascist leader in Rome. And because Donovan is this war hero and this kind of famous guy, doors are open for him.

Mussolini meets him. And as a result, Donovan is able to say, I'd quite like to visit Ethiopia, which Italy is just invaded. And Mussolini kind of goes, yeah, sure, because it's Donovan. And so he gets this kind of access to people because of his reputation, which is really interesting. and gets to go to places and go to countries, which other people can't and then report back. And he also goes, he goes to Spain, study the Spanish Civil War, and he meets Franco there, leader of the kind of nationalist side. And he goes to Germany, he goes to Berlin to observe German military maneuvers and exercises

technically there to do work for clients. But, you know, it means he's got this feel for what's happening in Europe, which I think very few other people would have had at the time. and he's able to then kind of report back to people in Washington. And that's going to reach his kind of friend, FDR, as well, who are going to be interested in, you know, what's his view of what's happening on the ground. And I guess just as the Second World War is breaking out, this is when Donovan begins traveling and actually gets sent to Britain

at the behest of the Secretary of the Navy, a guy named Frank Knox. And Gordon, you're in debt to Frank Knox, is that right? I am. So this is very interesting. So 1940s, so he's been doing these missions, but this is his first informal but most significant mission. Donovan actually hoped at the 1940 to be made Secretary of War, but he doesn't get it. But Frank Knox, who is a Republican, another Republican, sends Donovan on a mission to Britain. Now, this is where there are many close parallels between me and Wild Bill Donovan. Reckless bravery, brilliant sportsman. But we've both, both me and Waal Bill, been sent on transatlantic missions supported by Frank Knox because 1940, Frank Knox sends Donovan to Britain. But after his death, Frank Knox's family bequeathed a load of money to set up something called the Frank Knox Fellowship to improve transatlantic relations. And I was a Frank Knox fellow. So I was supported by the Frank Knox Fellowship to go to the United States. So a kind of parallel mission to build relationships between the two countries, which I like to think was, as we'll see, of equal importance to Frank Knox's July 1940 mission to Britain.

But we both owe a debt to Frank Knox in that sense. I'm glad to see that there continues to be a pot of money used to enable British influence operations against the United States of America, which I did not know until this podcast. This is an American influence operation. There's money left by an American to send poor impressional bull. Brits like me over to the US. And I have to say, it was quite generous because I'd been an undergraduate living on baked beans. And then I was suddenly like a graduate student living on this Frank Knox Fellowship. And it was, it felt pretty good. So, oh, true. It's actually the reverse. We're enabling the reverse. It's the reverse. Yeah, years after Bill Donovan goes

over and, and is brainwashed by the UK establishment, you were funded by Frank Knox money to come over here and be brainwashed by the Washington establishment. Exactly. Exactly. Another bizarre parallel between me and Bill Donovan. But Frank Knox is going to send Donovan on this mission. Back to him. July 1940. And this is absolutely crucial this mission. Because July 1940, France has fallen. The low countries have fallen to the Nazis as the kind of German war machine has crushed most of Western Europe. And Britain is standing alone famously. And the big question people are asking in Washington, is, can Britain survive, or is it too going to fall? And interesting enough, the US ambassador in London is skeptical. He's quite a defeatist, arguably a bit of an appeaser. And who is that? None other than Joseph Kennedy, father of JFK.

So Joe Kennedy is there in London as ambassador to the court of St. James, as the American ambassador is called, and is kind of like a negative influence when it comes to kind of British-American relationships. And that's why Donovan's mission, I think, is so important. And this is where the influence operation comes in, right, Gordon, because, you know, you haven't had any luck influencing the actual ambassador, Joseph B. Kennedy. And now you've got this emissary who's sent over to, I guess, put together kind of a perspective on whether Britain is going to be able to hold out.

And it's very important that Bill Donovan returned to Washington with an affirmative. but also reporting back, I guess, on the need for American assistance to stand up, for the UK to stand up to Germany, right? So there's a very clear message that the Brits need to deliver to Bill Donovan during his mission. And boy, do they turn on the charm. I mean, this is something which I find really interesting because they know how important Donovan's visit is in July 9th. 1940 and they just, I mean, the access he gets is astonishing because he's still technically a private citizen, even though everyone knows he's the kind of emissary of the US administration. So, you know, seven people are assigned to answer his questions because he's briefed on

the industry, the economy, he's taken to military facilities. He is going to meet MI5 officers. He's going to meet the new head of MI6. He's going to meet the king and queen. Now, this again is making modern parallels, occasionally, as we saw recently with your current president. The royal family is deployed to turn on the charm for visiting Americans. You know, it's a very deliberate act. Let's bring the royals out and have to meet the American visitor to kind of turn on the full kind of British thing. And they do that. And he's going to meet like London socialites.

I'm sure he enjoys meeting the women folk. And I think they enjoy meeting him. and he's quite famous for that. So it's a kind of full court press by the Brits to basically give him absolutely all the access he could possibly want. Is it going too far, Gordon, to say that SIS, MI6, they actually had an agent that they used to get close to Bill Donovan. There was a Canadian businessman named William Stevenson,

code name intrepid, so he actually had a code name, who was a self-made millionaire, former lightweight boxing champions. You can see how Donovan would get along well with him because they both loved fighting. Stevenson had been a very decorated World War I hero, and they get very close to each other, become great friends.

And this guy is on the SIS sort of payroll. So, I mean, this is, there's a straight line from the creation of the CIA straight back to all of this sort of British shenanigans, Gordon. What say you? Yeah, national survival. I think that is exactly what they're doing. They recognize Bill Donovan is a man to impress and they know how to impress them. They do it. They feed him talking points. They feed him talking points. They feed him. I mean, look, this is wartime survival. This is what you do. Dare I say, I think this still occasionally happens with visiting Americans. As I said, with presidents, but also with CIA directors and everyone else, you know, the Brits turn on the charm for them. They do their best. They know they've got to win them over. It's not, you're not trying to recruit them as an agent. You're trying to, you know, win them over to your side.

And it works, we should say. And it works. It works. It works big time because Walter Lippman, who's probably one of the most prominent American political columnists of the day, says that Donovan, who returns from his sort of, you know, glamorous trip to the UK now fully on board, I think with the war mission. Lippman says that Donovan's assessment, quote, almost single-handedly overcame the unmitigated defeatism, which was paralyzing Washington. That report, Gordon, ended up being a crucial factor in securing U.S. aid and the Lenleese program that would save your fair aisles from the Nazi war machine. Yeah. Donovan's going to brief, you know, his old friend Roosevelt personally on a train ride and say that they can win if we support them. That's the message. And then he comes back for another visit, December 1940.

Interestingly enough, this visit is paid for by the Brits, I was reading, which seems amazing. He spends some time with Churchill. They get on well because, obviously, too many who like the military. Although I think I read somewhere that Donovan finds when Churchill goes off on one of his monologues, kind of gets a little bit tired of it. And obviously he doesn't show that. But here's what's really interesting.

MI6 then offered to take Donovan on a tour of the kind of hotspots of the conflict. So they're like, do you want to go out there into the field? And of course, this is Donovan. So he's like, sure. And so New Year's Day, Donovan, which is also, of course, his birthday. Donovan is aboard an RAF plane skirting German fighters over France on route to Gibraltar and dining. I love this detail. On a picnic provided by Lord Mountbatten, which is three bottles of Moselle, a flask of hot turtle soup, fresh lobster, cold pheasant and stilton cheese. served by an orderly in a white jacket and white gloves. That is how the Brits turn on the charm for the visiting Americans. That's how you do it, David. Whenever you come over, that's what I offer you, isn't it? That's right. Whenever I come over, Gordon always is waiting with a flask of turtle soup at Heathrow for

my arrival, and he's wearing his sort of a velvet smoking jacket that he has on right now. I have been confused, and I'll admit, I'd probably answer this question. question despite Googling it, but I'm going to ask you, Gordon, because you're a sophisticated bread who knows the answer. What parts of the turtle are in the turtle soup? I don't know. I'm going to confess, this is going to show my limited social status. I'm more of a kind of, you know, wild bill, Araviste rather than a proper posh blade, because I've never had turtle soup. You've never had turtle soup? I just think you boil the turtle? I don't know. And then

Oh, okay, look, Becky, our intrepid producer, Becky, has said it's meat from. the legs, neck, tail, and belly, often with the bones for stock. So there you go. I guess that makes sense. Because Becky's always making that, yeah. So here, let's go back to Donovan. And he's, so this trip around Europe is crazy because at the same time, he's going around the whole of the Mediterranean and North Africa.

The German ad bear are also tracking him across Europe because they know he's influential in trouble. And at one point, he's in a nightclub in Bulgaria with a British spy. And the Germans break into his room and steal his bag, which has a list of his kind of intelligence questions, his intelligence requirements, which he wants answered, which is actually quite, you know, it's quite bad to lose that to the Germans. They also put out the story, he was drunk in the club. It's like the worst possible thing you could do is you lose all of your intelligence questions to the Germans. Go, go to a nightclub with a British spy, get drunk and have your stuff stolen by the ad there. I mean, but, you know, this is a kind of crazy bit of Donovan, isn't it?

He kind of just gets away with it. That's what he is. There is going to be a theme here, and it sort of breaks my heart to say this, which is that as we'll see when we get kind of into the creation of the OSS and the things the OSS gets up to, a lot of this stuff doesn't go very well. Let's just put it that way, right? There's a lot of crazy operations that when you look back, you think it sounds daring, but then you look at it more kind of clear-eyed,

and you're like, well, a lot of this was disastrous. A lot of this did not go very well, getting drunk and having a lot of it. your documents stolen. I'll just be one story among many. But the Brits are also going to do more than just influence him to be supportive. They're also going to give him an idea, and this is the idea of having a single or centralized intelligence agency. And they are kind of feeding him this pan. Now, interestingly enough, Donovan is introduced to Admiral John Godfrey, who is the Royal Navy's Director of Intelligence, and Godfrey is accompanied by his aide, commander Ian Fleming, the future creator of James Bond. And Fleming and Donovan, again,

maybe unsurprisingly, get on. And Fleming is going to plant the idea in Donovan's head about the need for a kind of single integrated intelligence service. And the two men are going to travel. Fleming takes Donovan around Gibraltar during this kind of famous tour. And eventually, Ian Fleming is going to draft a memorandum to Donovan, which lays out the structure for an American intelligence agency. And as a token of his appreciation, Donovan gives Fleming a Colt 38 revolver symbolically inscribed for special services. I love that. And Fleming would boast that this gun was his reward for writing the blueprint of the CIA. See, British hands all over this. I mean, here's another one from Bill Stevenson, codename Intrepid,

M. I-6 agent who had been tasked with getting close to Donovan. He actually cables C back at head office at London and writes, quote, Donovan accuses me of having intrigued and driven him into the appointment. You can imagine how relieved I am after months of battle and jockeying for position in Washington that our man is in a position of such importance to our efforts. Of course, writing after Donovan will take over OSS. But I guess the point here with all of this talk of, you know, what would the blueprint be, what would a central intelligence agency, or even just a kind of more formalized U.S. intelligence agency even look like, is that when Donovan returns to D.C. in March, it's just a bureaucratic mess, isn't it? Because there's a bunch of different

intelligence services tucked kind of into pockets of different federal agencies around Washington, and it's not at all clear from the American perspective what that blueprint would be. I mean, it's crazy, isn't it? You've got kind of Army intelligence. you've got an Office of Naval Intelligence, you've got Hoover at the FBI. You know, FDR is clearly a bit frustrated by this piecemeal and stovepipe intelligence system he's got. So he's going to take up this idea and initially create something called the Office of the Coordinator of Information, which is going to be created in July 1941. And he's going to put Donovan in charge of it. So that is, that is Donovan's first job.

It's not quite the OSS, because technically, this is just a kind of person whose job it is to be a presidential advisor, I guess, and corral the information from different places. And, you know, Roosevelt says publicly this office won't supersede or duplicate other departments, which is, I think, clearly a bit of a fiction, because it is clearly the genesis of a new thing. It's like the proto-D-NI, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Director of National Intelligence. Exactly.

But, of course, you know, immediately, whose back is that going to put up? It's Hoover and the FBI, because Hoover is such a kind of wily operate, isn't he? And he really did think that the FBI had the potential to be not just a domestic investigative service, but actually the the worldwide intelligence gathering service, you know, to be much broader than we think of it. That was his vision and what he was trying to achieve. Well, I guess Hoover, I mean, he's got a massive counter-espionage service within the FBI that's got millions of records and five. Miles, of course, he doesn't want to give that up. I mean, he's even got, which I guess is not really surprising given what we know about J. Edgar Hoover, but he's got a dossier on Donovan himself, right? He's looking at Donovan's extramarital affairs. So Hoover's tracking all of this as dirt, as dirt, as dirt on Donovan. I mean, Hoover is even tracking the kind of travels of Donovan around Europe, because he's kind of going, who's out there, what's he up to? He's kind of trying to understand who's influencing him. He's building that kind of dossier. on Donovan. And also, you've got the military here and not very happy with Donovan suddenly

appearing on the scene and giving up their intelligence outfit. But I guess FDR, the way he managed intelligence. And what managed all this kind of, the whole way he ran his government was he liked to kind of have different power centers, play people off, not have it very structured. And I think you can see that he kind of views Donovan as very useful in this role. Initially, it's more like a personal emissary as a kind of an intelligence advisor. And maybe it also helps that Donovan is so bad at the politics. He is just kind of a guy that Roosevelt can use to collect interesting information and who Donovan himself is not going to be capable of creating knitting together

all of these different agencies into one and which potentially, I guess, could be threatening to Roosevelt himself, right? So Donovan is kind of, he's useful also because his sources, of legitimacy and power Donovan's is his relationship to FDR. And there's really nothing. Nothing else in the system that allows Donovan to carry weight. Yeah. And so initially it's just this one office. And I guess the pivotal moment which will shift things again will be Pearl Harbor in December 1941 when America is attacked by Japan. Gordon, I did not know that. Donovan's at a football game that day. He's at the polo grounds in New York on Sunday, December.

7, 1941, 55,000 fans there are watching the New York Giants play the Brooklyn Dodgers. And I have to admit, Gordon, when I read this in your outline, I thought that you had mistaken the Dodgers, which are, of course, a very legendary baseball franchise with a football team. And upon my further researches and I hope to entrap you with baseball trivia, I discovered that, no, in fact, the Brooklyn Dodgers were a football team between the early 30s and 1943. So there we go. And Donovan is summoned over the loudspeaker at this game. But during the games, and this big games going on, 55,000 people, a voice comes on the loudspeaker, and it goes,

Attention please, here's an urgent message. Will Colonel William J. Donovan call Operator 19 in Washington immediately? You know, dramatic message. And it sends him to a phone booth under the bleachers to actually make the call. And then he hears that Japan's hit Pearl Harbor. and that means he's needed in Washington. Oh, Gordon, that's a good cliffhanger. So maybe there with William Donovan making the phone call of his life.

Let's end the episode when we come back next time on Christmas Eve, no less. We will see how William Donovan creates the Office of Strategic Services, America's first intelligence agency. But if you can't wait, if you can't wait until Christmas Eve, if your Christmas Eve is busy, with wrapping presents. And you want to listen now, you can put on your smoking jacket, join the Declassified Club at the Rest is Classified.com, and you can get early access. And of course, you can get access to tickets for our live show.

Don't forget that, 31st of January at the South Bank here in London. That's right. Oh, and also maybe follow us on Instagram, Gordon, as a little holiday treat for yourself. You can follow us at the handle at Rest is Classified. But happy holidays. and we'll see you on Christmas Eve. See you then.

Hello, I'm Professor Hannah Frye. And I'm Michael Stevens, creator of Vsauce. We thought we would join you for a moment, completely uninvited. We are not going to stay too long, unless you want us to, of course. We're here to tell you about our brand new show. The rest is science. Every episode is going to start with something that feels initially familiar. And then we're going to unpick it and tear it apart until you no long.

recognize it at all. Yeah, banana flavor doesn't taste like bananas. Yeah, what is that about? So it is supposed to taste like a old species of banana that was wiped out in a banana apocalypse. And now you will only find it in botanical collections in the gardens of billionaires. Wow.

Banana candy is actually the ghost of a long extinct banana. So if you like scratching the surface, thinking a little bit deeper, or weirder. Yes, definitely that too. You can join Michael and I every Tuesday and Thursday wherever you get your podcasts.