America employed spies dating back to the American War of Independence. George Washington understood the need for intelligence and had spy networks. Unfortunately, many of these spies were brave amateurs who were caught. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the United States had a handful of departments within the Navy, the Army, and the State Department that gathered intelligence but there was no coordination among these departments. In fact, these departments were often in fierce competition with each other. In addition, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), founded in 1909, became involved in counterespionage. This was the arrangement with which the United States muddled through the First World War. It was not ideal.
By the start of World War II, President Roosevelt realized the need for some sort of coordination for the gathering of intelligence. He chose General William “Wild Bill” Donovan to be the leader of the Office of the Coordinator of Information (COI) established on July 11, 1941. Donovan was a highly decorated hero of the First World War and was awarded the Medal of Honor, among several other orders and medals. By 1941, Donovan, a graduate of Columbia Law School, had a highly successful career predating the first war as a lawyer in private practice in government service. Continue reading from National World War II Museum
Intelligence agencies realized fairly early on the important part women could play in wartime spying, in what had been traditionally considered the domain of men. The SOE itself focused on guerrilla warfare outside the ordinary theaters of conflict. Women were thought to be more inconspicuous as spies, and capitalized on this perception during the war, carrying out tasks and missions that men were unable to do. In the field, women could go unnoticed as couriers delivering vital messages, with one SOE dispatch from Holland noting that in 1944, women were rarely stopped and searched at checkpoints.
In some instances, women spies used their femininity and played up to stereotypes of fragility or helplessness in order to get out of sticky situations. As historian Juliette Pattinson notes in Behind Enemy Lines: Gender, Passing, and the Special Operations Executive in the Second World War, “several wartime accounts indicate that male agents were less resourceful and inventive than their female colleagues.” Continue reading from TIME