They were top scientists, language experts, Ivy League professors, cops and career military men. That's not to mention criminals and gangsters proficient in the "arts" of safecracking, picking pockets and forgery.
This hodgepodge of unique talents, which President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered to be formed five months before Pearl Harbor, became known as the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor of the Central Intelligence Agency.
America's "intrepid secret warriors" are the subject of Garden Grove author Tom Moon's new nonfiction book, "This Grim and Savage Game: OSS and the Beginning of U.S. Covert Operations in World War II" (Burning Gate Press; $21.95).
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