Office of the Coordinator of Information
 | |
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 11 July 1941 |
| Dissolved | 13 June 1942 |
| Superseding agency | |
| Jurisdiction |  United States |
| Agency executives |
|
| World War II | |
The Office of the Coordinator of Information (COI) was an intelligence and propaganda agency of the United States Government, founded on July 11, 1941, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, prior to U.S. involvement in the Second World War.[1] It was intended to overcome the lack of coordination between existing agencies which, in part, it did by duplicating some of their functions.[1][2]
Roosevelt was persuaded to create the office several months before the United States entered the war by prominent New York lawyer William J. Donovan, who had been dispatched to London by the president to assess the ability of the British to continue fighting after the French capitulation to German aggression.[3][4] Roosevelt was also persuaded by American playwright Robert Sherwood, who served as Roosevelt's primary speechwriter on foreign affairs.[5][6]
British officials, including John Godfrey of the British Naval Intelligence Division and William Stephenson, head of British Security Co-ordination in New York, also encouraged Roosevelt to create the agency.[7] British-Australian MI6 intelligence officer Dick Ellis has been credited with writing the blueprint for Donovan.[8][9][10]
Donovan's primary interests were military intelligence and covert operations.[11] Sherwood handled the dissemination of domestic information and foreign propaganda.[5] He recruited the noted radio producer John Houseman, who because of his Romanian birth at the time was technically an enemy alien,[12] to develop an overseas radio program for broadcast to the Axis powers and the populations of the territories they had conquered, which became known as the Voice of America. The first broadcast, called in German Stimmen aus Amerika ("Voices from America") aired on Feb. 1, 1942, and included the pledge: "Today, and every day from now on, we will be with you from America to talk about the war. ... The news may be good or bad for us – We will always tell you the truth."[13]
Donovan's desire to use propaganda for tactical military purposes and Sherwood's emphasis on what later became known as public diplomacy were a continuing source of conflict between the two men.[14] On June 13, 1942, Roosevelt split the functions and created two new agencies: the Office of Strategic Services (a predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency), and the Office of War Information (a predecessor of the United States Information Agency).[1]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c "The Beginning". www.soc.mil. Retrieved 2025-02-04.
- ^ "COI Came First — Central Intelligence Agency". web.archive.org. 2015-09-06. Retrieved 2025-02-04.
- ^ Houseman, John, Front & Center, 1979, New York: Simon and Schuster, pp. 45-46.
- ^ ddancis (2021-07-08). "William J. Donovan and the Establishment of the Office of the Coordinator of Information, July 1940-July 1941". The Text Message. Retrieved 2025-02-04.
- ^ a b TIME (1942-10-12). "The Press: U. S. Propaganda". TIME. Retrieved 2025-02-04.
- ^ "Why the Office of War Information Still Matters". afsa.org. Retrieved 2025-02-04.
- ^ "The Intrepid Life of Sir William Stephenson - CIA". www.cia.gov. Retrieved 2025-02-04.
- ^ Cain, Frank, "Charles Howard (Dick) Ellis (1895–1975)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, retrieved 2025-02-04
- ^ "The Eagle in the Mirror". Kensington Books Publishing. Retrieved 2025-02-04.
- ^ WW2TV (2024-05-01). The Eagle in the Mirror: In Search of War Hero, Master Spy and Alleged Traitor Charles Howard Ellis. Retrieved 2025-02-04 – via YouTube.
{{cite AV media}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ ddancis (2021-08-24). "The Creation of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS)". The Text Message. Retrieved 2025-02-04.
- ^ Houseman, John (1979), op. cit., p. 23.
- ^ Kern, Chris. "A Belated Correction: The Real First Broadcast of the Voice of America". Retrieved 2010-10-19..
- ^ Houseman, John (1979), op. cit., pp. 25–28.
Further Reading
[edit]- "The Coordinator of Information and British Intelligence," by Thomas F. Troy, https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7283886
- "Oral History Interview with Nathan M. Becker," https://catalog.archives.gov/id/200969
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