Douglas Waller - Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage

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A former veteran correspondent for Newsweek and Time, Douglas Waller reported on the CIA for six years. A seasoned Washington hand, Waller also covered the Pentagon, State Department, White House, and Congress. Before reporting for Newsweek and Time, Waller served eight years as a legislative assistant on the staffs of Rep. Edward J. Markey and Sen. William Proxmire. He is the author of the best sellers The Commandos: The Inside Story of Americas Secret Soldiers, which chronicled U.S. special operations forces, whose lineage goes back to the OSS, and Big Red: The Three-Month Voyage of a Trident Nuclear Submarine. He is also the author of A Question of Loyalty, the critically acclaimed biography of General Billy Mitchell.

Born in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1949, Waller comes from a military family. He also served as a captain in the U.S. Army Reserves. He lives in Annandale, Virginia, with his wife, Judy, and has three children and two grandchildren.

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Praise for Wild Bill Donovan

Entertaining history As [Waller] amply shows, Donovan was a combination of bold innovator and imprudent rule bender, which made him not only a remarkable wartime leader but also an extraordinary figure in American history.

The New York Times Book Review

Contemporary history is seldom as relevant and engaging as Douglas Wallers new biography, Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage, which isby turnsfascinatingly instructive and thoroughly entertaining.

Los Angeles Times

Drawing on government documents and the interviews conducted with Donovans relatives and friends, Waller delivers a rollicking read that uncovers the myths surrounding one of Americas greatest legends.

The Daily Beast

Fast-moving and well-written biography Mr. Waller makes a powerful case that Donovan was a great American.

The Wall Street Journal

An exhaustive but never dull account of the founder of Americas original intelligence agency, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) A wholly satisfying biography of the man whose vision continues to guide American intelligence operationsboth the daring and unconventional thinking and the delusions.

Kirkus Reviews

An extraordinary portrait of an extraordinary figure in 20th-century American history, a man beyond the power of fiction to invent. Wild Bill Donovan is brilliantly researched and beautifully told, as evocative and enlightening as it is entertaining.

Rick Atkinson, author of An Army at Dawn and The Day of Battle

Waller brings to his latest biography the high skills as a biographer Exhaustively researched but not exhaustingly written, this will probably stand as the definitive biography of a seminal figure in the history of American intelligence.

Booklist

Wallers extensively researched and highly entertaining book takes the reader back to the days when spying meant sending dedicated agents behind enemy lines to risk their lives to steal secrets and help win the war.

James Bamford, bestselling author of Body of Secrets and The Shadow Factory

Wild Bill Donovan, the founding father of American espionage, jumps off the page in Douglas Wallers superb biography of one of the nations most important and least understood leaders of the 20th century. Waller marvelously evokes an era when a matinee-idol character like Donovan could turn Washington into his own secret playground even as he ended Americas navet about the necessity of stealing the secrets of other gentlemen. Waller takes us back to a time, long before bureaucratic sclerosis set in at the Central Intelligence Agency, when American spies lived in Technicolor.

James Risen, author of State of War: The Secret History
of the CIA and the Bush Administration

Douglas Waller gives us the definitive portrait of the fascinating, creative, disorganized, brave man whostarting from nothing during our biggest warcreated our modern capacity for human intelligence and covert operations. A must for all who would understand American intelligence.

R. James Woolsey, Chair, Woolsey Partners, LLC, and Director of Central Intelligence, 19931995

Wallers impressive skill as a journalist, his expertise about the U.S. intelligence community, and a remarkable writing ability complement one another in this fascinating and insightful portrait of Donovan the man, not the myth, enhancing our appreciation of his remarkable legacy. General Donovan attributed much of the success of the Office of Strategic Services to good old-fashioned intellectual sweat. This informative, enjoyable, and important book deserves the same compliment.

Charles Pinck, President, The OSS Society

In Wild Bill Donovan, Douglas Wallers impressive research and riveting writing bring the Father of American Intelligence to life, drawing the reader into one of the most thrilling and remarkable periods in American history.

Lee H. Hamilton, Director, The Center on Congress at Indiana University,

and former Chairman, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Waller captures it all in this meticulously researched biography of the man most recognized as Wild Bill.

The Buffalo News

ALSO BY DOUGLAS WALLER

The Commandos

The Inside Story of Americas Secret Soldiers

Air Warriors

The Inside Story of the Making of a Navy Pilot

Big Red

The Three-Month Voyage of a Trident Nuclear Submarine

A Question of Loyalty

Gen. Billy Mitchell and the Court-Martial That Gripped the Nation

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