The Last Hero: Wild Bill Donovan; The biography and political experience of Major General William J. Donovan, founder of the OSS and "father" of the CIA, from his personal and secret papers and the diaries of Ruth Donovan

New York: Vintage Books [A Division of Random House], 1984. First Vintage Books edition [stated]. Presumed first printing thus. Trade paperback. Very good. xx, 891,[1] pages. Donovan's Awards. Illustrations. Maps. A Note on Sources. Sources and Notes. Index, Anthony Cave Brown (March 21, 1929 in Bath - July 14, 2006 in Warrenton, Virginia) was an English-American journalist, espionage non-fiction writer, and historian. Cave Brown's first major work to attract widespread attention was Bodyguard of Lies (1975), which examined the strategical elements of World War II, including codebreaking and its effect on the war's outcome. He followed up on this theme with a book, The Last Hero: Wild Bill Donovan, about William J. Donovan, the director of the American Office of Strategic Services during World War II; the Office of Strategic Services later evolved into the Central Intelligence Agency. Another espionage-related effort was a 1987 biography of Sir Stewart Menzies, who served as head of British MI6 (Secret Intelligence Service) during World War II. The book was titled C: The Secret Life of Sir Stewart Graham Menzies, Spymaster to Winston Churchill. His book Treason in the Blood: H. St. John Philby, Kim Philby, and the Spy Case of the Century, published in 1994, examined the interconnected lives of the famous British spies Kim Philby and Harry St. John Philby, son and father. His final 1999 book Oil, God and Gold: The Story of Aramco and the Saudi Kings, examined the Aramco company in Saudi Arabia. William J. ("Wild Bill") Donovan was the founding father of America's first secret intelligence and special operations organization. The author had exclusive access to all of Donovan's personal and secret papers and his wife's diaries. Derived from a Kirkus Review: William J. Donovan (1883-1959), the WW I hero who launched US secret intelligence as WW II OSS chief, is the subject of a new biography Cave Brown's is the consequential entry for OSS history. From access to Donovan's private papers (including his microfilmed OSS files), he has produced a minutely detailed account of Donovan's push for a central intelligence service, embracing sabotage and other ""special means""; of his power-struggles with J. Edgar Hoover, the military intelligence chiefs, and key others--as well as his touchy relations with his Allied counterparts; of labyrinthine OSS operations in North Africa, the Balkans, Italy, France, Germany, and South Asia; of his plans for a unified postwar agency--vetoed by Truman. Cave Brown's esteem for Donovan does not rest on OSS performance. Rather, Donovan is lauded 1) for supporting the British strategy of attacking Germany from the southern periphery, and by subversive warfare; and 2) for making ""special means acceptable to the American establishment""--wherefrom the CIA. Cave Brown briskly recounts Donovan's quick rise from Buffalo's despised Irish First Ward to local prominence as a lawyer and marriage to an heiress. Donovan's ingrained secretiveness is described, his almost furtive restlessness is illustrated. Donovan, as Cave Brown suggests, was probably engaged in espionage from 1916 to 1940, when he became FDR's official spy. An essential source for scholars and OSS addicts.