Books in Brief: Donovan: America’s Master Spy

Donovan: America’s Master Spy, by Robert Dunlop (Rand McNally, 562 pp., $19.95). We never met him when we were in the OSS, which he created. We never met him when we were in the CIA, which he envisioned and helped formulate. After immersing ourselves in this massive tome, by one of his comrades in arms, we now appreciate the full magnitude of our misfortune. “Wild Bill” emerged from the wrong side of the tracks in Buffalo, N.Y. to become a world citizen, lunching at Chequers with Winston Churchill. He was the most decorated American soldier of World War I. He was the first American in history to hold the country’s four top decorations. He knew everybody, from Greta Garbo to Adolf Hitler. His career, besides embracing a wondrous compilation of “war stories,” is also the American Dream come true, in brightest Technicolor. Although this volume is rather woodenly written and is to some degree uncritical, it offers all the requisite background apparatus, plus 42 photographs, and easily supersedes the only previous booklength biography, Corey Ford’s Donovan of the OSS (1970). Verily, here was one before whom to stand in awe.