But the infant OSS was ready to slide into harness within three weeks of Dieppe. Ahead was complete U.S. entry into the type of conflict that would produce the gigantic organizations with their unaccountable budgets known today as the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency. History must judge if TORCH also marked a fatal division between British and U.S. intelligence systems—shattering Stephenson’s dream of one co-ordinated agency, democratically monitored without being exposed to subversion.
