Oss Quotes

“If you live your life in fear and had the opportunity to change. . .could you muster the strength?”
― P. C. Chinick

“Circumstances intervened again and his family connections within the newly formed Central Intelligence Agency, combined with their economic and political clout, hastened his Naturalization as a U.S. Citizen, enabling his family to safely take him back to Italy only a few years later, this time to their property in Firenze.

On arrival Tonio’s soul awakened with the deepest and most silent joy. The past few years had been a bad dream. He was home. Everything was right. The sky, the buildings, the people, the smells, the sounds, all of it, even the language of the birds. He felt he would never leave again.

Untold Stories of Tonio”
― Marco M. Pardi

“[General William Donovan] wanted to see the beachhead, already nearly two weeks old, to smell powder, to sleep in a fox-hole and eat K-rations. Instead he found our outfit luxuriously installed in the Hotel Luna within rifle-shot of the fighting. Don Antonio, the proprietor, was prowling into no-man's land for good fresh Mozarella cheese. We had, all ninety of us, fresh sheets on our beds. The chambermaids wore spotless uniforms; the waiters served us in dinner jackets.

The General was disappointed. He mumbled something about this being a hellova way to fight a war, and added a footnote about congressional investigations. Major John Roller suggested digging him a foxhole under the mimosa tree in the rose garden, but no one quite dared offer to do it.”
― Donald Downes, The Scarlet Thread: Adventures in Wartime Espionage

“OSS, Donovan's own creation, with the stamp of him on it, with the spirit of him in it, became a vivid and compelling force in many critical moments and places of war.

He's a great guy, and he did an extraordinary job, and I think I know what gave him the patience, the courage, and the energy to carry on over all obstacles. He loves his country more than any man I know.

But, my God, sometimes he can make you want to knock his teeth out, too.”
― Donald Downes, The Scarlet Thread: Adventures in Wartime Espionage