An Unequal Partnership: The Coordinator of Information and British Mentoring, 1941–42

Abstract

The momentum generated by Bill Donovan’s two missions previously addressed toward creating a centralized American intelligence entity — linked firmly to the British — culminated on 11 July 1941 in the formal establishment of the office of Coordinator of Strategic Information (COI) with Donovan as its first and only chief. This was accompanied by increasingly close collaboration between Donovan’s neophytes — who were directed immediately to expand COF’s activities to include propaganda, research, analysis, human intelligence collection, and special operations, inter alia - and the various British intelligence services.² These new ties played an important role in both the establishment and early survival of Britain’s intelligence protégé in Washington. Anglo-COI collaboration took place in New York and Washington with British Security Coordination, and in London with SIS, SOE, the Political Warfare Executive (PWE) and various other relevant British Government entities. It also took place at British-run intelligence and special operations training facilities throughout the United Kingdom and in Canada, and as far afield as Vichy North Africa and the neutral states of Europe.

From my point of view COI was essentially a long-term investment and for some time it required more help than it could give in return.¹

(William Stephenson, Chief of BSC)