---
aliases:
- Office of War Information
- OWI
- Office of War Information (1942 to 1945)
category: Intelligence & Government
created: 2026-10-09
end: 1945-12-31
location: Washington, D.C.; London; New York; San Francisco
relations:
- fn: 4
  reverse: true
  role: Director
  start: 1942-06-13
  type: head_of
  with: '[[Elmer Davis]]'
- fn: 1
  role: Director acted under the direction and supervision of the President
  start: 1942-06-13
  type: reported_to
  with: '[[Franklin D. Roosevelt]]'
- fn: 1
  role: Established within the Office for Emergency Management in the Executive Office
    of the President
  start: 1942-06-13
  type: reported_to
  with: '[[Office for Emergency Management]]'
- fn: 4
  reverse: true
  role: Head of the Overseas Branch
  start: 1942-07-10
  type: head_of
  with: '[[Robert E. Sherwood]]'
- fn: 4
  reverse: true
  role: Assistant director in charge of the Domestic Branch
  start: 1942-07-10
  type: head_of
  with: '[[Gardiner Cowles Jr.]]'
- fn: 12
  reverse: true
  role: Director of the Domestic Branch after Cowles's resignation
  start: 1943
  type: head_of
  with: '[[Palmer Hoyt]]'
- fn: 4
  reverse: true
  role: Head of the Policy Department Branch
  start: 1942-07-10
  type: head_of
  with: '[[Archibald MacLeish]]'
- fn: 4
  reverse: true
  role: Associate director and administrative officer
  start: 1942-07-10
  type: employed_by
  with: '[[Milton Eisenhower]]'
- fn: 11
  reverse: true
  role: Director of Overseas Operations
  type: head_of
  with: '[[Edward W. Barrett]]'
- fn: 26
  reverse: true
  role: Deputy Director, Area I (Europe and Turkey), Overseas Operations Branch; Speier's
    immediate superior
  start: 1944-05-22
  type: employed_by
  with: '[[Wallace Carroll]]'
- fn: 26
  reverse: true
  role: Head of the German Committee, Area One; Propaganda Policy Adviser (Germany)
    from December 1944
  start: 1944-05-22
  type: employed_by
  with: '[[Hans Speier]]'
- fn: 28
  reverse: true
  role: Deputy director in charge of enemy sources
  start: 1943-01-22
  type: employed_by
  with: '[[Leo Rosten]]'
- fn: 23
  reverse: true
  role: Head of the OWI analysis division that used the FBIS Analysis Division, per
    letter of June 18, 1943
  start: 1943-04-19
  type: employed_by
  with: '[[Eugene Katz]]'
- fn: 11
  reverse: true
  role: Policy Coordinator, Overseas Operations Branch
  type: employed_by
  with: '[[Leonard W. Doob]]'
- end: 1945
  fn: 32
  reverse: true
  role: Representing OWI as Deputy Chief, Psychological Warfare Branch, AFHQ (1943)
    and Deputy Chief, Psychological Warfare Division, SHAEF (1944 to 1945)
  start: 1943
  type: employed_by
  with: '[[C. D. Jackson]]'
- end: 1945-12-31
  fn: 34
  role: Operated the Voice of America after the Foreign Information Service was transferred
    to OWI
  start: 1942-06-13
  type: owned
  with: '[[Voice of America]]'
- fn: 6
  role: Foreign information activities divided between the two agencies by Executive
    Order 9182 and the military order of June 13, 1942
  start: 1942-06-13
  type: partner_of
  with: '[[Office of Strategic Services]]'
start: 1942-06-13
summary: The Office of War Information was the federal propaganda and information
  agency created by Executive Order 9182 in June 1942 and abolished in December 1945,
  its foreign functions passing to the State Department.
tags:
- Organization
- OfficeOfWarInformation
- PsychologicalWarfare
- PropagandaAnalysis
- VoiceOfAmerica
- OfficeOfStrategicServices
- ForeignBroadcastIntelligenceService
- PsychologicalStrategyBoard
- NewSchool
- RandCorporation
- ColdWar
- NationalArchives
updated: 2026-10-09
---

The Office of War Information (OWI) was the federal agency for war propaganda and public information, established on June 13, 1942 by Executive Order 9182 and abolished on December 31, 1945 under Executive Order 9608.[^1][^2] A Domestic Branch handled home-front information and an Overseas Branch handled American propaganda abroad, with its radio arm the Voice of America. Its analysts included staff of the [Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service](/organizations/foreign-broadcast-intelligence-service/) and exiles from the [New School for Social Research](/organizations/new-school-for-social-research/), and its foreign functions passed to the [U.S. Department of State](/organizations/state-department/) in 1945, with the [United States Information Agency](/organizations/united-states-information-agency/) listed as successor from 1953.[^2][^3]

### Creation under Executive Order 9182

Executive Order 9182 of June 13, 1942 established the agency within the Office for Emergency Management in the Executive Office of the President.[^1] The order consolidated the Office of Facts and Figures, the Office of Government Reports, the public information powers of the Division of Information of the Office for Emergency Management, and the powers of the Coordinator of Information over gathering public information and disseminating it abroad, including those of the Foreign Information Service, Outpost, Publications and Pictorial Branches of that office. The director, appointed by the President, was to act under the direction and supervision of the President. The order created a Committee on War Information Policy with the director as chairman and representatives of the Secretaries of State, War and the Navy, the Joint Psychological Warfare Committee and the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs. It excluded the Western Hemisphere outside the United States and Canada from the director's authority, and it required the director to work with the Defense Communications Board on broadcasts to peoples abroad.[^1]

The director was Elmer Davis, the former Columbia Broadcasting System news analyst. On Friday, July 10, 1942 he announced the structure of the agency: a Domestic Branch under Gardiner Cowles Jr., president of the Iowa Broadcasting Company and publisher of the Des Moines Register and Tribune, the Minneapolis Star Journal and Look, with the title of assistant director in charge of all domestic operations; an Overseas Branch under the playwright Robert E. Sherwood; and a Policy Department Branch under Archibald MacLeish, the Librarian of Congress and former director of the Office of Facts and Figures. The three branch heads, Davis and Milton Eisenhower, associate director and administrative officer, formed the policy board. The Overseas Branch took over the Division of Foreign Information of the Coordinator of Information, which Sherwood had also headed, and its work centered on short-wave broadcasts to every area outside Latin America. OWI Regulation No. 1, effective July 13, 1942, set the information policy for all federal agencies.[^4]

Under Cowles the Domestic Branch contained the News Bureau under Robert Horton, the Radio Bureau under William B. Lewis, the Bureau of Publications and Graphics under John R. Fleming, the Bureau of Motion Pictures under Lowell Mellett, the Bureau of Public Inquiries under Katherine C. Blackburn and a Bureau of Special Operations with Philip Hamblet as acting head. Under Sherwood the Overseas Branch contained the Outpost Bureau under Harold Guinzburg, president of the Viking Press, the International Press and Radio Bureau in New York under Joseph Barnes, the Bureau of Overseas Publications under Edward Stanley and the Bureau of Communications Facilities under Murry Brophy.[^4]

Elmer Davis wrote on August 15, 1942 that "without the service supplied by FBMS, OWI could not function," and added that "a considerable increase of coverage would be very desirable."[^5]

### Split with the Office of Strategic Services

The same issue of the Federal Register that printed Executive Order 9182 carried a military order of June 13, 1942. It redesignated the office of the Coordinator of Information, "exclusive of the foreign information activities transferred to the Office of War Information," as the [Office of Strategic Services](/organizations/office-of-strategic-services/), placed it under the [Joint Chiefs of Staff](/organizations/joint-chiefs-of-staff/), appointed [William J. Donovan](/people/william-j-donovan/) its director and revoked the order of July 11, 1941 that had created the Coordinator's office.[^6]

Executive Order 9312 of March 9, 1943 defined the division further. It gave OWI the task of planning and executing "all phases of the federal program of radio, press, publication, and related foreign propaganda activities," made the program for areas of military operations subject to War and Navy Department planning and to Joint Chiefs approval, placed the parts executed inside a theater of operations under the theater commander, and modified the OSS order "to the extent necessary to make this order effective."[^7]

The OSS Morale Operations Field Manual of January 26, 1943 listed OWI among the agencies that could give Morale Operations "considerable support in the execution of plans," particularly in neutral countries.[^8] A War Department staff summary of May 22, 1946 recorded the Army's view that psychological warfare had been a military function performed in the war by "civilian agencies" and that establishing a Psychological Warfare Division of the Special Staff would obviate "forcing commanders in the field to have civilian agencies thrust upon them."[^9]

The two agencies also drew on the same exile scholars. Franz Borkenau, Joseph Bornstein, Leo Löwenthal and Heinz Paechter worked for OWI. Felix Gilbert, Emil Gumbel, Arkadij Gurland, Hajo Holborn, Otto Kirchheimer, Herbert Marcuse, Franz Neumann and Sigmund Neumann worked for the OSS.[^10]

### Domestic and overseas branches

By the 1945 edition of the United States Government Manual the officials were Elmer Davis as director and Edward Klauber as associate director. The Domestic Operations Branch was directed by Neil Dalton, with bureaus for books and magazines, foreign news, graphics, motion pictures, news, radio and special services. The Overseas Operations Branch was directed by Edward W. Barrett, with Wallace Carroll as deputy director for Area I (Europe and Turkey), Ferdinand Kuhn for Area II (the British Commonwealth, the Middle East and the Soviet Union) and George E. Taylor for Area III (the Pacific and Far East), Leonard W. Doob as policy coordinator, Louis G. Cowan as chief of the New York office and James O. Weldon as chief of the Communications Facilities Bureau. Its mission in active military zones was to work "with United States and Allied military agencies in the prosecution of psychological warfare," and outposts operated in more than a score of allied and neutral nations.[^11]

The agency's records at the National Archives are arranged under the same branches. The Overseas Operations Branch contained a Bureau of Overseas Intelligence, an Office of Communications Control, a Communications Facilities Bureau and an Outpost Service Bureau. Its New York office held a news and features bureau, a radio program bureau, a bureau of overseas publications and a bureau of overseas motion pictures, and its San Francisco office held an analysis and research bureau among others. The Domestic Operations Branch contained a radio bureau, a news bureau, a bureau of graphics, a bureau of field operations, a bureau of motion pictures, a book and magazine bureau and a foreign news bureau.[^3]

Cowles left the Domestic Branch in 1943. In House remarks of June 29, 1943 Palmer Hoyt, a Pacific coast publisher, was described as having come to Washington as Director of the Domestic Branch following Cowles's resignation.[^12] Earlier in the month, on June 15, Representative Short described the overseas division as under the guiding hand of Sherwood, whom he called "President Roosevelt's personal political servant and ghost writer."[^13] On June 17 Emanuel Celler said that Cowles, "a Republican," would remain at the agency for a few months and would be succeeded by another Republican, and that Sherwood, whose OWI salary was $9,000 a year, could earn over a hundred thousand dollars a year outside it.[^14]

### The 1943 appropriation cuts

On June 17, 1943 the House took up the appropriation for OWI in the war agencies bill. The budget estimate for fiscal year 1944 was $47,342,000, including a special fund of $10,000,000 contingent on need in connection with military operations, against $35,847,292 available for the current year. The House Appropriations Committee recommended $34,472,504. It allowed $22,500,000 for the Overseas Operations Branch against a request of $27,003,590, eliminating $2,290,000 for 763 added personnel and cutting present funds by $2,213,590, and $5,500,000 for the Domestic Operations Branch against a request of $8,865,906.[^15]

Richard B. Wigglesworth of Massachusetts said that there had been "very widespread and very severe criticism" of the agency in both its overseas and domestic fields. He said that serious criticism had been leveled at the Hungarian, Italian, Polish and Yugoslav desks and that it had been rumored there was criticism in Army circles of the overseas work.[^16] Celler said the cut to the Overseas Branch was about $3,000,000. On June 18 he said that "one broomstick was put between the legs of the O. W. I. by the pruning done by the committee," when the House was considering a further amendment against domestic propaganda.[^14][^17]

The House then voted to end the domestic operations. A weekly newspaper's Washington column of July 2, 1943 reported the vote as 55 Democrats and 150 Republicans to abolish them against 5 Republicans and 108 Democrats for continuing the work on the home front.[^18] In the Senate on June 30, 1943 Senator Joseph O'Mahoney said the House committee had recommended $5,500,000 for the Domestic Branch, that a motion had been made on the House floor to cut the Domestic Branch off altogether, that the Senate committee had allowed somewhat over $3,000,000 and $500,000 for liquidation, and that he would offer an amendment to restore $5,500,000.[^19] The National War Agencies Appropriation Act, 1944, approved July 12, 1943, appropriated $33,222,504 for OWI, of which not more than $24,000,000 could go to the Overseas Operations Branch and not more than $2,750,000 to the Domestic Operations Branch, with up to $500,000 for liquidating reduced or eliminated units and $5,000,000 withheld unless the director, with the President's approval, found it necessary for activities in conjunction with actual or projected military operations.[^20]

### The analysts: Columbia, the New School and the Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service

The research core of the agency came from the Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service (FBIS). In October 1941 Harold N. Graves Jr. announced that [Goodwin Watson](/people/goodwin-watson/) of [Columbia University](/organizations/columbia-university/) would accept a P-6 post and serve as head of the Analysis Section.[^21] In February 1942 Watson offered [Hans Speier](/people/hans-speier/), whose research project at the New School, the [Research Project on Totalitarian Communication](/programs/research-project-on-totalitarian-communication/), had sent the monitoring service its first report a week after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the post of senior political analyst and head of the Analysis Division's Central European Section.[^22]

On April 19, 1943 Robert D. Leigh, the FBIS director, announced an agreement under which the Bureau of Research and Analysis of the Overseas Branch of OWI would use the FBIS Analysis Division exclusively for reporting and analyzing radio broadcasts. The division was to move to the Social Security Building. On May 13 Graves said that the division would "function as an integral part of OWI." In a letter of June 18, 1943 Eugene Katz, described as the head of this OWI division, wrote that relations with the FBIS Analysis Division were "so friendly" that nothing warranted a formal reappraisal of the agreement. An FBIS history written in the late 1960s calls Watson head of the Analysis Division in December 1942.[^23] Daniel Bessner writes that in May 1943 the Analysis Division moved to OWI headquarters "retaining Watson as its director," with offices contiguous with the Overseas Operations Branch.[^24]

Goodwin Watson and Nathan Leites were sent to London in September 1942 to set up an analysis operation that would work closely with OWI there and supply Washington with reports, and a two-man analysis staff remained there throughout the war.[^25] On May 22, 1944 Speier transferred from the Analysis Division to the Overseas Operations Branch under Wallace Carroll, and became head of its German Committee in Area One. In December 1944 he became Propaganda Policy Adviser (Germany).[^26]

The Research Project on Totalitarian Communication had been financed by the [Rockefeller Foundation](/organizations/rockefeller-foundation/) with $15,960 in March 1941 and $19,000 in 1942, and its roster of named researchers included Paechter. The same Rockefeller communications grants covered the Princeton Listening Center and the experimental division that Harold Lasswell ran at the Library of Congress.[^27]

A January 22, 1943 FBIS administrative memorandum states that FBIS material went to non-government users only through one of two OWI officials, one of them Leo Rosten, deputy director in charge of enemy sources. It also records an exchange of correspondence with [Nelson Rockefeller](/people/nelson-rockefeller/), the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, under which FBIS would have with his office the same relationship it had with OWI.[^28] Bessner writes that Rosten served in the war as OWI liaison between Washington and Hollywood and was instrumental in persuading officials to use film for propaganda.[^29]

### The Bureau of Overseas Intelligence and the social scientists

The Overseas Operations Branch kept its own analysis organization. Its Bureau of Overseas Intelligence, headed in 1945 by Victor M. Hunt as acting chief, analyzed incoming intelligence for policy and operations through a Central Intelligence Division, a Regional Analysis Division that "determines its reliability" and prepared reports for the New York and San Francisco bureaus and the outposts, and a Foreign Morale Analysis Division that "prepares special reports."[^11]

Social scientists sat on both sides of the arrangement with FBIS. Theodore Newcomb, second to Watson in the FBIS Analysis Division, wrote on February 15, 1943 that "our relations with them (OWI analysts) are far from the best" and that the one person who would give a friendly ear was Otto Klineberg, who "used to be with us and is now with them."[^30] Bessner records that members of OWI were dissatisfied with the Analysis Division's information and created their own propaganda analysis division, and that Leigh established weekly meetings between the two analysis divisions in the autumn of 1942. In a letter to Leigh of December 1942 Speier wrote that OWI's propaganda lacked "any basic strategy" and that he "cannot imagine that anybody in Germany will risk his neck for listening to such broadcasts"; he also wrote that "hardly anybody reads our Weekly Analysis" and called the OWI output "uninspired and uninspiring, unexciting and producing nothing but sleepiness." He sent his critique of the anthropologist Geoffrey Gorer's OWI report "German Popular Psychology" to the OWI Overseas Operations Branch in October 1943.[^31]

### Psychological warfare teams in Europe

C. D. Jackson, representing OWI, served as Deputy Chief of the Psychological Warfare Branch (PWB) at Allied Forces Headquarters in 1943, where he directed OWI propaganda leaflet and newswriting activities at Algiers, and as Deputy Chief of the Psychological Warfare Division (PWD) at Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force in 1944 and 1945. He directed the Allied Information Service that distributed information on the Allies' war effort to France and other liberated areas. His wartime correspondents among psychological warfare personnel included Richard Crossman, Brigadier General Robert McClure, Edward Barrett and Fred Auberjonois.[^32]

The OWI report on its operations in the European theater for 1944, sent to Davis on April 18, 1945 by Philip Hamblet as director of the European Theatre of Operations, states that OWI London in the early part of 1944 devoted its chief attention to pre-D-day propaganda and worked through PWD. SHAEF's PWD drew its personnel from the British Foreign Office Political Intelligence Department and, for the American side, from OWI and the Office of Strategic Services. The report says that 279 from the OWI staff became part of PWD. PWD press teams landing on the Normandy beaches had as their primary function aid to the French press. The European News Room was operated by personnel from OWI, the British Ministry of Information and Political Intelligence Department, the Belgian Information Service and the U.S. Army, and its world news file went by Morse wireless to PWD monitoring teams in the field and to "PWD-AFHQ in Italy." OWI's American Broadcasting Station in Europe (ABSIE) went on the air on April 30, 1944. Late in 1944, when the French had re-established their own press, radio and film operations, PWD-SHAEF moved on and OWI set up its United States Information Service in France, and OWI began work with SHAEF and the Allied Control Commission on the handling of German information services.[^33]

### Voice of America

The first Voice of America broadcast, a fifteen-minute program in German, went out on February 24, 1942 from the Foreign Information Service of the Coordinator of Information, whose functions Executive Order 9182 transferred to OWI, and Sherwood's Overseas Branch took over that service intact.[^1][^3][^4] The service's first broadcasters were led by John Houseman. Programs were sent from New York by military aircraft to Britain, where relay stations re-transmitted them to the rest of Europe. By the Casablanca conference in 1943 the service had 27 language services and 23 transmitters, and it reached 41 languages before the war ended.[^34]

Speier wrote many of the propaganda directives aimed at Germany, most of which were broadcast over the Voice of America, and Carroll signed them.[^26]

At the end of the war the service was transferred from OWI to the Department of State. A committee of private citizens appointed by the State Department and chaired by Arthur McMahon reported in late 1945. Congress reluctantly appropriated funds for the service in 1946 and 1947. The Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 gave it permanent status.[^34]

### Soviet intelligence traffic

A Venona cable of March 23, 1944 from San Francisco to Moscow, No. 142, addressed to "Viktor" and signed with the cover name Charon, reports that an employee of the "Office of War Information," Wechsler, said that an order had been received that day from "Carthage" to discontinue something and that another was arriving from Japanese captivity. The National Security Agency's annotation identifies Viktor as Lt. Gen. P. M. Fitin and Charon as Georgi Kheifets, Soviet vice-consul in San Francisco, and reads "Possibly Robert WECHSLER, an Information Specialist with the Office of War Information, WASHINGTON, D.C." with a handwritten emendation on the released copy.[^35]

### Dissolution and transfer to the State Department

Executive Order 9608 of August 31, 1945 transferred the foreign functions of OWI, together with the informational functions of the Office of Inter-American Affairs performed abroad, to an interim International Information Service established in the Department of State. The functions of OWI's Bureau of Special Services and its review of publications of federal agencies went to the Bureau of the Budget. The order abolished the remaining OWI functions at the close of business on September 15, 1945, and abolished OWI and the interim service at the close of business on December 31, 1945. Residual personnel, records, property and appropriation balances went to the Department of the Treasury for final liquidation.[^2] Executive Order 9621 of September 20, 1945 divided the OSS in parallel, transferring its Research and Analysis Branch and Presentation Branch to an Interim Research and Intelligence Service in the State Department effective October 1, 1945.[^36]

Foreign dissemination functions stayed in the Department of State from 1945 to 1953, when the United States Information Agency took them over. The domestic functions went to the Bureau of the Budget's Government Information Service, which held them from 1945 to 1946.[^3]

### Personnel after 1945

Edward W. Barrett was Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs from February 1, 1950 to February 20, 1952.[^37] On January 10, 1952 he attended the eighth meeting of the [Psychological Strategy Board](/organizations/psychological-strategy-board/) as a State Department participant. The meeting was chaired by Walter Bedell Smith, Director of Central Intelligence, and its members included the Deputy Secretary of Defense, William C. Foster, and the Under Secretary of State, James E. Webb.[^38] The board had been authorized by [Harry S. Truman](/people/harry-s-truman/) in June 1951, and C. D. Jackson, as Special Assistant to the President from 1953 to 1954, worked closely with it and with its successor, the Operations Coordinating Board.[^39] The FRUS biographical register lists George A. Morgan as acting director of the board from 1951 to 1952; Bessner lists a George Morgan among the scholars Speier's committee consulted in 1952 and 1953.[^37][^40]

Jackson also served as President of the Free Europe Committee, which directed [Radio Free Europe](/organizations/radio-free-europe/), from 1951 to 1952, and took an active part in Radio Free Europe from its founding in 1949 until his death in 1964.[^32] Robert T. Holt's 1958 study of Radio Free Europe states that its daily guidance "reflects its originators' dissatisfaction with the OWI-type directive, which told writers what they could or could not say."[^41]

The OWI Security Advisory Board was also reorganized. A Central Intelligence Group memorandum of July 22, 1946 closed out the Group's liaison arrangements for the board, which was being replaced by a new board under the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee. The liaison officer was charged with recommending whether the new board should be placed under the National Intelligence Authority. The memorandum records that no further action by the Security Branch or the Central Planning Staff was required.[^42] In July 1947 the Assistant Director of the Office of Research and Evaluation complained to the chief of the Group's Interdepartmental Coordinating and Planning Staff that the arrangement for the Group's seat on the coordinating committee's subcommittee for psychological warfare, with the principal member from the Office of Special Operations and the alternate from the Office of Research and Evaluation, "is not operable."[^43]

Barrett organized a group of experts in April 1950 that included Speier, to discuss psychological strategy, tactics and organization. Speier was then a State Department consultant for psychological warfare known to James E. Webb and Barrett, and he took part in [Project TROY](/programs/project-troy/), the study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology of Soviet jamming of American broadcasts.[^44] After the war Speier and Carroll worked together as psychological warfare consultants for the State Department and as consultants for the [Ford Foundation](/organizations/ford-foundation/). Between September 1952 and February 1953 the planning committee for the international communication program of MIT's Center for International Studies, headed by Speier and including Carroll, Jerome Bruner, Harold Lasswell, Paul Lazarsfeld, Edward Shils and Ithiel de Sola Pool, consulted among others Gorer, Leites, Daniel Lerner, Löwenthal and George Morgan.[^40]

The group Barrett convened in April 1950 followed a sequence of proposals made in Washington that spring. On March 1, 1950 President Truman sent Acheson a memorandum on a proposal by David Sarnoff for a committee to improve the Voice of America. Barrett's memorandum of March 6, 1950 recommended "a new high-level committee of Sarnoff, etc., to look for added means of getting the truth behind the Iron Curtain," and said that the committee "would not confine itself to radio but would look into such proposals as the hardy perennial of utilizing balloons to drop leaflets."[^45] Bessner writes that James E. Webb contacted James Killian of MIT that summer, and that the project Killian and John Burchard accepted, Project TROY, took up the study of Soviet jamming of American radio transmissions.[^46]

Speier left government service in 1948 to join the [Rand Corporation](/organizations/rand-corporation/) and became chief of its Social Science Division. He brought several of his Analysis Division colleagues to RAND, including Alexander L. George and Leites. Rosten, a member of the 1946 RAND committee that considered candidates for its social science division, came to RAND through Allen Wallis, and Bessner writes that a connection Speier made with Rosten at OWI brought Speier to RAND.[^47]

### Records

Record Group 208 at the National Archives holds the agency's records. The NARA description gives 3,584 cubic feet, dated 1926 to 1951 with the bulk in 1941 to 1946. Its subgroups include the Domestic Operations Branch, the Overseas Operations Branch, the New York Office and the San Francisco Office, and the general records include those of the Security Advisory Board. The finding aids are H. Stephen Helton's Preliminary Inventory PI 56 (1953) and the Helton and Forrest R. Holdcamper inventory NC 148 (1967). Related records are in RG 44 (Office of Government Reports), RG 226 (Office of Strategic Services), RG 287 (government publications) and RG 306 (United States Information Agency).[^3] Archival pulls for the agency's files include RG 208 Entry 355, box 1712, the folder for Wallace Carroll, Entry 358, box 108, for a cable of November 20, 1945 from William Stone and Ferdinand Kuhn, and Entry 6B, box 6, for the Overseas Operations Branch office files.[^48]

[^1]: Executive Order 9182, "Consolidating Certain War Information Functions into an Office of War Information," June 13, 1942, Federal Register, June 16, 1942, 7 F.R. 4468 to 4469, paragraphs 1, 2, 3, 6 and 9. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-1942-06-16/pdf/FR-1942-06-16.pdf
[^2]: Executive Order 9608, "Providing for the Termination of the Office of War Information, and for the Disposition of Its Functions and of Certain Functions of the Office of Inter-American Affairs," August 31, 1945, Federal Register, September 1, 1945, 10 F.R. 11223, paragraphs 1 to 3. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-1945-09-01/pdf/FR-1945-09-01.pdf
[^3]: National Archives and Records Administration, Guide to Federal Records, Record Group 208, Records of the Office of War Information, 208.1 administrative history (established in the Office for Emergency Management by EO 9182; Foreign Information Service of the Office of the Coordinator of Information, 1941 to 1942, among predecessors; abolished by EO 9608; successor agencies), overview (1926 to 1951, bulk 1941 to 1946, 3,584 cu. ft.), table of contents (subgroups 208.2 to 208.6) and related records. https://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/208.html
[^4]: "Radio Gets Places in OWI Structure: Cowles Is Named To Key Post; Lewis In," Broadcasting, vol. 23, no. 2, July 13, 1942 (announcement by Davis of the previous Friday; the three branches, the policy board, the Domestic Branch and Overseas Branch bureaus and their heads; OWI Regulation No. 1). https://lantern.mediahist.org/catalog/broadcasting23unse_0087
[^5]: Joseph E. Roop, "Foreign Broadcast Information Service. History. Part I: 1941-1947" (Central Intelligence Agency, approved for release April 1969), p. 40, quoting Davis's letter of August 15, 1942. https://archive.org/details/ForeignBroadcastInformationServiceHistoryPart11941-1947
[^6]: Military Order, "Office of Strategic Services," June 13, 1942, Federal Register, June 16, 1942, 7 F.R. 4469 to 4470, paragraphs 1 to 5. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-1942-06-16/pdf/FR-1942-06-16.pdf
[^7]: Executive Order 9312, "Defining the Foreign Information Activities of the Office of War Information," March 9, 1943, Federal Register, March 10, 1943 (F.R. Doc. 43-3806), paragraphs 1 and 2. CIA reading room copy, CIA-RDP84-00022R000200100008-4. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp84-00022r000200100008-4
[^8]: Office of Strategic Services, Morale Operations Field Manual, Strategic Services (Provisional), Strategic Services Field Manual No. 2, January 26, 1943, section on other U.S. agencies, item d (the State Department, OWI, FEA, the Treasury Department and the CIAA).
[^9]: War Department General Staff, G-2, summary sheet "Establishment of Psychological Warfare Division, Special Staff," May 22, 1946, paragraphs 2c, 2f and 2g. CIA reading room copy, CIA-RDP64-00658A000100370008-0. https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP64-00658A000100370008-0
[^10]: Daniel Morris Bessner, "The Night Watchman: Hans Speier and the Making of the American National Security State" (PhD dissertation, Duke University, 2013), introduction, pp. 14 to 15 and note 16 (Borkenau, Bornstein, Löwenthal and Pächter worked for the OWI; Gilbert, Gumbel, Gurland, Holborn, Kirchheimer, Marcuse, F. Neumann and S. Neumann worked for the OSS). The introductory list prints "Arkady Gurman" and note 16 prints "Gurland."
[^11]: United States Government Manual, 1945 edition (Washington: Division of Public Inquiries, Special Services Bureau, Office of War Information), Emergency War Agencies, Office of War Information, pp. 88 to 95 (officials; Domestic Operations Branch; Overseas Operations Branch, including the Bureau of Overseas Intelligence and its Central Intelligence, Regional Analysis and Foreign Morale Analysis Divisions). https://archive.org/details/unitedstatesgove033383mbp
[^12]: Congressional Record, vol. 89, House of Representatives, June 29, 1943, remarks in the debate on the OWI appropriation ("until very recently the Director of the Domestic Branch was Mr. Gardner Cowles ... Following his resignation, Mr. Palmer Hoyt, another prominent Republican ... has left his own newspaper to come here as Director of the Domestic Branch"). Speaker not identified in the available text. https://archive.org/details/sim_congressional-record-proceedings-and-debates_june-15-july-06-1943_89
[^13]: Congressional Record, vol. 89, House of Representatives, June 15, 1943, p. 5909, remarks of Representative Short. https://archive.org/details/sim_congressional-record-proceedings-and-debates_june-15-july-06-1943_89
[^14]: Congressional Record, vol. 89, House of Representatives, June 17, 1943, p. 5989, remarks of Representative Celler (Cowles; Sherwood's salary; the cut to the Overseas Branch). https://archive.org/details/sim_congressional-record-proceedings-and-debates_june-15-july-06-1943_89
[^15]: Congressional Record, vol. 89, House of Representatives, June 17, 1943, statement on the OWI items of the war agencies appropriation bill, including the exchange of Representatives Celler and Cannon of Missouri (budget estimate of $47,342,000 with a $10,000,000 contingent fund; $35,847,292 for the current year; committee recommendation of $34,472,504; Overseas Operations Branch request of $27,003,590 and allowance of $22,500,000; Domestic Operations Branch request of $8,865,906 and allowance of $5,500,000). https://archive.org/details/sim_congressional-record-proceedings-and-debates_june-15-july-06-1943_89
[^16]: Congressional Record, vol. 89, House of Representatives, June 17, 1943, p. 5993, remarks of Representative Wigglesworth. https://archive.org/details/sim_congressional-record-proceedings-and-debates_june-15-july-06-1943_89
[^17]: Congressional Record, vol. 89, House of Representatives, June 18, 1943, p. 6133, remarks of Representative Celler in reply to Representative Brooks. https://archive.org/details/sim_congressional-record-proceedings-and-debates_june-15-july-06-1943_89
[^18]: Hug S. Sias, "Look at Washington," The Perquimans Weekly (Hertford, North Carolina), July 2, 1943, p. 3. https://newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn97064546/1943-07-02/ed-1/seq-3/
[^19]: Congressional Record, vol. 89, Senate, June 30, 1943, pp. 6803 to 6804, remarks of Senator O'Mahoney on the Domestic Branch of the Office of War Information. https://archive.org/details/sim_congressional-record-proceedings-and-debates_june-15-july-06-1943_89
[^20]: National War Agencies Appropriation Act, 1944, Public Law 139, 78th Congress, chapter 228, approved July 12, 1943, 57 Stat. 531 to 532 (Office of War Information, salaries and expenses). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-57/pdf/STATUTE-57-Pg522.pdf
[^21]: Roop, Part I, p. 14 (Graves's October 1941 announcement that Watson would accept a P-6 and serve as head of the Analysis Section). https://archive.org/details/ForeignBroadcastInformationServiceHistoryPart11941-1947
[^22]: Bessner, "The Night Watchman," pp. 132 to 133 and notes 51, 54 and 55 (first report sent a week after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor; Watson's February 1942 offer of the post of Senior Political Analyst, the head of the Analysis Division's Central European Section).
[^23]: Roop, Part I, pp. 121 to 122 (Watson as head of the Analysis Division writing on December 30, 1942; Leigh's announcement of April 19, 1943 and the move to the Social Security Building; Graves on May 13, 1943, "function as an integral part of OWI"; Eugene Katz's letter to Leigh of June 18, 1943, "so friendly"). https://archive.org/details/ForeignBroadcastInformationServiceHistoryPart11941-1947
[^24]: Bessner, "The Night Watchman," pp. 144 to 145 and note 99 (the Analysis Division's May 1943 move to OWI headquarters, "retaining Watson as its director"; offices contiguous with the Overseas Operations Branch).
[^25]: Roop, Part I, p. 46 (Watson and Leites sent to London in September 1942 to establish an analysis operation working closely with OWI in London and supplying Washington with reports; "a two-man analysis staff remained throughout the war"). https://archive.org/details/ForeignBroadcastInformationServiceHistoryPart11941-1947
[^26]: Bessner, "The Night Watchman," p. 145 to 146 and notes 103 to 106 (May 22, 1944 transfer from the Analysis Division to the Overseas Operations Branch under Wallace Carroll; head of the German Committee of Area One, overseeing about eight regional specialists; Propaganda Policy Adviser (Germany) from December 1944, Carroll to Thurman L. Barnard, December 4, 1944; Speier "personally wrote many of the propaganda directives targeted at Germany, most of which were broadcast over" the Voice of America; Carroll signed them).
[^27]: Bessner, "The Night Watchman," p. 131 and notes 46 and 47 (Rockefeller Foundation grants of $15,960 in March 1941 and $19,000 in 1942; the Rockefeller communications portfolio including the Princeton Shortwave Listening Center and Lasswell's Experimental Division for the Study of Wartime Communications at the Library of Congress; roster of the research project including "Dr. Heinz Pächter").
[^28]: FBIS Administrative Memorandum No. 16, "To Officers of the FBIS," January 22, 1943, on the exchange of correspondence with Nelson A. Rockefeller, Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, and on the use of FBIS material through OWI officials. CIA reading room copy, CIA-RDP82-00177R000300410017-3. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp82-00177r000300410017-3
[^29]: Bessner, "The Night Watchman," p. 191, note 89 (Rosten as OWI liaison between Washington and Hollywood; "instrumental in convincing government officials to use films for propaganda").
[^30]: Roop, Part I, p. 122, note (Theodore Newcomb on February 15, 1943: "Unfortunately and off the record our relations with them (OWI analysts) are far from the best. There is only one person from whom I guarantee you would get a friendly ear, Otto Klineberg. He used to be with us and is now with them."). https://archive.org/details/ForeignBroadcastInformationServiceHistoryPart11941-1947
[^31]: Bessner, "The Night Watchman," pp. 143 to 144 and notes 96 to 98 (Speier to Leigh, December 14, 1942; Gorer to Speier, March 3, 1943; Speier to OWI Overseas Operations Branch, October 13, 1943; the OWI propaganda analysis division; weekly meetings of autumn 1942).
[^32]: Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, finding aid for C. D. Jackson: Papers, 1931 to 1967, scope and content note (Jackson "representing the Office of War Information (OWI)" as Deputy Chief of the Psychological Warfare Branch at AFHQ in 1943 and Deputy Chief of the Psychological Warfare Division at SHAEF in 1944 to 1945; the Allied Information Service; correspondents; President of the Free Europe Committee 1951 to 1952; Radio Free Europe from 1949 to 1964). https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/finding-aids/pdf/jackson-cd-papers.pdf
[^33]: Office of War Information, "OWI in the ETO: A Report on the Activities of the Office of War Information in the European Theatre of Operations, January 1944 to January 1945," transmitted by Philip C. Hamblet to Elmer Davis, April 18, 1945 (OWI London and PWD; 279 OWI staff; Normandy press teams; the European News Room; ABSIE; the United States Information Service in France). https://archive.org/details/owiinetoreporton00unit
[^34]: Voice of America Programming Handbook, third edition (1992), history section (first broadcast February 24, 1942, a fifteen-minute German program, described there as set up within OWI in the Foreign Information Service; John Houseman; relay of programs from New York to Britain by military aircraft; 27 language services and 23 transmitters by the Casablanca conference in 1943; 41 languages; transfer to the Department of State; the McMahon committee in late 1945; appropriations in 1946 and 1947; the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948). https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41152840_0234
[^35]: National Security Agency, Venona translation, San Francisco to Moscow, No. 142, March 23, 1944, "Report from Wechsler of the Office of War Information in Washington," with comments [i] to [iv]. https://archive.org/details/1944_23mar_war
[^36]: Executive Order 9621, "Termination of the Office of Strategic Services and Disposition of Its Functions," September 20, 1945, Federal Register, September 22, 1945, 10 F.R. 12033 to 12035, paragraphs 1 and 6. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-1945-09-22/pdf/FR-1945-09-22.pdf
[^37]: Office of the Historian, Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950 to 1955, The Intelligence Community, list of persons (Barrett, Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, February 1, 1950 to February 20, 1952; George Morgan, Acting Director, Psychological Strategy Board, 1951 to 1952). https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1950-55Intel/persons
[^38]: Central Intelligence Agency, Minutes of the Eighth Meeting of the Psychological Strategy Board (PSB M-8), January 10, 1952, membership and other participants. CIA reading room copy, CIA-RDP80-01065A000500100033-6. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp80-01065a000500100033-6
[^39]: Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, finding aid for C. D. Jackson: Records, 1953 to 1954, scope and content note (Special Assistant to the President, February 16, 1953 to March 31, 1954; the Psychological Strategy Board authorized in June 1951; the Operations Coordinating Board). https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/finding-aids/pdf/jackson-cd-records.pdf
[^40]: Bessner, "The Night Watchman," p. 145 (Speier and Carroll as psychological warfare consultants for the State Department and the Ford Foundation) and pp. 256 to 257 and notes 110 and 111 (planning committee of the Center for International Studies, September 1952 to February 1953, and the scholars consulted).
[^41]: Robert T. Holt, Radio Free Europe (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1958), pp. 39 to 40. https://worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Station-Books/Radio-Free-Europe-Holt-1958.pdf
[^42]: Central Intelligence Group, Central Planning Staff, memorandum "Liquidation of Security Advisory Board, OWI (C.I.G. Liaison with New Security Advisory Board under SWNCC)," July 22, 1946. CIA reading room copy, CIA-RDP78-04007A000300040024-9. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp78-04007a000300040024-9
[^43]: Central Intelligence Group, Chief, ICAPS, to the Executive Director, "CIG Membership on SWNCC Subcommittee for Psychological Warfare," July 21, 1947. CIA reading room copy, CIA-RDP84-00022R000400100046-0. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp84-00022r000400100046-0
[^44]: Bessner, "The Night Watchman," pp. 236 to 237 and notes 37 to 41 (Barrett's April 1950 group of experts "which included Speier"; Speier's consultancy known to Webb and Barrett; Project TROY). Bessner prints "William Barrett" for Barrett's first name in this passage.
[^45]: FRUS 1950, volume IV, Document 127 (Truman to Acheson, March 1, 1950) and Document 131 (Barrett to Acheson, March 6, 1950). https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1950v04/d131
[^46]: Bessner, "The Night Watchman," pp. 236 to 237 and note 37 (Acheson's request to Webb and Barrett; Webb's approach to Killian and Burchard in the summer of 1950).
[^47]: Bessner, "The Night Watchman," introduction, p. 13 ("a connection that Speier made at the OWI with Leo Rosten brought Speier to the RAND Corporation"; Speier "recruited to RAND several of his AD colleagues, including Alexander L. George and Nathan Leites"); p. 135 (Speier "brought a number of his colleagues, including George and Leites, into the organization"); p. 158, note 157 (Speier "left government service to join the RAND Corporation" in 1948); p. 189 (the 1946 committee including Rosten); p. 191, note 89 (Rosten "came to RAND through Allen Wallis").
[^48]: Bessner, "The Night Watchman," note 104 (RG 208, Entry 355, Records of the Office of War Information, General Records of the Chief, box 1712, folder "Wallace Carroll"; Entry 6B, box 6, Overseas Operations Branch, folder "OOB, Office of the Director," Barrett to all staff members of the Overseas Operations Branch, March 27, 1944); note 124 (William Stone and Ferdinand Kuhn to Eric Bellquist et al., November 20, 1945, Office of War Information cable, RG 208, Entry 358, box 108).


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