Julia Child Used To Be a U.S. Spy
Before beloved Julia Child became a world renown chef she surprisingly used to be a spy. I know... seems pretty far fetched, right?
She worked as a spy in the Office of Strategic Services-the precursor to the CIA-during World War II. The government has recently released Child's secret files and leaked the names of 24,000 other OSS spies, such as Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, major league catcher Moe Berg, historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., film actor Sterling Hayden, John Hemingway (oldest son of Ernest Hemingway), and Miles Copeland (father of the Stewart Copeland, drummer of the Police).
At 28 years-old, Child worked as an advertising manager at W&J Sloane furniture store in Beverly Hills. Child clashed with new store managers and decided that it was time to leave.
"I made a tactical error and was out," she explained in a handwritten note attached to her application to join the Office of Strategic Services, a World War II-era spy agency. "However, I learned a lot about advertising and wish I had been older and more experienced so that I could have handled the situation, as it was a most interesting position."
She was hired in the summer of 1942 for clerical work with the intelligence agency and later worked directly for OSS Director William Donovan, the personnel records show.
The release of the OSS personnel files unmasks one of the last secrets from the short-lived wartime intelligence agency, which was first created by President Franklin Roosevelt and later folded into the CIA after President Truman disbanded it in 1945.
"I think it's terrific," said Elizabeth McIntosh, 93, a former OSS agent now living in Woodbridge, Va. "They've finally, after all these years, they've gotten the names out. All of these people had been told never to mention they were with the OSS."
These 750,000 newly exposed documents will provide new information even for those most familiar with the agency. It was once thought that only 13,000 people were part of the OSS but the files have claimed that there were at least 24,000 employees.
