Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II

At the beginning of World War II, the United States lacked a robust intelligence network. Under the direction of Bill Donovan, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner to the CIA, recruited hundreds of librarians, archivists, and professors to build up a base of knowledge and research skills. Historian Graham (digital humanities, Stony Brook Univ.; You Talkin’ to Me?: The Unruly History of New York English) chronicles how these academics reinvented intelligence-gathering while making massive contributions to the American war effort. Scholars such as Adele Kibre, an expert in microphotography, were dispatched to far-flung cities like Stockholm to clandestinely purchase and photograph rare books, technical journals, and propaganda to send back to the States. Another scholar, Joseph Curtiss, went to Istanbul, where he engaged in more traditional espionage. Other academics pored through mundane publications such as railroad schedules and newspapers to produce highly detailed reports about potential bombing targets within Nazi Germany and occupied Europe.