Friday, August 15, 2008

What did Julia Child and my grandfather have in common?

They were both spies! I've always known that my grandfather was in the OSS during WWII, but the stories are (naturally) conflicting about what he was actually doing. Apparently, Julia Child was also a member of the OSS. As was Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg and Chicago White Sox catcher Moe Berg.

This from an AP story yesterday:

"The secret comes out Thursday, all of the names and previously classified files identifying nearly 24,000 spies who formed the first centralized intelligence effort by the United States. The National Archives, which this week released a list of the names found in the records, will make available for the first time all 750,000 pages identifying the vast spy network of military and civilian operatives."

Searching the National Archive's Archival Research Catalog shows, sure enough,

Norborg, Christopher S., Caf-3
ARC Identifier 2182055
Textual Records from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Office of Strategic Services.
(06/13/1942 - 10/01/1945)
Archives II Reference Section (Military), Textual Archives Services Division, College Park, MD
File Unit from Record Group 226: Records of the Office of Strategic Services, 1919 - 1948

I'm going to request his files and see, once and for all, if those stories of helping the Norwegian resistance are actually true...

1 comment:

Evelyn Kaehler said...

What an interesting resource -- good for genealogists to check just on the off chance their relative was in the OSS and never told anyone!