Office of Strategic Services Congressional Gold Medal Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. HUIZENGA of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, every wartime President of the United States--and probably every wartime leader in history--has had some clandestine help from men and women who risked life and limb to report on and sometimes to disrupt the actions of the enemy. No leader of such clandestine force was as uniformly successful, as visionary, or ultimately had as much impact on both his country's affairs and those of the entire world as Colonel William J. ``Wild Bill'' Donovan.

President Franklin Roosevelt charged Colonel Donovan with the daunting task of unifying and streamlining the previously ad hoc U.S. efforts at intelligence gathering. The unit he founded, the Office of Strategic Services, was the foundation upon which the postwar government built the Central Intelligence Agency.

Each branch of the armed services contributed members of the OSS, which trained, equipped, and fought with resistance forces in the Atlantic and Pacific theaters. Its various operations were the forerunners of many of today's Special Operations Forces. Four future directors of central intelligence--Allen Dulles, William Casey, William Colby, and Richard Helms--were all OSS operatives, and at least a third of the operatives were women, including the world's first and favorite TV chef, Julia Child, of all people.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of S. 2234, the Office of Strategic Services Congressional Gold Medal Act, introduced by Senator Blunt of Missouri. The bill, which passed the Senate on February 23, has companion legislation to H.R. 3929, introduced by our Republican colleague, Representative Latta, which has 320 House cosponsors.

The bill authorizes the striking and awarding of a single gold medal of appropriate design to commemorate the members of the Office of Strategic Services in recognition of their superior service and major contributions during World War II.

After awarding the medal, it will be given to the Smithsonian museum where it will be available for display there or elsewhere, as appropriate. The Treasury secretary is authorized to make and offer for sale bronze replicas of the medal at a price that will help defray the design and production costs of the actual medal.

Mr. Speaker, long after World War II ended, most of the efforts of the OSS remained classified, and we probably still do not know all of the hair-raising tales that might be told. One thing is not secret--we owe those men and women an enormous debt of gratitude, not only for their work during the war but for the groundwork that they laid towards what is clearly the best intelligence service in the world today. We should recognize those contributions by awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to these heroes.

I urge immediate passage of this bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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