A fascinating, exhaustively researched and at times bizarrely funny (if also often disturbing) account of the OSS and its status as the precursor organization to the CIA. THE DIRTY TRICKS DEPARTMENT is perhaps more straightforward of a tale than readers of, say, CHAOS might like, but John Lisle's choice to stick to what he can prove and avoid sharing his overt opinions on these matters is understandable.

I was always fascinated with spy shows & this book let me explore the history of the OSS/CIA and satiate my curiosity for the deeper, darker side of spies.

Bat bombs. Cat bombs. Rat bombs. Dr. Seuss takes a dark turn.
Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the ARC!

I found this book to be fascinating. John Lisle has presented a history of the OSS, which later became the CIA, in a well-written style, unlike many history books that can be quite dry. I loved reading about the scientists who developed the spy craft, the character studies, the things that worked and those that didn’t, the moral dilemma of right vs. wrong. Lisle has captured a little-discussed slice of American history.
I would recommend this book to anyone who wanted a different look at WWII and the 1940’s in America.

The author does a good job of explaining the scientific principles behind the gadgets that the OSS R&D Branch developed. This makes the book accessible to readers who are not particularly knowledgeable or interested in science. The book is full of interesting anecdotes and stories about the scientists and engineers who worked for the OSS R&D Branch. This makes the book more than just a dry history of secret warfare. The author also explores the ethical implications of the OSS R&D Branch's work. This is an important topic that is often overlooked in books about secret warfare.

Title: The Dirty Tricks Department
Author: John Lisle
Release Date: March 7th, 2023
Page Count: 341
Format: Audiobook/Netgalley
Start Date: March 9th, 2023
Finish Date: March 11th, 2023

Rating: 5 Stars

Review:

Another highly educational book pertaining to WW2. There are so many things that I realize weren't taught in school. Books like these make me want to buy copies that I can read again to annotate and highlight for future references. I love learning about historical events. Especially with events that really aren't talked much about overall. This is a nonfiction novel. It's worth the read. Especially for any WW2 buff.

Realy enjoyed this book and I think it will have a good audience at my library. Excellent nonfiction title. Definitely will be ordering.

The Dirty Tricks Department is a captivating read. Seeing how the OSS started and grew into the modern CIA is fascinating. The discussion of differences of methods and outcomes depending on whether the country was at war or at peace is quite thought provoking and yet explanatory of ethical thoughts and personal confusion of right vs wrong. What is right is that this is a good book deserving a read.
Thanks to the author, the publisher and NetGalley for the advance copy.

Fantastic! Must read! This work of historical nonfiction is a fast paced cleverly written history of the OSS and the departments contributions during WWII. Well researched and detailed, full of wild stories, thrilling first hand accounts and the crazier than fiction events and people leading spy craft for the US in the 1940's. I really enjoyed it, would recommend to all nonfiction lovers and my fiction lovers who enjoy spy thrillers/historical fiction/WWII novels.

Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A strange and illuminating story. Not something I normally would have read, but it was fun to venture outside of my comfort zone with this one!

In a world filled with conflict, there will always be bad actors who are willing to imagine and do the worst things possible to win power. A responsible defense is to anticipate and prepare to counter those actions.
It is a thin line, however, between preparing a defense, a counter-offense, and an offense of one's own.

This is the moral dilemma faced by the founders and administrators of the "Dirty Tricks Department". The job of the scientists and engineers, though, was explicitly to imagine and implement horrible things to do to other human beings.

This story of the scientists of the OSS was fascinating for its technical detail, the character studies, and also for its willingness to confront the ethical issues of the use of weapons to end war.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Ok, so this book taught me things I never knew about the OSS and the secret warfare waged by the US. If you don't know, the OSS is the beginning of the CIA. There was a whole group of scientists that spent the war years trying to find inovative ways to kill the enemy. From bat bombs (yes really) to camouflaged explosives, this group came up with all kinds of ways to help win the war.

TL;DR

The Dirty Tricks Department by John Lisle is an excellent new additional to historical nonfiction. This untold story of the Research and Development Branch of the Office of Strategic Services documents the sad, horrifying, and funny efforts to improve the craft of spying. Highly recommended.

Disclaimer: The publisher provided a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Any and all opinions that follow are mine alone.

Review: The Dirty Tricks Department by John Lisle

World War 2 (WW2) can be thought of as an industrial war. The power of the combatants economy and industry contributed as much to the war effort as the soldiers on the field, if not to the same fatal degree. Looking back the public sees the industrial efforts in Rosie the Riveter, the liberty ships, and of course, production lines. World War 2 also featured a famous, focused research project on developing the weapon to end all weapons. Of course, this is the Manhattan Project. But little is known about the research, development, and production of spy equipment and practices as part of the larger industrial effort in WW2. Until now, that is. The Dirty Tricks Department by John Lisle is the real life history of how the tools and techniques of American spycraft were developed in World War 2. (Yes, the U.S. had spies before then; however, this was an industrial effort to produce tools and practices for spies.) The Dirty Tricks Department tells the origin of the OSS’s Research and Development Branch. From there, the gadgets of American spycraft flourish, but it’s also the origin of state sanctioned illegalities, such as forgery. This fascinating history tells how the U.S.’s spies were supported and supplied during WW2, paving the way for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to follow.

The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the United States intelligence department during World War 2. It was established and run by William Joseph “Wild Bill” Donovan, a World War 1 veteran. Donovan approached Stanley Lovell, a chemist in Boston, for help. He needed someone to figure out how to play dirty. Lovell agreed, and so began the history of the OSS Research and Development Branch. This group of scientists, criminals, soldiers, and others advanced the field of spycraft through creativity, deviousness, and, at times, insanity. Their job was to aid U.S. spies in any way possible and help bring about the end of the war. The Dirty Tricks Department documents their efforts. It also documents Lovell’s descent from being an everyday chemist to becoming Donovan’s Professor Moriarty.

Lisle establishes the early days of the OSS well. He begins, naturally, with Donovan, then proceeds to Lovell, and from there explores the OSS at large. The OSS was seen as a more of a social club than a contributor to the war effort, and ironically Lovell reinforced this idea by setting up shop in the Congressional Country Club in Maryland. However it was anything but social. The scientists installed all kinds of research equipment, like vibration tables, humidity cabinets, and more. The OSS had a laboratory where saboteurs gained new equipment, pyromaniacs developed new tools, and limpet mines were produced.

Not all of the OSS’s ideas were a hit, though. At one point, they tested out bat bombs. Yes, you read that correctly. They had a plan to turn bats into bombs. The idea was that the bats would roost (nest?) in the eaves of Japanese buildings, and then, at a predetermined time, the devices attached to the bats would set fire to the buildings. A lot of work went into researching the bat bomb, and Lisle’s telling of it is excellent. It’s intriguing, funny (in a horrible/morbid sort of way), and yet still plausible. Despite the outlandish nature of the idea, they truly believed it would work, and Lisle makes you believe that it just might.

The Dirty Tricks Department by John Lisle is a historical retelling of the OSS’s research and development division. Lisle extensively researched this book and provides excellent sources and notes. Each chapter is well organized into stories that recount that history. Lisle’s writing is excellent and makes for a fast read. The material is at times funny, sad, horrifying, and always compelling.

The Ending

Lisle spends 17 out of 18 chapters on the OSS research division, their mission, and their achievements. As the book nears the end, Lisle discusses the less savory topics of war, such as biological and chemical weapons and drugs. He also devotes a chapter to Lovell’s post-war life and how he adjusts. These are all excellent chapters, and I think the book would have had a stronger ending if it left off with the retired Lovell. Yet, Lisle looks at one of the more controversial legacies of the OSS Research and Development Division, MKUltra.

The last chapter didn’t fit well with the rest of the book because MKUltra wasn’t an OSS operation; no, it was strictly the work of the CIA. While Lisle draws a line from the OSS to MKUltra, it feels out of place in a book dedicated to the OSS. The argument for MKUltra being strongly tied to the OSS’s legacy are a bit weak. Surely there are many other legacies of the research division that could be tied back to the inventions in the book with the same strength. Why not Agent Orange or the napalm used in Vietnam? Why single out MKUltra? It feels like a setup for Lisle’s next book more than an appropriate stopping point.

Obviously Lisle and his publishers disagree with me. If you’ve read this book, what do you think? Did the final chapter fit the book for you? Let me know in the comments.

Fantastic Writing

As someone who enjoys history books, I find that often they’re dry reads. There’s a distance put between the author and the subject, which in turn puts a distance between the reader and the subject. History is about dates, times, places, ideas, movements, and, of course, wars. But boil all of those things down to their common denominator, and you’ll find humans. History is ultimately about people and the things we do. Historians that focus on the people tend to be the writers that I like the most. Lisle is that type of writer. Even when talking about a gadget, he never loses sight of the person testing, devising, proposing, or using the gadget. He’s got the craft of a fiction writer and the research skills of an academic. Reading this book was less like a lecture at a university than a chat between friends, or maybe a really cool podcast.

Actually, the podcast idea has grown on me as I write this because each chapter does feel like an episode with a beginning, middle, and end that advances the overall story of the OSS Research and Development Division. This is a book that’s easy to read, and it’s filled with fantastic information about my country’s past. It’s a win-win for me. Lisle’s writing in this book puts him on my author watchlist. I’ll be following his authorial career with interest.

Conclusion

John Lisle’s The Dirty Tricks Department is an excellent history of the OSS Research and Development Branch. The books takes a sympathetic view of Stanley Lovell and his efforts to shorten the war effort, even if it meant crossing ethical boundaries. Lisle shows us the inventions and spycraft developed during war time that paved the way for the CIA and espionage American-style. The Dirty Tricks Department is an excellent read and introduces us to a new voice in historical nonfiction. I can’t wait to read what Lisle does next. Highly recommended.

The Dirty Tricks Department by John Lisle is available from St. Martin’s Press now.

I read a lot of WWII fiction but I've been trying to pick up some nonfiction books about that period in history as I'm discovering a lot of the events were never covered in my history classes. The Dirty Tricks Department is about the OSS (the forerunner to the CIA), Stanley Lovell (the head of the R&D Branch), and their contributions to the war effort.

The book started off a little slowly as the men who ran the OSS are introduced. I worried that this was going to be too much of a textbook-type history book. But once the people were established, Lisle incorporated more anecdotes that broke up the facts. It never read like a novel, but some of the ideas that they came up with were so far out there that it was almost entertaining at times.

If you like history then this is definitely a book for you. However, I also think writers should add this book to their reference shelves. And I don't think it is just historical fiction writers that would find the information useful. There is definitely some good jumping off points for alternate history writers as well as dystopian and science fiction writers.

In reading WWII fiction, I realize I know very little about what was happening in the Pacific Theater. his book provided quite a few details about the challenges soldiers faced there.

I really liked the chapters about OSS's espionage efforts - documents, cover stories, and characters that they had to develop as well as some of the tactics employed by the spies. It really was the beginnings of the spycraft that I so love reading about in Cold War fiction. In these chapters, a few more names I recognized from my other reading popped up.

According to my Kindle, the main text is only about 63% of the book. The other 37% is made up of appendices (one which includes a soldiers' account in the Pacific which couldn't be fit in the main text), a bibliography (always a great resource for writers), and footnotes that provide more context to the information Lisle included in the main text.

I learned a lot by reading this book. Some of the information I had been aware of because of its use in novels I've read, but this book provided more background. But more often it was history that I had never been taught.

While it is focused mostly on the WWII years (the OSS was disbanded after the war and Stanley Lovell had been on family medical leave at the end the war), I liked that bridged the OSS time to the start-up of the CIA and how some of the projects OSS had been working on eventually become CIA projects.

My review will be published at Girl Who Reads on Friday, March 17 - https://www.girl-who-reads.com/2023/03/the-dirty-tricks-department-by-john.html

This book wasn't really what I thought it was going to be. I'm not entirely sure what I thought it would be, though. I think I had something more chronological in mind when I started. It wasn't a bad thing that it was different. It just wasn't what I expected.

It was really interesting hearing how some of these things came to be. Some of their methods for coming up with weapons almost sounds like cartoon character writers, not super secret, but very important government defense workers. I also was surprised to see what a prominent role rats played in defense attempts.

I think the most interesting part to me was learning about the undercover agents and every detail that went into creating a successful cover, even down to authentic underwear and shaving their teeth. We all know when a spy is detected, the consequences are dire, but wow. The woman spy they spoke about who was captured and tortured but survived is someone I won't soon forget. What a horrifying experience she endured. I don't think I would have the will to survive.

This was an interesting glimpse behind the curtain.

John Lisle’s book, “The Dirty Tricks Department: Stanley Lovell, the OSS, and the Masterminds of World War II Secret Warfare,” (Publication Date 7 Mar 2023, St. Martin's Press, EPUB ISBN 9781250280244), earns five stars.

This story centers around Stanley Lovell, who was a widely known industrial chemist mysteriously summoned to Washington, D.C., in 1942 for an interview. Medal of Honor recipient Brig Gen William Joseph “Wild Bill” Donovan interviewed him. Donovan, who was the head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). The OSS was the precursor to the Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the Central Intelligence Agency. Donovan hired Lovell on the spot, saying, “You know your Sherlock Holmes, of course. Professor Moriarty is the man I want for my staff…I think you’re it.”

This hiring resulted in Lovell leading a clandestine group of scientists and oddball inventors who developed “dirty tricks” (devices and technology) for use by the United States military forces and resistance fighters as a part of irregular warfare, which included assassination of foreign leaders, propaganda, fatal drugs, truth drug experiments on unsuspecting subjects, document forgery, secretive weapons, exploding pens, explosives masquerading as Aunt Jemima Flour…even bat bombs. Nothing was off the table, and all this, to defeat fascism. Extensive archival research and personal interviews were key to writing this book. Interestingly, the moral dilemmas that resulted from such existential efforts are addressed. In sum, this is a highly fascinating read…satisfying the secret agent in us, the technologist, and the adventurer.

Thanks to the publisher, St. Martin's Press, for granting this reviewer the opportunity to read this Advance Reader Copy (ARC), and thanks to NetGalley for helping to make that possible.

I received a copy of John Lisle's "The Dirty Tricks Department' from NetGalley. I thought I knew a fair amount about the history of the OSS and early years of the CIA. This book has information which I had not encountered anywhere else. I would highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in the OSS and the CIA.

From propaganda to Spies to an anime objects that delivered death Hitler was not short on tricks and he and those that would display them for the enemy. He was full of eight and had many different departments that help them continue his reign of terror on poor Jews and disabled people in those not going his status quo. He had many professionals equipped with the knowledge to bring even more terra to civilians and although some did it reluctantly some did it with a ferber that was scary. This is a great book in any World War II saying or history buff should definitely read it. I thought I knew all the words to know about Nazis and Hitler but learn so much reading this book it was not only informative but interesting a really great read. I received this book from NetGalley and Saint Martin’s press but I am leaving this review voluntarily please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

The original leader of the OSS was Bill Donovan, about whom I've read other books. This was the first time I also got a good look at chemist Stanley Lovell, who was told it was his job to be the Professor Moriarty of the OSS, something he took on with apparently gleeful enthusiasm.

This pair led a team of oddballs, science nerds, and determined experimenters to help out the war effort.As I was reading that, I kept thinking back to my teenage reading of Ian Fleming's James Bond yarns, and the trickster items like poison delivery systems (pens, etc), harmless items that turn into bombs, surreptitious cameras, and using bats and other creatures to carry weapons to blow up.

Lisle is clearly having fun writing about the The Dirty Tricks Department, their failures as well as their successes, so much fun that one could overlook the astounding amount of research he did. Well over a quarter of the book is citations.

I think I would have enjoyed this book more fully fifty years ago, before I was really aware of the fallout of such dirty tricks, especially against harmless bystanders. The glee with which these people played around with destructive materials reminds me of the glee with which the atom bomb developers played around with terrible forces of destruction. Brings home to me how our curious monkey forebears are not very far from us, are they? Especially in men. Though there were women on the team as well.

From start to finish I found this book fascinating. The Allies would stop at nothing to defeat the Germans and that meant they thought outside the box. No idea was dismissed and reading about those that they thought up and put into action ...well, on one hand I laughed a lot but I also had to face the fact that they would lead to deaths and that the fate of the world was first and foremost the goal. By any means necessary.
William "Wild Bill" Donovan decided that the scientist, Stanley Lovell, was the man for the job. Gathering together a group of scientists to create imaginative weapons of war and they were very good at what they did. These were not only things like bat bombs but valuable false papers needed by the agents dropped behind enemy lines - failure would mean their death.
John Lisle has written an engrossing and entertaining read and I will happily read anything else he decides to write.
My thanks to the publisher St. Martin's and to NetGalley for giving me an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.