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In the Devil's Shadow: U.N. Special Operations During the Korean War. By Michael E. Haas. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2000. ISBN: 1-55750-344-3. 243 pages. $33.
It would not be surprising if many who served in the Korean War saw it as an aftershock or echo of World War II, which had ended only five years earlier. With few exceptions, the organizations, equipment, weapons and uniforms were the same as those used during World War II. The generals were World War II generals, and because of the presidential decision to call up reserve officers, even a great many of the company-grade officers were World War II veterans.
In the earlier war, excepting the great Philippine guerrilla-warfare effort, what is now titled special operations had been almost exclusively the province of the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS. Service leaders, except for General Douglas MacArthur, did not view that as a strange or hostile arrangement. From the early days of World War II, the OSS was subordinate to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, it provided liaison to major field commands, and it drew most of its operational personnel from the services.
The OSS had been disbanded soon after the war ended, but it had been replaced within a few months by the Central Intelligence Group, which soon became the Central Intelligence Agency. The new agency drew on the services, particularly the Army, for operational personnel, in much the same way that the OSS had done. Given these similarities and the interagency agreements that said that in wartime the CIA would support the regional military commander, one can easily understand how military commanders could have expected that in Korea the CIA would reprise the OSS's World War II role. That was not to be.
The CIA saw a need to make a reputation, and not one as merely a handmaiden to the services. It therefore took a very independent tack and conducted its own...