Books: "Propaganda Girls" By Lisa Rogak, On An Unknown Part of World War II

 

Propaganda Girls: The Secret War of the Women in the OSS

By Lisa Rogak

St. Martin's Press; hardcover, 240 pages; $29.00

Lisa Rogak is the author of numerous books including And Nothing But the Truthiness: The Rise (and Further Rise) of Stephen Colbert, and Angry Optimist: The Life and Times of Jon Stewart, and she was the editor of Barack Obama in His Own Words, which was a New York Times bestseller.

In the new enlightening book, Propaganda Girls, Rogak sheds light on an unknown story of one of the most covert and successful military operations from World War II. 

It was done by four women who worked as members of the Office of Strategic Services, under the command of General "Wild Bill" Donovan, the precursor of the CIA. Their task was to create a secret brand of propaganda, produced with the main goal of breaking the morale of Axis soldiers. They worked in the European theater, across enemy lines in occupied China.

Each woman involved had a captivating background, starting with German-American actress and singer Marlene Dietrich, who was one of the biggest perfomers of the 20th century. Elizabeth "Betty" MacDonald was a 28-year-old woman from Hawaii; Zuzka Lauwers grew up in a tiny Czechoslovakian village and knew five languages by her 21st birthday; and Jane Smith-Hutton was the wife of a naval attache who lived in Tokyo.

Only a small group of spies knew what this fearsome foursome known as "Donovan's Dreamers" was doing, as they created what was known as "black propaganda," which was defined as any public or private media that was viewed as originating from within the enemy country. The trick was to make it seem like it came from a resistance movement or from disgruntled soldiers and civilians.

Some of the tactics they did included the forging of letters and "official" military orders. They wrote and produced entire newspapers, scripted radio broadcasts and songs, and created rumors for undercover spies and double agents to spread to the enemy. The ultimate goal was to make the enemy soldiers lose heart in their mission and eventually surrender.

In this excerpt, Rogak writes about what made these women unique for this work: Donovan liked quirky people, and Betty, Zuzka, Jane, and Marlene definitely fit the bill. All had careers that were highly unusual for women in the 1930s and '40s, and they all yearned to escape the gender restrictions of the day that dictated they be mothers and wives, or teachers or nurses if they absolutely had to work. They all wanted more than their present lives provided, though they never lost sight of the fact that their efforts would have just one aim: to help win the war and bring American soldiers back home.

Their motivations for joining the OSS differed - two wanted vengeance, two craved adventure - and one served stateside while three headed overseas. But the one thing they shared in common was that all four were determined to serve their country in the best way they could: by using their brains.

Every office and project in every theater was woefully understaffed, so the women quickly learned to multitask everything while happily taking advantage of the utter lack of supervision to call their own shots. While the women often turned to spies and agents for intel to help them craft their writings, they occasionally had to do the dirty work themselves.

And because the work was so clandestine, when it came to paying contract workers and locals for their assignments, a little bit of creativity was in order: Betty became well practiced at slicing off the exact amount of opium to compensate a Burmese spy, while Zuzka paid a group of German POWs with an afternoon at a local Italian brothel.

The four women loved their jobs along with the autonomy they brought, while at the same time faced a boatload of challenges regardless of where they were serving. The women had to constantly fight for promotions and recognition, as well as deal with rampant sexism. Often, after her workday was done, Betty was called upon to serve coffee and sandwiches to her male coworkers, while Zuzka played cocktail waitress, serving drinks to male officers who she had brainstormed alongside just minutes before. But they took it in stride. As Zuzka put it, "Scheuklappen, we were always reminded, German for blinders," she said. "Just look straight ahead at what you're doing, and don't worry about what the other guys are doing."

The stakes were high: They knew that not every "believable lie" they made up worked out, and there was the hard truth that people died as a result of their brainstorms. "I tried to push it out of my head," said Betty.

The women also faced constant danger, and their own lives were often at risk: Betty worked in India and behind enemy lines in China, where a sizable contingent of locals didn't want the Americans interfering in their affairs. Zuzka regularly interrogated German POWs who could snuff out her life with one well-aimed finger to the throat. And Hitler had placed a bounty on Marlene's capture from the moment she became a US citizen.

But if one more leaflet, radio broadcast, or well-turned phrase would cause just one German soldier to feel that maybe Hitler wasn't worth fighting for any longer, well then it was worth the twelve-hour days, giant bugs, lousy food,  and living in tents thousands of miles from home."