The United States Office of Strategic Services was established in 1942, being an offshoot of an agency formed in 1941, known as the Coordinator of Information, at the head of which was Colonel William J Donovan.  Its task was to pool information gathered by all of the intelligence services and to coordinate and organise psychological warfare in the event of the United States entering the war.  Since 1941 Donovan had been in touch with the author of this