In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

ZINN THE SPY In its world-wide search for missing men, the Air Forces had to adopt a system. If it had a name, it might well be the Zinn System, for Fred Zinn member of the Air Service in World War I, blazed the trail. —Coronet, May 1946 Frederick Zinn’s journey into the world of counterespionage started out with good intentions. Fred had been a lieutenant colonel in the reserves, but the army offered him a chance to come in as a major attached to the OSS. Fred turned down the offer. Instead Fred proposed coming in as a civilian. This was not unheard of, for the OSS had a number of civilians in the ‹eld, but they tended to be indigenous personnel in the countries in which the army was poised. American civilians serving in the OSS in the ‹eld were a rarity. The OSS and Fred Zinn entered into a mutually agreeable relationship if not a precarious one. The OSS saw Fred Zinn’s desire to be on the ground, looking for missing airmen, as a perfect cover for an intelligence man. By supporting Zinn’s efforts the OSS was hoping that he would be uniquely poised to gather intelligence for them. For his part, Fred saw the OSS as a means to an end. His focus was solely on his plan for coordinating the search for missing air crews. The OSS was a vehicle that could provide him with unparalleled access to territory that the army occupied so he could conduct his work. Fred was attached to the X2 branch of the OSS, formally known as counterintelligence. This branch was responsible for gathering intelligence to be turned against the enemies of the Allies, defeating the German and Italian intelligence organizations in the ‹eld. For someone operating alone in the ‹eld, counterintelligence was the best possible placement. One of the criteria for being a civilian in the OSS was to have some 155 9 cover. The OSS gave him some guidance on how to establish this but left creating his cover story up to him. For this, Fred initially turned to his contacts in Battle Creek to attempt to provide him with a reason to be on the ground. The solution he pursued was to leverage his long-standing relationship with the Kellogg family and the Kellogg Foundation. Fred had been an informal adviser to the board of the Kellogg Foundation for several years, one of the perks of living in a small city and being a citizen of some renown. Fred called for a meeting of the Kellogg Foundation board and explained the mission that he was preparing to undertake: to help organize the efforts to recover the remains of missing airmen. It was one that was in alignment with the Kellogg Foundation’s charitable efforts, and Dr. Richard Kellogg led the board in agreeing to sponsor Fred Zinn’s labors. The foundation did not record the meeting minutes since Fred was going to be operating in the OSS on a covert mission . Cover letters from Dr. Kellogg were prepared for him. Any suspicious individual that pulled Fred’s credentials would ‹nd that he was working for the Kellogg Foundation on a humanitarian mission.1 It was a perfect cover because it was not a lie; he was a member of the foundation. Fred believed that just having a letter from the Kellogg Foundation might not be enough to prove his legitimacy should he encounter German or Italian authorities. During World War I he had cultivated a number of relationships within the Red Cross, and he felt that having a letter from one of them might help his cover story hold water should he be exposed or need help from local Red Cross of‹cials. Fred reached out to Richard Allen, vice chairman of the American Red Cross, and convinced him to provide a letter of reference as well. In part it read, “Mr. Zinn is a responsible citizen, a resident of Battle Creek, Michigan, and is well-known to some of our national headquarters staff. He has no of‹cial connection with the American Red Cross, but if there are any courtesies which you can render him during his stay in North Africa, we would appreciate it. He probably will wish to be presented to the French Red Cross people and that would seem to be a service which we should properly render him. We hope, as a result of Mr. Zinn’s visit...

Share