First, sad news that Ms. Child died1. Even though she was 91, and obviously not at full strength, she was always so full of life. We really love watching her cooking show when they run marathon episodes on PBS.
Second, she was a spy for the OSS? Wacky. Though, there were a lot of famous persons who worked for the OSS during WWII.
Before Julia Child became known to the world as a leading chef, she admitted at least one failing when applying for a job as a spy: impulsiveness.
Details about Child’s background as a government agent come into the public spotlight Thursday with the National Archives’ release of more than 35,000 top-secret personnel files of World War II-era spies. The CIA held this information for decades.
The 750,000 documents identify the vast spy network managed by the Office of Strategic Services, which later became the CIA. President Franklin Roosevelt created the OSS, the country’s first centralized intelligence operation.
Child’s file shows that in her OSS application, she included a note expressing regret she left an earlier department store job hastily because she did not get along with her boss, said William Cunliffe, an archivist who has worked extensively with the OSS records at the National Archives.
The OSS files offer details about other agents, including Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, baseball player Moe Berg, historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and film actor Sterling Hayden.
Other notables identified in the files include John Hemingway, son of author Ernest Hemingway; Kermit Roosevelt, son of President Theodore Roosevelt; and Miles Copeland, father of Stewart Copeland, drummer for the band The Police.
[From JULIA CHILD, SPY: Julia Child a World War II-era spy — chicagotribune.com]
We’ll miss you, Ms. Child.
Footnotes:- according to the so-far brief obituary, Ms. Child died in her sleep August 12, 2008, at her home in Santa Barbara [↩]