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

Journalist Rogak (Angry Optimist) offers a riveting portrait of four women who worked as Allied propagandists during WWII. Recruited by the OSS department of Morale Operations, the women produced reams of “black propaganda” meant to pass as authentically German or Japanese. Rogak’s subjects include Hawaiian reporter Betty MacDonald, who­—tired of writing puff pieces and fluent in Japanese­—found purpose drafting “official” orders to be airdropped into the Pacific theater letting Japanese soldiers know they were no longer required to fight to the death, and Bozena “Zuzka” Lauwers, a linguist and refugee from Czechoslovakia who crafted demoralizing propaganda targeted at German troops (including pamphlets from the fake “League of Lonely War Women” advertising that Germany’s women would patriotically sleep with any German soldier while their own men were away). Also profiled is famed German actor and war refugee Marlene Dietrich, who, in a clever reversal, delivered OSS-penned radio broadcasts supposedly intended for American troops in Europe, in which she would occasionally slip into her native language as if desperately trying to deliver a message to Germans about their dire situation (the producer would actually yank her microphone away). Filled with thrilling accounts of counterfeit code journals, fraudulent newspapers, and even phony astrology entries, Rogak’s narrative also spotlights how such espionage games became addictive (“Never again would I feel so alive,” MacDonald later wrote). WWII buffs will be hooked. (Mar.)