Assessment of Men: Selection of Personnel for the Office of Strategic Services
New York: Rinehart & Company, Inc., (1948). First printing. Black & white photos, data tables. Hardcover. Octavo. xvi, 541 pages. Bound in brick red cloth over boards with spine and upper board titled and ruled in black and silver gilt. Clean and bright overall, with a few minor extremity rubs. Prior owner bookplate on front pastedown. The dust jacket has rubs along joint folds, some edge chips, and some sun-fading along on front panel. There are a few tears along jacket folds expertly repaired with archival tissue. Near fine in a good dust jacket.
The scarce account of efforts by the Office of Strategic Services to get control of their recruiting of operatives in the middle of World War II. The OSS was founded in 1942 to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for all branches of the U.S. military. By late 1943 the new agency was busily and somewhat hazardously recruiting personnel without any sort of formal screening process. This risky situation led to the creation of the psychological-psychiatric assessment program detailed herein, which aimed at better predictions of an individual's behavior in a variety of stressful circumstances.
The OSS under William Donovan was of course the precursor to the CIA, and this foundational work is tough to find indeed.
Item #1164
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