The Pentagon is reclaiming a storied wartime name and a larger official footprint.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth used X to deliver a short declaration: "The OSS is back." The post marked a formal return, in name and stature, of the Office of Strategic Services, the World War II organization built for the country's hardest missions.
A follow-up message from the official OSS account described the original office as the work of "some of WWII's most visionary minds" and said it "carried American resolve into the hardest places and against the most determined enemies." "It embodied the determination of Americans who believed they could achieve the impossible. Today, after 81 years, the OSS returns," the post said.
The redesignation, the same post said, strengthens Special Operations Forces representation within the Department of War and "reaffirms America's commitment to the forces entrusted with the Nation's most demanding missions." Assistant Secretary of War for the Office of Strategic Services Derrick Anderson then issued a longer statement explaining what the change means.
"Today, I am pleased to announce that Secretary Hegseth has signed a pivotal memorandum enabling the ASW(SO/LIC) to fully exercise its statutory authority in line with Congress's intent by elevating the office to Under Secretary of War equivalence and restoring its name to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS)," Anderson wrote. He said the action is a pledge that operators "sent into the hardest places, entrusted with the gravest responsibilities, and called upon when all else has failed will have a voice equal to the burden placed upon their shoulders."
Anderson added that those forces "will be given the resources, authority, and support required to prepare, to endure, and to prevail." "In honoring our Special Operators, we honor the courage, sacrifice, and unbreakable American spirit that has carried this Nation through its hardest hours and will carry us forward still," he wrote.
The announcement drew a flurry of questions about what, if anything, the move means for the Central Intelligence Agency, which has long claimed the OSS lineage. RedState noted that Hegseth has been pushing the military back to basics, and that The Washington Post's Zach Dorfman was among those reacting.
"The CIA has long carried the banner of being the inheritor of the OSS; its founding generation and most of its leading lights were OSS vets. Dulles, Helms, Wisner, Colby, Casey, and many others were OSS alums. The Pentagon reclaiming the OSS mantle is a big, big, statement," Dorfman wrote. The post captured the central question hanging over Hegseth's announcement: whether the Pentagon is now formally reclaiming a legacy the CIA has treated as its own.
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