Neal H. Petersen, ed., From Hitler’s Doorstep: The Wartime Intelligence Reports of Allen Dulles 1942-1945 (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 1995)/Gerald Schwab, OSS Agents in Hitler’s Heartland: Destination Innsbruck (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996)

Neal Petersen’s documentary volume covers the wartime reporting from just one major Office of Strategic Services observation post, Allen W. Dulles’ station in Bern, Switzerland, at which the future and first civilian Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director had arrived in November of 1942 to remain until the European war was won. Dulles, by training and experience, was well equipped to handle sensitive tasks. Petersen, a retired State Department historian who is with the CIA history office, has selected 708 dispatches and reports which show the variety of the information gathered through nets of informers mainly from France, Italy, and Germany. Petersen’s documentary treatment of the intelligence efforts of Office of Strategic Services Switzerland, run almost single-handedly by Allen Dulles, constitutes a milestone in the quest of intelligence historians to provide information and insight into the world of allied espionage during a bitter struggle against fascist regimes.