ABSTRACT
The Enemy Objectives Unit and the joint SI-R&A intelligence-processing partnership each had the opportunity to shake free of the confusion that crippled R&A’s potential, and to validate R&A’s theoretical advantages. They were notable efforts in OSS’s attempt to secure maximum influence, and to establish a distinctive American approach to intelligence in accordance with Donovan’s original conception. They were R&A/ London’s most potentially suitable weapons, with EOU being particularly well regarded inside OSS; but their experiences actually illuminated two unforeseen dangers inherent in the whole R&A experiment with crafting intelligence analysis. Despite demonstrating R&A’s possible reach when appropriately tasked, EOU permitted analysts to be policy advocates rather than strictly objective specialized data-processors. The joint SI-R&A entity, known by the combined acronym SIRA, hoped in late 1944 to achieve a measure of direct R&A input into OSS intelligence processing usually absent in the ETO. SIRA instead demonstrated R&A’s marginalization in connection with intelligence handling, and the usurpation of R&A’s status as the chief conduit for reporting. While EOU was especially culpable for abandoning objectivity in favour of its own agenda to the point of openly defying the high command, both units fell disappointingly short of the target Donovan had set for R&A.
