Julia Child

Appetit. Bon Appetit.

by Robert Daeley, Thu, 2008-08-14

Julia Child avec un poisson

Yes, that fish might go off at any moment. The late Julia Child, famous chef and writer, was a spy during WWII. Now, in real life (i.e., not a James Bond movie) you'd expect a spy to be someone who fades into the woodwork, looks inconspicuous, doesn't attract attention. That the over six-foot, boisterous Child was a spy might come as a bit of a shock.

BBC News: "US celebrities spied during WWII":

It was already known that Mrs Child - the doyenne of US television cookery shows, who died in 2004 - had worked for the OSS, but the documentation includes several new details about her history.

When Mrs Child applied to work for the agency, she admitted at least one failing - impulsiveness. In her OSS application, she included a note expressing regret that she had left a department store job because she did not get along with her boss.

"I made a tactical error and was out," she explained.

Her Wikipedia article has more details of her days with the OSS:

She started out at OSS Headquarters in Washington, working directly for General William J. Donovan, the leader of OSS. Working as a research assistant in the Secret Intelligence division, Julia typed up thousands of names on white note cards used to keep track of officers.

For a year, she worked at the OSS Emergency Sea Rescue Equipment Section in Washington, D.C., where she was a file clerk and also helped in the development of a shark repellent to ensure that sharks would not explode ordnance targeting German U-boats. In 1944 she was posted to Kandy, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), where she met her future husband, a high-ranking OSS cartographer, and later to China, where she received the Emblem of Meritorious Civilian Service as head of the Registry of the OSS Secretariat.