OSS

How World War II Could Have Ended Without Hiroshima

Bill Thompson

Today, August 6, is the 80th anniversary of the day the United States became the first – and so far, only – nation to use a nuclear weapon in war.

The Enola Gay dropped a bomb codenamed “Little Boy” that destroyed the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

It was soon after the U.S. dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki three days later that Japan surrendered. But could that surrender have happened without those two bombings?

We now know that in the spring of 1945 an American intelligence officer was tasked with getting messages to Tokyo, opening the door to a peaceful surrender.

That officer was then-27-year-old Martin Quigley, who was with the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS — the forerunner of the CIA.

Through complicated diplomatic maneuvers that sound like something out of a spy thriller quickly accomplished his mission.

So what happened?

Quigley explored that question in a 1991 book that he wrote, called Peace Without Hiroshima. He and I talked about it one summer day in 1991 when he was on a book tour.

So here now, from 1991, Martin Quigley.

Martin Quigley died in 2011. He was 93.

A World War II Double Life: OSS Spy Aline, Countess of Romanones

Bill Thompson

It’s 1943, and the war in Europe is raging. The United States and the Allies are looking for every way to gain an advantage over the Axis powers.

And that, of course, includes espionage.

This is where a 20-year-old model from New York comes in. Aline Griffith was recruited by the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS – which, of course, later became the CIA.

Get your copy of Aline, Countess of Romanones’s book

At “spy school” Aline learned the essentials of being a spy, including how to kill when necessary,

She was then posted to Madrid, Spain, where she became active as a socialite, scooping up intelligence from the gossip she overheard.

After the war, Aline married a Spanish aristocrat, eventually acquiring the title Aline, Countess of Romanones.

And in 1987 she wrote a bestselling book about her World War II spying, called The Spy Wore Red. I first met her the following year.

So here now, from 1988, Aline, Countess of Romanones.

Aline Countess of Romanones, died in 2017. She was 94.