Page "Richard Helms" Paragraph 13

Casey assigned Helms to supervise the London office in preparing and dispatching OSS-trained German volunteers who were to be dropped, with false papers and portable radios ( then awkward and heavy ), into Nazi Germany to collect military information.

They were provided with lethal pills in case of capture.

Helms describes riding with one such agent at night, seeing him off at an unlit airfield.

Few survived.

His colleagues report that Helms reached conclusions derived from his wartime experience, and formed two general convictions: secret intelligence matters ; but covert action " dering-do " seldom does.