1941.07.15 “How Can Uncle Get Him Across?”
by Murray A Harris (1911-1997)
12 x 15 in., ink on board
Coppola Collection
Harris was a cartooning enthusiast and comics-art collector since childhood. His obsession bloomed in about 1916, when 5-year-old Murray hunkered over the Sunday funnies in his parents’ Boston parlor and began copying the beloved “Mutt and Jeff” onto scraps of paper. Harris later studied fine-art techniques of painting and illustration at the Massachusetts School of Art, and later at the Boston Museum of Fine Art and Harvard University. He shadowed the art departments of Boston’s daily newspapers, peering over artists’ shoulders and snatching discarded sketches from their wastebaskets for later study. And he jumped into the field as a professional, drawing newspaper illustrations, whiskey labels and drugstore ads. Over his lifetime, he amassed a well-known collection of original art, and I own a few of his pieces, which are stamped with “From the collection of Murray A Harris.”
FDR relied heavily on American and British friends traveling abroad to provide him with intelligence on the intentions of other leaders. One such friend was William J. Donovan, an aficionado of intelligence and a veteran of World War I, whom Roosevelt sent to Europe in 1940 to gather information on the stability of Britain and again in the spring of 1941 to gather information on Italian Dictator Mussolini, among other matters.
Upon his return, Donovan lobbied hard for the creation of a centralized, civilian intelligence apparatus to complement that of the military.
On July 11, 1941, in response to Donovan's urging, Roosevelt appointed Donovan as Coordinator of Information to form a non-military intelligence organization. The Coordinator of Information was to "collect and analyze all information and data which may bear upon the national security" for the President and those he designated. The Coordinator was given the authority, "with the approval of the President," to request data
from other agencies and departments but was specifically admonished not to interfere with the duties and responsibilities of the President's military and naval advisers.
The attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese on December 7, 1941, brought America into the war and revealed a significant failure on the part of the US intelligence apparatus. As subsequent investigations found, intelligence had been handled in a casual, uncoordinated manner, and there had been insufficient attention to certain collection requirements.
Through an evolution of agencies, this effort culminates in 1947 with the National Security Act and the formation of the CIA.
