Cooking Intrigue

Julia Child was a spy. Among documents the government had released to the national archives was a list of over 24,000 names of people who worked for the old OSS in World War 2. The list, made public this week, included famed TV chef Julia Child, Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, actors, writers, and even a major league baseball player.

They were soldiers, actors, historians, lawyers, athletes, professors, reporters. But for several years during World War II, they were known simply as the OSS. They studied military plans, created propaganda, infiltrated enemy ranks and stirred resistance among foreign troops.

Among the more than 35,000 OSS personnel files are applications, commendations and handwritten notes identifying young recruits who, like Child, Goldberg and Berg, earned greater acclaim in other fields — Arthur Schlesinger Jr., a historian and special assistant to President Kennedy; Sterling Hayden, a film and television actor whose work included a role in "The Godfather"; and Thomas Braden, an author whose "Eight Is Enough" book inspired the 1970s television series.