Major General William J. Donovan                     9

sider how seldom a college graduate of your acquaintance is
truly fluent in a foreign language. Quite the contrary is true
among graduates of European universities. This fact has pre¬
sented problems even in overt intelligence, since we are pitifully
weak in the numbers of those who can regularly translate and
evaluate such publications from behind the Iron Curtain as be¬
come available to us. It also has rendered difficult the task of
propaganda abroad, and of course presents tremendous obstacles
to our use of native clandestine agents under cover in a foreign
country. Apart from a small band of scholars, American agents
on European soil during World War II largely comprised first
or second generation Americans with a heritage derived from
the specific land being liberated by our forces. These also were
limited to those who had not neglected their mother tongue, as
so many immigrants understandably but regrettably have done
in order to become "more Americanized." We now have hope¬
ful signs that our national deficiency in foreign languages should
decrease in the years to come, but, for the present, this fact re¬
mains a formidable obstacle by reason of the limitation which it
imposes upon our intelhgence and diplomatic forces.

Strategic intelligence, then, is obtained principally by overt,
but also clandestine, means. Having obtained such information
the next step in the intelligence process is proper evaluation. The
importance of this function cannot be over-emphasized, for a
simple fact which would be of no interest to the ordinary per¬
son can be tremendously significant to a trained expert in any
specific field. Dramatic examples of this occurred in World War
II. Expert study of photographic surveys obtained through aerial
reconnaissance led to recognition of rocket platforms built to
launch the V-i rockets; individual deaths among commissioned
German Army officers, reported in German newspapers, could
be used to determine total enemy casualties and at times even
the location of military units.

Accordingly, it is basic that raw intelligence data must be
carefully evaluated and sifted by experts before it will serve its