Abstract
A legal scholar at Lancashire Law School, Michael Salter has written a number of works concerning the Office of Strategic Services (the OSS) and postwar justice. The studies rely mainly on recently declassified OSS files and related war-crimes trial records. Salter's latest work aims to revise the prevalent notion that for the OSS, collecting information on the Holocaust was entirely incidental to the gathering of operational or political intelligence related to defeating Nazi Germany. Salter argues that OSS officials, from Director William Donovan to intelligence field officers such as Allen Dulles, recognized the Holocaust as qualitatively different from other Nazi crimes. They collected evidence consciously, tracked plundered property, carried out rescue operations when feasible, and helped prepare the trials of Nazi perpetrators. Salter does not seek full revision; that is, he does not argue that the OSS made the Holocaust a top priority. As he has written elsewhere, Dulles helped Heinrich Himmler's chief of staff, Karl Wolff, escape justice. But he does add a great deal of nuance. Moreover, his thorough reading of OSS records and his careful citations provide important signposts for scholars conducting research in this area.
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