![]() At a news conference when asked about an OPC ruling, he answered, “I can’t speak for the OPC.” That is, until an aide whispered in his ear, “You are the director of the OPC.” Ickes was confused by all the initials too. The secretary of the interior, Harold Ickes, was also director of the Office of Petroleum Coordination. ![]() “Six months into the war, there were so many new agencies, all known by their initials that nobody could keep them straight.” OPC, OWI, WPB, OPA, WMC, BEW, NWLB, ODT, WSA, OCD, OEM … and I will add those from the OSS since that’s where my mother worked … COI, SI, X-2, SO, OG, R&A, MO. I laughed so many times during the book at Brinkley’s sense of humor. In 1941 my mother, Hedy Allen, arrived in Washington to be one of the vast number of “government girls” who came to work as stenographers, typists, and file clerks for the myriad of new government agencies that were popping up every week. What interested me the most was how it changed from a sleepy town to the chaotic center of the free world. ![]() His book is copiously researched and begins with a history of the creation of the city itself. He then worked in Atlanta and Nashville for UPI (United Press International) before moving to Washington, D.C. A year later he was misdiagnosed with a kidney ailment and honorably discharged. I finally found in a article explaining that in 1940, he volunteered for the Army. Brinkley writes nothing about his personal military involvement in the war. ![]() (1988) In his book Washington Goes to War, newscaster and journalist David Brinkley tells the story of the transformation of the capital city during World War II. ![]()
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