‘Propaganda Girls: The Secret War of the Women in the OSS’
By Lisa Rogak
St. Martin’s Press, 240 Pages

Betty MacDonald, Zuzka Lauwers, Jane Smith-Hutton, and the actress Marlene Dietrich all worked for the Office of Strategic Services during World War II under the leadership of an iconoclast, Wild Bill Donovan, whose legendary exploits in spy and propaganda operations continued on in the postwar years in the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency. 

Lauwers was Czech and Dietrich German, but the war made them Americans — so much so that Lauwers found it impossible to live in Czechoslovakia after the Allied victory, and Dietrich shunned German relatives who had collaborated with the Nazis, considering her propaganda/entertainment efforts the highlight of her life, surpassing anything she had done in her film career.

MacDonald, Lauwers, and Smith-Hutton conceived and wrote what was called black propaganda — distributed often in leaflets dropped from planes, telling Axis troops, for example, that they were losing, it was time to surrender, and the women back home were not going to wait for them much longer. Donovan, who shared none of the Army’s prejudice against employing women, watched them thrive while concocting schemes that led to enemy desertions, though, of course, not every black propaganda ruse succeeded.

Lauwers confronted not only the prejudice of male superiors but the contempt of fellow employees who scorned her poor English, which got progressively better during the war. MacDonald, after years of futile effort to break into the business of hard news while dealing with male bosses who wanted her to stick to subjects such as women’s fashion, relished writing stories that always had a grain of truth in them, no matter how far-fetched they seemed.

These women became expert forgers of military orders, and in perfecting rumors that undermined the morale of Axis soldiers. They positively relished their fabrications — one of them even saying women were better at it than men. Operating under order of strict secrecy, their stories have now been liberated, so to speak, in Lisa Rogak’s deft narrative.  

Ms. Rogak shows how the war affected the personal lives of these intrepid women and sometimes led to failed marriages. It was difficult for a wife to settle back into the routines of pre-war life when every move and important decision was made by men.

A special case in this book is Marlene Dietrich. She had a visceral hatred of Nazis. She went to the frontlines despite the dangers and exposure to extreme weather, in situations that were the antithesis of her studio-managed film career.

So caught up in the war, Dietrich looked back upon her Hollywood years with loathing — all that time spent worrying about how she should be lit and dressed. In war, no makeup or crew was there to support her, and she loved it, engaging in what might be called kissing parties with American soldiers. She adored them and they returned her affection.

After the war, Dietrich reluctantly returned to moviemaking to support herself. A notable role in “Judgment at Nuremberg” troubled her, especially when she refused to say a line delivered by her German character, who claimed she knew nothing about the Nazi Holocaust. Spencer Tracy had to intervene, saying, “Only from you will they believe it.” She delivered the line but remained enraged that she had to do so.

It took time for all of these women to readjust to life after war, when getting a job became difficult because servicemen were given priority. Ms. Rogak does a splendid job of showing how all of the women adjusted nonetheless, resuming or starting new careers, new marriages, and living on to their 90s.

Ms. Rogak moves back and forth between the lives of these four women, allowing readers to see both the commonalities between them and their distinctiveness. As a result, she builds up a powerful sense of how each woman made winning the war her mission.

Although including a star like Dietrich might have overwhelmed the stories of the other women, Ms. Rogak does not allow that to happen by showing that like her fellow OSS operatives, Dietrich had to navigate with a determined loyalty to a cause greater than herself, a cause that put in perspective the fakery of Hollywood that, come to think of it, all of these women employed to fool all of those men fighting against them.

Mr. Rollyson is the author of “Beautiful Exile: The Life of Martha Gellhorn.”