OSS

The wartime service that never really demobilized — it just changed letterhead.

The Office of Strategic Services (1942-45): Donovan's wartime intelligence and special operations service, disbanded 1945, reconstituted as CIG then CIA (1947) with substantial personnel continuity (Dulles, Helms, Angleton — documented careers). Its Research & Analysis branch built the academic-intelligence pipeline; its operational culture (deniable action, elite recruitment) carried straight across. The node exists for lineage: the agency the theories describe was born as a war measure and never demobilized, which is simply administrative history.