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Deep Dish That Wasn't: Julia Was A Spy

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 20, 2008

The news wires buzzed last week about recently released classified documents that showed culinary icon Julia Child worked as a spy during World War II.

Pretty big scoop. Only it wasn't.

Child detailed her involvement with the pre-CIA Office of Strategic Services in her posthumously published 2006 book, "My Life in France," which she wrote with Alex Prud'homme. She joined the OSS partly because, at 6 feet 2 inches, she was too tall to serve for the WACs and WAVES. (Tom Brokaw also wrote about her service in his 1998 book, "The Greatest Generation.")

She met her husband, Paul, in Ceylon in the summer of 1944, when they both had been posted there by the OSS. Paul was an artist, and he'd been recruited to create war rooms where British Gen. Louis Mountbatten could review the intelligence that our agents had sent in from the field. Julia was head of the Registry, where, among other things, she processed agents' reports from the field and other top-secret papers. During her OSS career, she utilized her skills for keeping things orderly by categorizing them. She also helped develop a signal mirror for downed pilots.

Jeff Houck

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