Before She Became The Ardelia Hall of the Department of State, Part I: Miss Hall and the Office of Strategic Services

Today’s post was written by Dr. Greg Bradsher, Senior Archivist at the National Archives in College Park, MD.

Anyone studying World War II and postwar issues regarding cultural property knows the name Ardelia Hall, either because they know of her work as Monuments and Fine Arts adviser at the Department of State from 1946 to 1962 and/or have used the records at the National Archives termed the “Ardelia Hall Collections.”^[1]  But few people know anything about her before July 1, 1946.  Thanks to the recent article by Victoria Reed, Sadler Curator for Provenance at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, we have more information about Hall’s earlier career.^[2]   I thought it would be useful to add to Dr. Reed’s work with this paper, concentrating on Hall’s work with the Office of Strategic Services (1943-1945) and as a consultant to the State Department (1945-1946).

Ardelia Ripley Hall was born in Weymouth, Massachusetts on December 4, 1899.  She attended Smith College, studying English, Art, History, and Sociology, graduating with a BA in 1922. From September 1922 to January 1928 she worked as a research assistant at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.  During those years she also attended Columbia University (1925-1927), receiving her MA in 1927 where she specialized in Chinese language and culture.  She also attended New York University during 1926-1927, taking classes in Chinese history and language.  To make ends meet she worked from January 1925 to June 1926, in various administrative capacities at the Textile Color Card Association, a Trade Association.  From December 1929 to June 1930 she was at Columbia University writing Social Science Abstracts.  In June 1930 she went to work at the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston.  She was also affiliated from 1930 to 1933 with the then newly established Harvard-Yenching Institute, dealing with Asian scholarship.^[3]

At the MFA she held administrative and curatorial positions.  She did research in Chinese, Japanese, and Tibetan art and worked with the Indian, Indonesian, and Near Eastern collections.  She worked first for Kôjirô Tomita, Keeper of Japanese Art and then Ananda Coomaraswamy, Keeper of Indian, Persian, and Muhammadian Art.  She resigned from the MFA in September 1941 to get married.  But the marriage did not take place and she was unable to be reinstated in her previous job.  She did, however, come back to the MFA for a very short period early in 1942 to assist the museum in evacuating its more important works of Asian art. ^[4]

In very early 1942 Hall began applying for new positions.  She contacted Columbia University, the Nelson Gallery and Atkins Museum, the U.S. Civil Service Commission, and the State Department.  On April 11, 1942 she wrote to former University of Michigan economics professor and expert in American investments in China Dr. Charles F. Remer of the Far East Section, of the Coordinator of Information (COI), the predecessor of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), and enclosed an application for employment with the COI.^[5]

In April 1942, Hall picked up her freelance writing career with the Christian Science Monitor, for which she had written occasionally for since 1934.  During the next ten months she contributed about fifty articles.  Knowing she could not live on the monies she was making as a freelance writer, in September she took the civil service Junior Professional Assistant Examination and applied for Federal employment on January 25, 1943.  On her application she listed the types of work she preferred as editorial, administrative, or research.  She noted on her application that she possessed knowledge of the historical, religious, and cultural backgrounds of China, India, Indonesia, and the Near East and that she had published articles in various journals in the Chinese, Indian, and Islamic fields.^[6]

The OSS was interested in hiring her.  On February 27, 1943, Remer, having just become chief of the Far East Division, Research and Analysis (R&A) Branch ^[7], wrote the Branch Chief, Dr. William L. Langer, that he would like to have Hall appointed to a position with his division and that she had been interviewed about the job.  Langer approved the appointment and at the end of March offered her a position, which she immediately accepted.  The 5’ 1”, 110 pound Ardelia Hall, with hazel eyes and graying hair, reported to work with the OSS on April 1, as Assistant Research Analyst, with the Editorial Reference Section, Far East Division, R&A Branch.^[8]

The R&A Branch Hall joined, was divided into four regional divisions (Europe-Africa, Far East, USSR, Latin America), each comprising Economics, Political and Geographic Subdivisions.  Each of these were in turn composed of several sections to handle specific subjects such as transport, population and manpower, industrial and military supplies, agriculture and standards of living, and localized areas.  These divisions conducted research and produced reports and studies that dealt with historical, geographic, economic, political, racial, religious, social and military conditions and problems in the various parts of the world for the use in determining national policy in the conduct of the war and for military operations.^[9]

The R&A Branch, in which Hall found herself, had a staff of approximately 550 people. Two-thirds of the staff were professionals – geographers, economists, historians, political scientists, sociologists, etc., including many outstanding scholars in their respective fields. These included the branch chief, Dr. Langer, a Harvard History Professor, and such prominent scholars as Edward S. Mason, Walt W. Rostow, Moses Abramowitz, Crane Brinton, Gordon Craig, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Franklin Ford, Sherman Kent, Morris Janowitz, Barrington Moore, Geroid T. Robinson, Perry Miller, Harold Deutsch, Conyers Read, Emile Despres, Chandler Morse, Franz L. Neumann, Herbert Marcuse, Otto Kirchheimer, Felix Gilbert, Hajo Holborn, Walter Dorn, Paul Tillich, and Richard Hartshorne.  Nearly 100 members of the staff were members of the Armed Services and about 90 percent of the staff work was in Washington, the balance, in the several outposts of the branch.^[10]

It was a man’s world in which Hall found herself, much the same in many respects as the museum world from which she had come.^[11]  Professional women were relatively few in number and they were generally not recruited and, once recruited were often not well-utilized.  In a number of the regional subdivisions there were women who worked as equals to the male counterparts, but one senses this was not necessarily so in Hall’s China section (to which she transferred in 1944).^[12]  Robin Winks, who has extensively studied OSS personnel, noted that he interviewed many former OSS women who told him of professional frustrations and sexual harassment. “Many women,” he wrote, “with doctorates, some former professors and even department heads, found themselves working for far younger men who lacked advanced degrees.”^[13]

In the Far East Division Hall’s initial duties consisted primarily of technical editing of Far East Division reports.  Her first efficiency rating, dated September 30, 1943 showed her work to be “very good.”^[14]  It appears that Hall did not find her work with the OSS satisfying and she began looking for other employment opportunities.  The newly created Committee for the Protection of Cultural Treasures in the War Areas under the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) appeared to her a place where she could find employment and job satisfaction.

The Committee was created in January 1943 and that summer was named The Committee for the Protection of Cultural Treasures in the War Areas, chaired by William B. Dinsmoor, Chairman of the Department of Fine Arts at Columbia, professor of archaeology, and president of the Archaeological Institute of America.  In April Dinsmoor wrote the Director of the School of Military Government that the committee had already compiled a roster of competent individuals who could serve as Civil Affairs officers dealing with cultural matter and that it was preparing a series of city and town maps having locations of the important monuments and collections plainly marked.  He also indicated that the committee, with adequate funding, also wanted to prepare a card catalogue of cultural monuments and museums and private collections of sufficient importance to place under guard in the event of occupation; acquiring information on and from museum personnel in occupied countries; compiling information regarding the confiscation, forced sales, auctions, or destruction of European cultural property; and, preparing brief general directions for the salvage and temporary protection of movable and immovable works of art.^[15]  The committee sent out to interested scholars a statement of its aims, and a questionnaire enlisting their assistance, which were forwarded to the Secretary of War on May 11, 1943.^[16]

On December 3, 1943, Hall wrote Dr. Sachs that she was much interested in learning of the formation of the Committee for the Protection of Cultural Treasures in the War Areas, of what was being done for the European Areas at the Frick Gallery under Professor William B. Dinsmoor, and, especially, that a similar undertaking was projected at Harvard University for the Pacific Area.^[17]  She pointed out that until 1941 she was in the Department of Asiatic Art of the MFA, working for Kôjirô Tomita in Chinese art and also for Dr. Commaraswamy, and wrote that it seemed “possible that the range of my experience might be useful” to the committee.  “In fact,” she added, “it is my belief that few have been so fortunate in being as closely connected with the art of Eastern Asia as I have been just doing the work which the department automatically entailed.”  She closed by indicating that she would be very grateful to him for keeping her in mind if there should be a place for her in working organization for the Pacific Area when it was set up.  She ended by indicating that she was presently employed in the Far Eastern Division of the OSS.^[18]  That same day she wrote Langdon Warner, also of the Fogg Art Museum and a fellow Chinese art scholar, about the possibility of working for the Committee for projected work in Asia. She wrote that “it seemed that my special experience and the advantages I enjoyed in working at the Boston Museum might make me useful for the Pacific Area.  More useful, perhaps than in the work I am now doing here in Washington at the Office of Strategic Services, even though I am in the Far Eastern division, for it naturally has no connection with art.”^[19]  With no position becoming available for Hall, she continued hard at work at the OSS.  Her efficiency rating, dated March 31, 1944, showed her work to be “very good.”^[20]

The Far Eastern Division in which Hall worked found itself swamped with assignments the first year she was with it.  Between January 1, 1943 and March 24, 1944, the division completed 135 reports, some of which Hall helped edit. Most of these reports, particularly the more important ones, were directed towards the following four groups which plan and direct operations against Japan: The Joint Intelligence Committee and its subsidiary the Joint Intelligence Studies Publishing Board; the Army Air Forces through the Committee of Operations Analysts and A-2 [Air Intelligence]; The Civil Affairs Division of the Army and the Navy Occupied Areas Section; and, the various OSS operating branches.^[21] Her editing work would soon be behind her, as she would find a new challenge, doing research in the division’s China Section.

On April 29, 1944, she began work as a Research Analyst with the China Section, Far East Division, R&A Branch.^[22]  This section was headed by C. Martin Wilbur, who had spent most of his youth growing up in China and Japan, and had received his Ph.D. from Columbia 1941, and worked with Field Museum in Chicago before joining OSS in May 1943.  In her new position Hall was expected to prepare reports and assist others preparing reports.  This involved searching for material, finding it, and selecting pertinent points to be used in documenting her findings in the reports.  An Efficiency Rating Board of Review in 1945 reported that she

Wanted to secure all possible information in connection with her assignments, in which respect it was felt that she considered too broad an aspect, went into intangibles, and was not too able in separating the important from the unimportant. She secured a great deal of material involving a tremendous number of details.  She was capable of organizing her assignments…She went ahead with her work without direction when the assignments needed no guidance. She was expected to produce material from scattered sources, and in doing so exercised as much initiative as possible, locating an unprecedented number of facts, a few of which were of extreme importance, through her resourcefulness.

The Board also noted that “It was presented that she was more of an individualistic worker than a group worker.” ^[23]  This was a no-no in the R&A Branch.  As Bradley Smith observed, in producing reports in the Branch, a team approach was desired, in which groups of researchers worked on a single project, a method he noted was “virtually unknown among historians and geographers at that time.”  Smith wrote that “A great deal of training and supervision were necessary to fit the more individualistic scholars to the team mold, but this approach was an essential element in the R. and A. system. Many of the special attributes, limitations, and methods of particular disciplines had to be sacrificed to the need for integrated research reports.”^[24]

One senses that Hall was probably unhappy with her work and/or colleagues wanted a position where she would be more able to use the knowledge and skills that she had acquired during the previous two decades.  It also appears that the OSS, for whatever reasons, was not that satisfied with her work and wanted her to find work elsewhere, at a time the workload of the R&A Branch and the Far Eastern Division desired more personnel.

During the fall of 1944 the Bureau of the Budget was looking at the budget and personnel requirements of the OSS with an aim to reducing both.  It requested the OSS to provide information regarding plans for adjustments of programs involving reduction of personnel and funds.  Dr. Langer wrote Brig. Gen. John Magruder, Deputy Director for Intelligence, that there appeared to be no possibility whatever of reducing personnel or funds in the R&A Branch at the present time.  He wrote that the heavy program of work in the Far East Division (notably work for the Joint Army-Navy Intelligence Studies, for the Civil Affairs Division of the Army, and for the Joint Target Committee) had made constant additions of staff, and that the division was still under necessary strength.  “The authorized demands upon the R&A Branch,” he added, “have been steadily increasing so that at present the branch, despite internal adjustments, is hardly able to meet its obligations without some increase in personnel.”^[25] Langer noted that with the highest priority on Far Eastern research and evaluation, an approximate increase of 33% [of personnel] was seen.  He explained that the volume of work increased with requests for target information and analysis from the Joint Target Committee; requests for the OSS Far East chapters for Joint Army-Navy Intelligence Studies from the Joint Intelligence Study Publishing Board; requests for Civil Affairs guides from Civil Affairs Division; requests for political studies from State Department; and servicing OSS Washington and Field with strategic studies and reports.^[26]

Despite the increased workload Hall, in October 1944, was granted a temporary leave to reinstall the evacuated works of Asian art at the MFA.  While doing so, she expressed her hope to return to museum work, but the director on November 13 advised her to “hold your position in Washington and not count on returning to us.”^[27]

Either before going to Boston or after her return, Hall was informed by her supervisor(s) that she needed to find another position.^[28]

In November, Hall ran into Dinsmoor in New York and they struck up a conversation. She probably talked to him about wanting to leave the OSS and Dinsmoor probably explained the work in which he was engaged with the American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments in War Areas, as well as the ACLS Committee.  In August 1943 the President approved the establishment of the American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments in Europe (in 1944 changed to “War Areas”) (generally referred to as the Roberts Commission).  “The Commission,” according to a State Department press release on August 20, “will function under the auspices of the United States Government and in conjunction with similar groups in other countries for the protection and conservation of works of art and of artistic and historic records in Europe, and to aid in salvaging and restoring to the lawful owners such objects as have been appropriated by the Axis Powers or individuals acting under their authority or consent.” Chaired by Owen J. Roberts, Justice of the United States Supreme Court, and headquartered at the National Gallery of Art, the Commission was tasked with cooperating with the appropriate branches of the Army and of the Department of State, as well as with similar groups in other countries, in assuring the safety of artistic treasures placed in jeopardy by the war and in forcing restitution of looted art by the enemy. It was to act as a channel of communication between the Army and the various universities, museums and individuals from whom information and service were desired. David E. Finley, Director of the National Gallery and a member of the Commission of Fine Arts, was appointed Vice-Chairman, and Mr. Huntington Cairns, Secretary-Treasurer of the Gallery, was to serve as Secretary-Treasurer of the Commission.  Among the other initial members of the Commission were: Archibald MacLeish, Librarian of Congress; Dr. William Bell Dinsmoor, President of the Archaeological Institute of America; Dr. Francis Henry Taylor, Director of the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and President of the Association of Art Museum Directors, and Dr. Paul J. Sachs, Associate Director of the Fogg Museum of Fine Arts of Harvard University. The members were appointed to three-year terms.^[29]

In November Dinsmoor wrote to Dr. Langer, explaining that his committee was about to undertake “as a sudden emergency, the preparation of lists and cultural maps for China,” and needed a specialist in Chinese art.  He wrote that he had just talked with Hall, then passing through New York on her return to Washington and she had been very highly recommended by the various specialists whom they had consulted, and would, it seemed, be the ideal person to have attached to their staff during the present emergency.  “Would it be too much to ask, therefore,” he wrote, “if you could have her detached from OSS before she becomes deeply immersed in some other assignment, and to send her up to work here in New York with the staff at the Frick Art Reference Library for a period of one month beginning at the earliest possible date, preferably the middle of next week.” ^[30]

Although not receiving a response about her release, she maintained, according to Victoria Reed, correspondence with Dinsmoor and consulted with his committee regarding maps and areas worthy of protection in China.  In December she wrote Dinsmoor:

By and large, I am quite certain that the work of the Committee will have far greater and more serious problems in dealing with China than it had for Europe. For an adequate listing of the monuments the same wonderful cooperation that you obtained for Europe is necessary but there are relatively so few to help….As for the location of the monuments, it would seem to me that you will be handicapped by a lack of adequate maps, city and town plans, photographs from ground and air without the full resources of Washington, including classified material.^[31]

Dinsmoor responded by thanking her for the information and suggestions and noted that in the future they would continue to “take the liberty asking you for advice.”^[32]

Meanwhile, Hall was attempting to find employment with the Roberts Commission.  At the end of 1944 Commission member Paul J. Sachs was informed that no decision had been reached with regard to Hall or the other candidates for the research assistant’s job.^[33]  On January 20 she informed an OSS supervisor that she was seeking a position with the Commission that would lead to a Far East assignment.  She said that if that position did not materialize that she wanted, because of personal reasons, to be transferred out of the China Section to some other section in R&A or to some other Branch of OSS. The supervisor wrote on the note about the conversation that “R&A, Far East will be glad to release her.”  The position with the Commission did not materialize and the R&A Branch during February, March, and April tried unsuccessfully to find her a position with another OSS Branch.  On March 31, 1945, Hall received a “Fair” efficiency rating.^[34]

During the second week in April Charles B. Fahs, a Japan specialist, who had been Chief of Far Eastern Division, from October 1944 to February 1945, wrote Dr. Langer about the staffing of the division and that Hall had known for approximately five months that she would have to find another position.  “The OSS Personnel Office,” he wrote, “has been trying to place her. We would like the Personnel Committee to take responsibility for removing Miss Hall from our rolls.”^[35] A position was found for her, when in late April she was detailed to a position as Analyst with the Radio Intercepts Section, Far East Division, Secret Intelligence Branch.  On June 1, she was formally made the Assistant Chief of the Section.^[36]

In the meantime Hall began looking for post-OSS employment, making contacts wherever she could. Sometime in the spring she wrote the Vice-Chairman of the Chinese Commission for the Preservation of Cultural Objects in War Areas, in Chungking, sending along copies and clippings of articles on the work of the Roberts Commission. Liang Sau-cheng responded, thanking her for providing the information about the American Commission and informing her that his commission was trying to gain every possible piece of information about the work of the American Commission and calling upon her to share her expertise about the work of the commission.  Upon receiving this communication from China, she called John H. Scharff, Special Assistant to the Secretary-Treasurer of the Roberts Commission, and informed him of the communication she had received Liang Sau-cheng, whom she described as one of the most distinguished authorities on Chinese architecture and art in China. She followed up on June 5, sending Scharff a copy of the letter and noting that she knew he would be keenly interested in all that the Roberts Commission was doing, and of her pleasure “that he should be appointed Vice-chairman of the Chinese Commission, no one else is better qualified.”  Scharff responded by thanking Hall for sending the copy of the letter and writing that “This news was of considerable encouragement to the analogous American Commission.” He informed her that in order to accomplish a close liaison between the two commissions, Horace Jayne,” as you know,” was leaving very shortly for Chungking.^[37]  Jayne, the Vice-Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, had been appointed in May, at the request of the Department of State, as joint representative of the Division of Cultural Cooperation and the Roberts Commission, with the title Technical Specialist in Oriental Fine Arts, to visit China and to consult with the special Monuments Preservations Commission established by the Chinese Government.^[38]  On June 5, Hall sent a copy of Liang Sau-cheng’s letter to the Harvard-trained anthropologist Dr. Gordon T. Bowles at the Division of Cultural Cooperation at the Department of State.^[39]

By June the war in Europe was over and there was a new president, who believed that once the war ended in the Pacific the OSS would no longer be needed.  Hall now stepped up her efforts for employment with the Roberts Commission.  In the later part of July she visited the commission and spoke with Charles H. Sawyer, the Assistant Secretary-Treasurer, and others about the possibility of working with the commission on the Far East.^[40] Sawyer, former director of the Worcester Art Museum, had just assumed his position with the commission in July, having served previously in the U.S. Army with the MFA&A operations in London and then with the OSS Art Looting Investigation Unit in London and Washington, D.C. ^[41]   Hall said that she believed that she could secure a release from the OSS if the commission requested her services.  Sawyer told her that the activities of the commission in connection with the Far Eastern program were still indefinite and that they could undoubtedly give her more information after the next meeting in late September.  Sawyer, in a memo about Hall, wrote that while she appeared to have an excellent background on China in particular and the Orient in general, “there may be other candidates equally well qualified for the work she would undertake.”^[42]

On August 8 Hall was notified that in view of the reduction in budget for the fiscal year 1946 that her employment would be terminated on September 8.  Her August 8 letter of termination was suspended because she had filed a protest regarding her “Fair” efficiency rating, which needed to be resolved before she could be terminated.^[43]

The OSS Efficiency Rating Board of Review met on August 29 to discuss Hall’s efficiency rating.  The board indicated that the rating official had judged that Hall’s performance was “Good,” but that the reviewing official, C. Martin Wilbur, lowered markings assigned to two elements, which resulted in the rating being changed from “Good” to “Fair.”  The board found that she “was a willing worker, produced a large quantity of work, and worked many hours overtime without compensation of any kind. When there were deadlines, she met them, performing work on one assignment during a period when she was confined to her home because of illness and working overtime voluntarily to complete a bibliography when she expected to leave the organization momentarily.” The board noted the satisfactory quality and quantity of her work and changed her rating from “Fair” to “Good.”  In spite of this, a new termination letter was sent to her on September 6 indicating that she would be terminated on October 6.^[44]

OSS Efficiency Rating Board of Review, Notice of Decision, p1, NAID 2174783

OSS Efficiency Rating Board of Review, Notice of Decision, p2, NAID 2174783

OSS Efficiency Rating Board of Review, Notice of Decision, p3, NAID 2174783

President Truman issued Executive Order 9621 on September 20, 1945, providing for the abolishment of the OSS on September 30, with some of the R&A Branch functions being transferred to the Department of State and some other activities being transferred to the newly created Strategic Services Unit (SSU) of the War Department.  On October 1, Hall was transferred to the SSU and on October 6 she was released from service.^[45]  Hall was now unemployed.