Donovan's father, born in 1858, worked as the superintendent of a Buffalo railroad yard, as secretary for Holy Cross Cemetery, and attempted to engage in a political career with little success.

Considering the priesthood, he ultimately decided "he wasn't good enough to be a priest," although he did win another oratorical contest, this time with a speech warning of corrupt, anti-Christian forces that threatened the United States.

[5] With the expectation of studying law, Donovan eventually transferred to Columbia University, where he looked beyond "Catholic dogma" and attended Protestant and Jewish worship services to decide whether he wanted to change religions.

[6] He joined the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, rowed on varsity crew, again won a prize for oratory, was a campus football hero, and was voted the "most modest" and one of the "handsomest" members of the graduating class of 1905.

[citation needed] After earning his bachelor of arts, Donovan spent two years at Columbia Law School, where he was a classmate of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and studied under Harlan Fiske Stone.

[11] In 1916, Donovan spent several months in Berlin on behalf of the Rockefeller Foundation, seeking to persuade the governments of Britain and Germany to allow the shipment of food and clothing into Belgium, Serbia, and Poland.

In July of that year, at the behest of the State Department, he returned to the U.S. and took his cavalry troop to the Texas border to join Brigadier General John J. Pershing's army in the hunt for Pancho Villa.

[17] He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for leading an assault during the Aisne-Marne campaign, in which hundreds of members of his regiment died, including his acting adjutant, the poet Joyce Kilmer.

Donovan's remarkable level of endurance, which far exceeded that of the much younger soldiers under his command, led those men to give him the nickname "Wild Bill", which stuck with him for the rest of his life.

As Battalion Commander of the 165th Infantry Regiment, 42d Division, during its operations in the Baccarat Sector from 28 to 31 July 1918, Colonel Donovan demonstrated high professional attainments and marked ability.

[27] Following his return to the U.S., Donovan took his wife on a combined vacation, business trip, and intelligence mission to Japan, China, and Korea, then went on alone to Siberia during the Russian Civil War.

A high point came in 1923, when, as a result of continued pressure from Father Duffy, Donovan was finally awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroic acts in the battle at Landres-et-Saint-Georges.

The climax of his war on alcohol came in August 1923, when his agents raided Buffalo's upmarket Saturn Club (of which Donovan himself was a member) and confiscated large amounts of illegal liquor.

Despite the stock market crash, he made a success of handling many of the mergers and acquisitions and bankruptcies that then resulted; he also acquired celebrity clients, such as Mae West and Jane Wyman.

Roosevelt wanted to provide such aid, and asked Donovan to use his knowledge of the law to figure out how to skirt the congressional ban on selling armaments to the United Kingdom.

In the view of Walter Lippmann, a political columnist, Donovan's findings about Britain's fighting capability "almost singlehandedly overcame the unmitigated defeatism which was paralyzing Washington."

Donovan also examined U.S. naval defenses in the Pacific (which he found wanting) and visited several countries along the Mediterranean and in the Middle East, serving as an unofficial envoy for both the U.S. and Britain and urging leaders there to stand up to the Nazis.

"[47] According to Ellis, quoted in his biography by British-Australian author Jesse Fink: ‘I was soon requested to draft a blueprint for an American intelligence agency, the equivalent of BSC [British Security Co-ordination] and based on these British wartime improvisations... detailed tables of organisation were disclosed to Washington... among these were the organisational tables that led to the birth of General William Donovan’s OSS.’[48] Said United States Assistant Secretary of State Adolf Berle: ‘The really active head of the intelligence section in [William] Donovan’s [OSS] group is [Ellis] .

[53] Donovan urged Roosevelt not to intern Japanese-Americans, warning that such an action would address a problem that did not exist, do harm to loyal Americans, and provide the Japanese with ammunition for their propaganda.

[54] Donovan set up espionage and sabotage schools, established front companies, arranged clandestine collaborations with international corporations and the Vatican, and oversaw the invention of new, espionage-friendly guns, cameras, and bombs.

Under his leadership the OSS would eventually conduct successful espionage and sabotage operations in Europe and parts of Asia, but continued to be kept out of South America owing to Hoover's hostility to Donovan,[57] which also had a deleterious impact on efforts to share information between the two agencies.

He met in Europe with highly placed anti-Nazi Germans to broker an early peace that would allow for occupation by the Western Allies, establish a democratic Germany, and leave the Soviets out in the cold.

While the OSS got "glowing reviews" from many wartime commanders, notably Eisenhower, who described its contributions as "vital", critics dismissed it as "an arm of British intelligence" and, like the Times-Herald reporter, painted dark pictures of it as an American Gestapo in the making.

[80] On May 17, 1945, Donovan flew to Europe to prepare for the prosecutions, and eventually brought 172 OSS officers onto Jackson's team, interviewing Auschwitz survivors, tracking down SS and Gestapo documents, and uncovering other evidence.

The latter wanted to indict the entire German High Command, not just men who had personally ordered or committed war crimes; Donovan considered this a violation of American principles of fairness.

But he worked behind the scenes to aid in the formation of the CIA, recommending that Hillenkoetter hire Dulles and other OSS veterans, suggesting various covert operations, and sharing contacts and information from behind the Iron Curtain.

In August 1953, however, he did accept the post of Ambassador to Thailand, because the country was an important Cold War front and the position was one in which he felt he could operate with relative independence from Secretary Dulles.

[22] Donovan died at the age of 76 from complications of vascular dementia on February 8, 1959, at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.[23] Upon learning of his death, the CIA sent a cable to its station chiefs: "The man more responsible than any other for the existence of the Central Intelligence Agency has passed away.

Thomas observed that Donovan's "exploits are utterly improbable but by now well documented in declassified wartime records that portray a brave, noble, headlong, gleeful, sometimes outrageous pursuit of action and skulduggery.

The award is presented by the OSS Society to "someone who has exemplified the distinguishing features that characterized General Donovan's lifetime of public service to the United of States of America as a citizen and a soldier".