Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/William J. Donovan/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Sarastro1 via FACBot (talk) 12:49, 9 April 2017.

William J. Donovan

 * Nominator(s): Meatsgains (talk) 03:44, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

This article is about William J. Donovan, an American soldier, lawyer, intelligence officer, diplomat and the only veteran to receive all four of the United States' highest awards: The Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, the Distinguished Service Medal, and the National Security Medal. Donovan is known for heading the Office of Strategic Services (the precursor to the CIA) during World War II, helping in the formation of the CIA, serving as Coordinator of Information, and as Ambassador of Thailand. This well decorated war veteran has a statue in the CIA headquarters, was portrayed in the 1940s film The Fighting, and is a member of the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame. During World War I, Major Donovan suffered a shrapnel wound in one leg and was almost blinded by gas. Throughout his expansive career, he also served as: co-founder of Goodyear & O'Brien (a law firm in Buffalo), U.S. Attorney for the Western District of New York, assistant to Attorney General Harlan Stone, director of the Department of Justice's antitrust division, candidate for Governor of New York, colonel in the U.S. Army, chairman of the American Committee on United Europe, chairman of the People to People Foundation, and co-founder of American Friends of Vietnam.

I've spent the past two weeks expanding and improving the page to its current state, to what I think is a well-researched and informative page for an individual with an incredible history. Happy to make any suggested changes and as always, I appreciate all feedback! Meatsgains (talk) 03:44, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

image review
 * File:William_Donovan.jpg: source link is dead, tagged as lacking author
 * File:Donovan_wwi_285.jpg: is a more specific source available?
 * File:Legion_Honneur_Chevalier_ribbon.svg is too simple for copyright protection
 * File:Legion_Honneur_Commandeur_ribbon.svg: tag should reflect the status of the design. Same with File:Croix_de_guerre_1914-1918_with_palm.jpg, File:Order_of_the_British_Empire_(Military)_Ribbon.png, File:Nastro_Croce_Lateranense.png, File:Order_of_Pope_Sylvester_BAR.svg, File:Cavaliere_OCI_BAR.svg, File:Croce_di_guerra_al_merito_BAR.svg, File:Grand_Officer_Ordre_de_Leopold.png, File:Czechoslovak_War_Cross_1939-1945_Bar.png, File:NLD_Order_of_Orange-Nassau_-_Grand_Officer_BAR.png, File:St_Olavs_Orden_storkors_stripe.svg, File:Order_of_the_White_Elephant_-_1st_Class_(Thailand)_ribbon.png. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:23, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Comments: G'day, thanks for your efforts with this article. I have the following suggestions: AustralianRupert (talk) 07:42, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
 * These elements should be referenced:
 * "Meanwhile, his superiors were impressed by his "cool and firm leadership," which made him "a legend" throughout the Allied Expeditionary Forces and "a celebrity back home." Excerpts from his letters to his wife, in which he vividly recounted his combat experiences, were published in New York newspapers."
 * Added reference to.
 * I just went ahead and just removed this.


 * "At the Justice Department, Donovan hired women and eschewed yes-men. He and his wife became a popular Washington couple, although Donovan's relationship with FBI Acting Director J. Edgar Hoover, who was briefly one of his underlings, was fraught with friction."
 * Added reference to


 * the entire paragraph beginning: "Roosevelt came to place great value on Donovan's insight..."
 * Done


 * the entire paragraph beginning: "While British authorities and the US military and State Department..."
 * Done


 * the list of Awards and decorations
 * I've added a handful of references but am having a tough time locating additional sources for the remaining medals. If we are unable to find sources, would you suggest removing the ones unsourced?
 * Yes, that is the best course of action, IMO, for a Featured Article candidate. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 08:38, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Alright, if no one else can dig and find references for the remaining awards either, I'll go ahead and remove. Meatsgains (talk) 01:13, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I removed the unsourced awards.


 * the Further reading section should be below the References per WP:LAYOUT
 * done


 * in the Further reading section, the entries for Troy, Duffy, McKay, Reilly and Stevenson are inconsistent in their layout compared to the others
 * Done.


 * in the Notes, there are also a few inconsistencies, e.g. Brown 1982 uses sfn citations when the others do not. Also compare Rumer, ,Lovell, Clifford, Anthony Cave Brown etc to "Waller 2011"
 * Which format would you suggest I change the references to? "Waller 2011, p. 11." or "James Montague, Versifier, Is Dead," New York Times, December 17, 1941"?
 * I'd suggest Sfn but the choice is yours so long as it is consistent. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 07:46, 25 March 2017 (UTC)


 * the Further reading section should be sorted alphabetically
 * done


 * in the References, the date format is inconsistent, for instance I see "February 27, 2016", but also "2010-07-09" and "20 February 2017". Please make these consistent
 * I didn't notice all these consistencies. They have been corrected.
 * There are still some issues here, for instance compare "2010-07-09" with "March 14, 2011" and "22 March 2017". AustralianRupert (talk) 07:46, 25 March 2017 (UTC)


 * for an FA, I think you will need to try to broaden the referencing base. Currently there are a lot of refs to Waller, which makes sense to an extent as that work no doubt focuses on the subject specifically, but I would suggest also trying to add some refs to some of the works in the Further reading section as well to ensure that the body of literature has been adequately canvassed
 * there appears to be a missing word here: "...would attempt to engage in a political career, but with little success" (before "would")
 * Done.


 * the dab link "acquisition" should be re-aimed
 * Link removed by another user.


 * "1st battalion of the 165th" --> "1st Battalion, 165th" as a proper noun
 * Done.


 * "chief of staff of the 165th regiment" --> "chief of staff of the 165th Regiment"
 * Done.


 * suggest adding some attribution in text here: "Going into battle, he "ignored the officers' custom of covering or stripping off insignia of rank (targets for snipers) and instead sallied forth wearing his medals."" (i.e. who recounts this?)
 * done


 * "president gave the job to the "lackluster" Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter..." who describes Hillenkoetter as "lackluster"?
 * "Donovan's biographer - Doug Waller. done.


 * Comments
 * Link CIA headquarters
 * Done.


 * he "explore[d] ideas beyond Catholic dogma" Any idea what? (I'm thinking democracy and freedom of religion, but that's just my guess.)
 * To provide greater context, the book says, "He continued to be an average student at Columbia, but the college gave him the opportunity to widen his intellectual horizon and explore ideas beyond Catholic dogma (though like Donovan, a large majority of his classmates professed to be conservative Republicans). At one point Donovan even questioned whether he even wanted to remain int eh Catholic Church and started attending services for other denominations and religions, including Jewish faith, to check them out. He decided to stick with Catholicism." So yes, I would imagine freedom of religion and/or "beyond" conservative Republican ideology. Should this clarification be added?


 * American government's campaign against Pancho Villa Link Pancho Villa Expedition
 * Done.


 * which became part of the 42nd Division under Douglas MacArthur No, it didn't. MacArthur was the division's chief of staff. (He later commanded the 84th Brigade, of which the 165th Infantry was not part.)
 * Fixed


 * Going into battle, he "ignored the officers' custom of covering or stripping off insignia of rank (targets for snipers) and instead sallied forth wearing his medals." "They can't hit me and they won't hit you!" he told his men. Direct quotes require a reference.
 * Done - Vanity Fair article.


 * Link 42nd Division, 69th Infantry Regiment (New York) colonel on first mention
 * Done by another user.


 * Meanwhile, his superiors were impressed by his "cool and firm leadership," which made him "a legend" throughout the Allied Expeditionary Forces and "a celebrity back home." Excerpts from his letters to his wife, in which he vividly recounted his combat experiences, were published in New York newspapers. Is this supposed to be a reference? It reads weird. We don't normally allow such a vague source. And I'm not sure how reliable what soldiers tell their wives/girlfriends is.
 * I went ahead and just removed this.


 * Franklin D. Roosevelt is linked multiple times.
 * Removed second link in infobox and one from the body.


 * Footnote 5: I really require a page number in a reference to a book.
 * Done - I replaced the references to the book with footnotes including page numbers for consistency.


 * Third paragraph of "World War II" is unreferenced.
 * Done


 * Link Vyacheslav Molotov, Josip Broz Tito
 * Done.


 * Allied landing on the French Riviera Link Operation Dragoon Hawkeye7 (talk) 10:27, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Done.


 * Source review
 * The first thing I noticed were the citations in the lead, which are not normally necessary, nor encouraged, since the lead is a wrap-up of what is in the article. However what is sourced in the lead appears nowhere else in the article; it needs to be in body of the article and sourced,  recapped in the lead without citations: He is also known as the "Father of American Intelligence" and the "Father of Central Intelligence". "The Central Intelligence Agency regards Donovan as its founding father," wrote Evan Thomas in a 2011 Vanity Fair profile. The lobby of CIA headquarters, in Langley, Virginia, now features a statue of Donovan. 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."
 * Done.


 * Further reading section needs to have the "harv-ref" removed from each item, because it's showing an error message on each one except Brown and Donovan. Please see User:Ucucha/HarvErrors, a handy tool that shows big red error messages if Harvard referencing is inconsistent or in error.
 * I believe this has been corrected, no?
 * No. What makes you believe this has been corrected? You need to open the Further Reading section in the edit window.  Everywhere you see "ref = harv", remove it. But only in that section. — Maile  (talk) 00:40, 25 March 2017 (UTC)


 * No Banners, No Bands, by Robert Alcorn, D. McKay, 1965. - has no publisher, no ISBN number, info incomplete on this one.
 * Can't seem to find the ISBN for this one... any suggestions?
 * , World Cat Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) is an excellent tool. WorldCat home page. A number of search results for any given title or author. But once you come up with the title and edition you are looking for, if there is no ISBN, it should list "OCLC Number:" at the bottom. Wikipedia accepts that.  Instead of coding the reference template "isbn=", substitute "oclc=" and type in the number.  That should work for you. — Maile  (talk) 12:03, 2 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Citation 12 - Thomas A. Rumer, The American Legion: A Official History. Needs ISBN, cite book formatting, put under References and an line citation consistent with the rest of the article.
 * Anthony Cave Brown book needs to be removed from the Further reading section and moved down to the References, as you have one sfn inline citation that points to it. It's the only sfn formatting used. Need consistency in style of which referencing you use. Either use all sfn, or all the bracketed type. The Anthony Cave Brown book is also listed inline in its entirety in Citation 24.  That one needs to be standardized with its inline ciation.
 * Lovell, Stanley P. Of Spies and Stratagems - move it from "Further reading" into References, and format citation 66 accordingly.
 * Citation 73 - Clifford, Clark, Counsel To The President, A Memoir, New York: Random House, move into References, needs ISBN number, and format citation 73 accordingly.
 * Citation 80 - from the New York Times is formatted a little differently than other news cites.  Be consistent.
 * All linked sources need "Retrieved" date.
 * Arlington National Cemetery is used in two different places as individual citations. The first place it's used is to list Donovan's medals. Tombstones are not reliable information for service records, and you need to replace that with non-Arlington individual citations for his medals. Since he died in 1959, the military has gone through its records correcting missing, or otherwise erroneous awards and decorations. Families have also petitioned for updates on individual military records.  The second place Arlington appears as a citation is for his son's burial, which seems to be OK but would be better if you could come up with another source.
 * The first paragraph of Nuremberg Trials needs citation(s).
 * Done.


 * Medal of Honor citation URL just goes to the MOH site, but does not link directly to his page.
 * Fixed.

This was just a quick glance at what's in the sourcing. Good luck with this. — Maile (talk) 17:19, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Coordinator note:, if you are not going to respond to reviewers comments, I think this FAC needs to be archived. I'd really like to see some responses by the end of the week (i.e. Friday) at the absolute latest. Sarastro1 (talk) 22:37, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
 * My apologies for the delayed response! I will begin making the recommended improvements asap. Meatsgains (talk) 00:11, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I really appreciate all the feed back and suggestions here! I've got a lot to work to do. This is my first WP:FAC so I'm not sure what the timeframe is but when should the improvements be completed/is there a deadline before the FAC is archived? The next couple days are going to be busy for me but I plan to finish by next week. Thanks again. Meatsgains (talk) 13:54, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Nothing at FAC should be interpreted as "do this or else". The worst that can happen is that the FAC nomination gets archived (i.e. it fails), which only means that you can put it back up in two weeks, after you've had a chance to try to do something about all the comments. Best of luck. I can help with copyediting, but it's too soon for that. - Dank (push to talk) 14:17, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
 * There is no time limit, as long as something is happening. As you are now responding, there is no great rush as long as we are making some progress. However, I would advise against leaving an open FAC unattended for too long as it both discourages reviews and makes archiving more likely. Anyway, the ball is rolling now, so no problems. Sarastro1 (talk) 23:16, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

Comments. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. - Dank (push to talk)
 * There are a lot of commas just before quote marks. Per our style guide (WP:LQ, in this case), that's fine if the comma actually appeared there in the quote, and quote is substantial (let's say, contains at least a verb). Otherwise, the comma goes outside the quote marks.
 * "led those [soldiers] to give him the nickname "Wild Bill", which would stick with him for the rest of his life"; "On the football field, he earned the nickname "Wild Bill", which would remain with him for the rest of his life.": A contradiction here.
 * "oversea": overseas?
 * Corrected typo.
 * Done


 * "Other OSS recruits included ... In 1942, the COI ceased being a White House operation and was placed under the aegis of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Roosevelt also changed its name to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS).": It sounds like it would be more accurate to say they were recruited into the COI, since it wasn't the OSS yet. The sentence about "Oh so social" also comes too early.
 * Support on prose per my standard disclaimer. These are my edits. It's an excellent biographical article. - Dank (push to talk) 02:30, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Switching to Oppose. It's been a while, and there's been little progress on many of the points raised in this review. - Dank (push to talk) 12:35, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Comment from Syek88
I'll leave one comment at this point because it supersedes all others that I might have had. I want to pick up on the point made by AustralianRupert above about "broaden[ing] the referencing base". The fact that the article relies so heavily on one biography (Waller's) is, in my view, at least potentially problematic. The risk is that the article could inadvertently shackle itself to how Waller sees Donovan: the omissions he makes, the details he emphasises, etcetera. If there were a second or third detailed source upon which the article relied to an equivalent extent, any such perspective problems could be largely eliminated.

This issue is accentuated by the fact that Waller is not an academic source. If it were, we could be a little more confident that it is balanced and in appropriate perspective. Instead it is a bookstore biography. This is what a Professor of Government and Public Administration has said about it:

"The book is written in the annoying style of newspaper journalism. Each chapter, and many sections within chapters opens with a hook sentence, e.g., ‘The telephone rang at midnight and the caller said..’ Then it back fills to get to the phone call, usually. I say ‘usually’ because a few of these hooks seem to be forgotten and go unexplained. It means each time the narrative is interrupted and resumed, like stop-start traffic. It jumps around so much I wondered if some of the dates were wrong. No doubt, this method of exposition is what makes it, per the cover, fast paced. It also made it, at times, unintelligible to this reader. It lapses into clichés far too often. Opponents are gunmen who gun down innocents. One-eyed and simple-minded more than once. No doubt these clichés are what make it exciting, per the front cover. I turned a lot of the later pages quickly, having long lost interest in Donovan’s travels, dinners, and handshakes, and his sometimes naive efforts to exert influence in China and elsewhere. These details tell the reader nothing about the man."

Having said that, these comments might be misdirected and betray their own bias. All other reviews of the book, including in the International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence and Global War Studies, appear to be positive. The latter says that Waller's book is "balanced".

This is only a comment at this stage. I'm not going to dive in and oppose on this ground without discussion and careful consideration first.

Also, is there any reason why footnote 5, used on multiple occasions, is to the book generally rather than to specific pages of it? Syek88 (talk) 19:21, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I appreciate the feedback. Were you able to find additional critical reviews on Waller or the book because IMHO, one opinion from a single college professor isn't quite significant enough to discredit the book's neutrality or accuracy. Meatsgains (talk) 23:06, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
 * But I do agree, the page needs to not rely on Waller's book so much. Meatsgains (talk) 23:07, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Also, I've fixed the issue with footnote 5 and included page numbers. Meatsgains (talk) 02:18, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * No, the Jackson review is the only critical one that I could find. Reviews in the legacy newspapers and journal articles (although there are only two of the latter and they don't seem to be high-level journals) are positive. I'm also a little mindful, as alluded to above, that Jackson himself might have his own angles. I certainly don't mean to discredit Waller as an unsuitable reference. I meant only to illustrate why a broader range of references would ensure we're on safe ground, and that probably wasn't the best way of illustrating it. So I don't think we disagree on anything of significance. Syek88 (talk) 09:27, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Comment from Cas Liber
I'll take a look now. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 04:29, 2 April 2017 (UTC)


 * The lobby of CIA headquarters, in Langley, Virginia, now features a statue of Donovan. - seems an odd fact to put in the lead...?


 * "link "Rosemary Hall"?


 * You've mentioned two origins for "Wild Bill" nickname. At least use the word "again" in the second mention or something as it reads oddly and sort of contradictorily....


 * In the World War I section, is the wound in para 1 the same as the one in para 3, or different?


 * In the first para of the Years between the wars section, has there ever been any speculation Donovan was recruited to go on this mission as a spy by the government? If so has it been refuted?


 * His foreign experience and realism.. - "realism" strikes me as somewhat POV here. I'd be inclined to remove it.


 * he sent out "teams of French, Danish, Norwegian, and Polish nationals"  - reword to dequote.


 * I'd move the note on his daughter's death in 1940 to the family section at teh bottom. Do we know how she died? That'd be good to include.

NB: I made these changes, if they are ok by you. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:20, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

There do seem to be other books on google books that cover Donovan, but their tone seems similar to Wallers, so I don't see any evidence of an opposing negative view, FWIW. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:24, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Oppose from Nick-D
I also agree that the sourcing is much too narrow for FA status at present, especially as Donovan is a major figure who's been covered in depth in a wide range of histories - for instance, pretty much anything on the history of the CIA or intelligence activities in World War II (both huge genres) should cover him. Coverage should also be available through works on US government foreign and military policies during the war and its aftermath. From quickly checking the books I own, Max Hasting's The Secret War appears to have lots of coverage of Donovan, and Tim Weiner's critical history of the CIA Legacy of Ashes also has limited coverage of him. There seems to be no reason to not conduct wider research, and the article does suffer from its narrow sourcing.

I have the following comments on the World War II section, which is probably the area I'm best qualified to comment on:
 * "He met with such foreign leaders as Benito Mussolini,[36] with whom he discussed World War I, Italy's expansionism under Il Duce" - confusing as 'Il Duce' was Mussolini.
 * "He strongly urged Roosevelt to give Churchill the aid he requested. 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" - this exaggerates Donovan's role as lots of other people were telling Roosevelt the same, and helping him to arrange it. More generally, this part of the article over-states Donovan's influence on FDR by not noting that he was one of several such representatives, of whom Harry Hopkins was by far the most important.
 * What exactly was Donovan's role in the OSS? As head of the organisation, how did he balance his administrative responsibilities with his operational ones? (it seems that he focused largely on the latter, but even then how hands on was he, and how do historians regard this?)
 * Why did Donovan personally take part in the major Allied amphibious landings in Europe, or personally conduct negotiations in frontline areas?
 * Who managed the OSS when he was doing this? How well did this work?
 * "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" - who were these people? As far as I'm aware, there were no "highly placed anti-Nazi Germans" who were interested in democracy: the Army-based resistance (the only viable opposition to the Nazis) wanted to run the country for itself with the goal of continuing the war against the USSR.
 * Also, how did this align with FDR and Churchill's policy of requiring the unconditional surrender of Germany? - was Donovan freewheeling here?
 * "On D-Day, Donovan was on one of the ships that took part in the Normandy landing ... eventually, they found their way to General Omar Bradley's newly set-up tent headquarters on the beach" - Bradley didn't come ashore until several days after the invasion (his article says 10 June)
 * "where the Wehrmacht was in such chaos that he "knew their positions on the battlefield better than German generals did." - there's no way that this could have been known through the OSS' human intelligence network: the experiance of all the combatants was that such intelligence wasn't very useful for order of battle information. This intelligence came from signals intelligence, which was produced by MI6 (which had control of Government Code and Cypher School, and the famous Bletchley Park).
 * " Dulles oversaw the surrender of the remaining Nazi forces in Italy several days in advance of the final German capitulation" - Dulles negotiated the surrender, but the German forces surrendered to the Allied armies in Italy, not OSS
 * "The latter wanted to indict the entire German High Command, not just men who had personally ordered or committed war crimes" - this is inaccurate, as the German high command had in fact ordered and participated in war crimes (not, least the crime of planning and executing wars of aggression), with many of its members also doing so while serving as field commanders. This wording implies that the high command was somehow unjustly prosecuted.
 * "Donovan, a former prosecutor, also criticized Jackson's lack of skill and experience at putting together a strong case and at courtroom examination and cross-examination" - this also seems odd given that history has judged Jackson very favourably. These kinds of squabbles shouldn't be written from Donovan's perspective.
 * As an overall comment on this section, it doesn't provide any significant analysis of Donovan's approaches and effectiveness. Nick-D (talk) 09:39, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Closing comment: A few issues and a couple of opposes have arisen now. I think this article may best be worked on away from FAC. The nominator should work with the reviewers on the issues and then renominate after the usual 2-week minimum waiting period. Sarastro1 (talk) 12:49, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Sarastro1 (talk) 12:49, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the delayed response. If I were to nominate the page again (after making the suggested improvements noted above), I can do so correct? Meatsgains (talk) 17:38, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.