Book excerpt: America would be very different if William Harding Jackson (1901 1971) had not put his indelible stamp on the US government as OSS / War Department chief of secret intelligence in World War II Europe, cofounder of todays Central Intelligence Agency, and his work as Eisenhowers national security adviser. During the most dangerous times in our history and for decades beyond his death, there is no other American who influenced so many sensitive, top-secret national security matters more than Jackson. When Bill Jackson was in the room, everyone paid attention; and for a time in our history, three US presidents saw to itpersonally.