Carl F. Eifler, who commanded the first Office of Strategic Services covert operations unit during World War II and was dubbed “the deadliest colonel” for his daring exploits and planning of operations behind enemy lines, has died. He was 95.
Mr. Eifler died April 8 in a medical rehabilitation center in Salinas, Calif.
Mr. Eifler, according to his biographer, devised top-secret plans–that were later canceled –to assassinate Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek and to kidnap Adolf Hitler’s top atomic scientist.
He was, in a word, fearless.
He thought nothing of grabbing a deadly 10-foot king cobra by the tail and beheading it with a knife.
He often would challenge his men to “hit me in the stomach as hard as you can,” and wouldn’t even flinch when they gave him their best shot.
“That was just him,” said Tom Moon of Orange, Calif., who served as an OSS agent under Mr. Eifler in Burma and India and later wrote a biography of him. “Somebody told me they watched him one night digging a bullet out of his leg with a spoon handle,” he said.
The Office of Strategic Services, then directed by Gen. William “Wild Bill” Donovan, was the precursor of the Central Intelligence Agency.
“I broke every law of God and man, but I never did anything for personal gain,” Mr. Eifler said at an Association of Former Intelligence Officers convention in San Diego in 1983.
“I was out to win a war for my country, and you can’t fight a lawful war. I think the CIA today has gotten a lot of bad publicity. Where do you want them to get information? From churches?”
