Reader comments: Was famed chef Julia Child a spy?

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Frank | 4:36 p.m. Aug. 13, 2008
Julia Child must have been the agent they assigned to "STIR resistance".
Lewis | 4:57 p.m. Aug. 13, 2008
Quentin Roosevelt was in the OSS in World War II? Neat trick, since he was killed in 1918, during World War I.
Dog | 5:46 p.m. Aug. 13, 2008
Finally I can talk! Oh wait I wasn't born then!
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Cats | 5:58 p.m. Aug. 13, 2008
This information about Julia Child is not new. Also, it has been known about Sterling Hayden for a long time. Incidentally, Julia met her husband in the OSS while they were serving in China and she didn't know anything about cooking at the time. She learned to cook in France when her husband was posted there after WWII.
Julia the Spy | 6:15 p.m. Aug. 13, 2008
I met Ms. Julia Child once when I was a student in Cambridge, Mass., in the early 70s. She lived not far from campus and was a local celebrity on WGBH Boston years before she went on national TV. One time she came to Currier House and gave a talk on food in China. One Asian-American girl asked Ms. Child how she knew how to pronounce Chinese correctly. Ms. Julia just smiled and said, "you learn a lot during a war."

Now we know what she meant.
CousinofJulia's | 7:35 p.m. Aug. 13, 2008
So Cousin Julia was a Spy. Farout.
Anonymous | 8:06 p.m. Aug. 13, 2008
Julia Child never kept it a secret tha she was in the OSS. All of her biographies mention it. In fact I'm pretty sure your newspaper's Food section has done past stories on her that mentioned she met her husband while working in the OSS. No big secret!
Eh | 10:30 p.m. Aug. 13, 2008
I have been fascinated by the study of the early intelligence agencies for some time now, and Julia Child's participation in the OSS has been well-known for a great many years, as was that of many other big shots of their day. Mrs. Child's participation isn't news.

The release of these fascinating archives, on the other hand, most certainly is. I just can't wait to pore over them myself.

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