The Top Secret History and Celebrated Life of Julia Child

By JIM PURCELL

To the world, master French chef Julia Child (1912-2004) was a television personality with an amazing cooking show. In addition, she was an author who penned a slew of best-selling books about cooking. She brought the mysteries of fine cuisine right into the homes and living rooms of millions and millions of people for decades.

   However, before Julia Child was a celebrity chef, before the television shows and the book deals...even before she was Julia Child...she was an intelligence professional with theOffice of Strategic Services (OSS). Indeed, at 28 years old, the single Child was known by her maiden name of Julia McWilliams.

   Julia Child was born in Pasadena, California, the daughter of a land manager and a paper-company heiress. An athletic young woman who measured 6’2” tall, Child played tennis, golf and basketball at Smith College, Massachusetts. She graduated with a history degree from the prestigious university in 1934.

   Before joining the OSS, where she would later meet her future husband, Paul Cushing Child, Child worked for a New York City advertising company. After she left the advertising job, Child’s big question was what came next for her. Well, she looked into joining the Women’s Army Corps (WACS) and the Navy’s WAVES, only to discover that she was “too tall” to enlist in those services. Still, she wanted to contribute to the coming war effort.

Wartime Service With the OSS

   In 1940, when she signed on with the OSS, many Americans believed looming war clouds in Europe and Asia would grow large enough to involve the United States. By 1945, President Harry S. Truman would disband the OSS in favor of the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency, but it was the OSS that operated throughout World War II.

   The OSS, which was aspy agency, was led by legendary General William “Wild Bill” Donovan. At the OSS, Child began her intelligence career as a research assistant, in Washington DC.

   In recent years, details of the service of Child and 24,000 other OSS employees have been revealed in 750,000 documents released to the public. Through these documents, it is revealed that several celebrities of the day had strong OSS ties during the war, including: actor Sterling Hayden, future Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, Major League Baseball catcher Moe Berg and even historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr.

   For a year, Child worked at the OSS Emergency Rescue Equipment Section (ERES). Child went from being an office assistant to becoming an assistant to developers of a shark repellent used to make sure sharks didn’t explode ordnance that targeted German U-boats.

   As part of her work with shark repellent, Child decided to experiment with cooking ingredients that might be effective against the underwater predators. At this she was successful, as she found a concoction that could be sprinkled atop the water near the ordnance and sharks would, indeed, avert that area. For this, Child received a citation from the OSS noting her contribution in solving this formerly chronic problem. Reportedly, Child’s remedy for shark repellent is still in use today.

Julia Child during her service with the OSS

   During 1944, Child was posted to Kandy, Ceylon, which is now Sri Lanka, an island country in Southern Asia. There, the future celebrity chef’s duties changed. At that time, she was given the task of “registering, cataloging and channeling a great volume of highly classified communications” for the OSS’s clandestine stations in Asia.

   After her assignment in Ceylon, Child was posted to Kunming, China. Her work in China was exemplary and, for her efforts, Child received the “Emblem of Meritorious Civilian Service” award from the OSS. Perhaps more importantly, it was in China that Child met and fell in love with her future husband, Paul Cushing Child, a fellow OSS employee.

   As the war wound down, and the OSS was disbanded, Child and Paul Cushing Child returned to the United States. And, on September 1, 1946, the two former spy agency employees were married in Lumberville, Pennsylvania and began a new life together.

Full-Color OSS Patch

   While the Childs would share a lasting love story for the remainder of their lives, the union would produce no children.

Beyond The OSS

   Initially, Paul Cushing Child worked as an artist and poet in Paris, France with his new wife. In 1948, he joined the U.S. Foreign Service and was assigned to Paris, where the U.S. State Department posted Peter to the United States Information Agency.

   While in Paris, that is when Child attended the celebrated Le Cordon Bleu cooking school, where she began her life as a chef. Following her graduation from Le Cordon Bleu, Child went on to study with famous chef Max Bugnard.

   After Child was finished with her studies in the culinary arts, then came her very first book, which essentially launched her career.

   Child’s first book, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” was co-authored by Child and fellow chefs Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle in 1961. All three had met in a cooking club that Child had joined called “Le Cercle des Gourmettes,”

Julia Child and her beloved husband, Paul Cushing Child

   For 10 years before their book was published, the three chefs -- Child, Beck and Bertholle -- began teaching American women how to cook French food from Child’s kitchen. The three called their school L’ecole des trois gourmandes (The school of three food lovers).

   After the book was published, it was Child who translated it into English and introduced it into the American literary market. In the United States the three chefs signed a contract with New York book publisher Alfred A. Knopf. Naturally, the book was a great success.

   Based on the success of the book, Child embarked on her well-known and celebrated career in the media and she authored several more books about cooking.

   On television, she began hosting a show on Boston’s WGBH-TV called “The French Chef,” in February 1963. And so, a legend was born.

   Julia Child passed on Aug. 12, 2004, at the age of 91 in Montecito, California. Meanwhile, the love of her life, Paul Cushing Child, had passed on 10 years earlier, on May 12, 1994. At the time of his death, Peter was 92 years old.

   Child lived an extraordinary life that had many wonderful chapter. Her story is one of wartime, clandestine service. Yet, it is also a love story and a tale about a woman creating her own career in print and on television at a time when this was the exception to the rule. In all, Child left this world far better than she found it thanks to her many lasting contributions.

(Jim Purcell is a retired print journalist, editor and publisher. He resides in Western North Carolina with his wife, Lita.)