Shortly after the Japanese attack on the naval base at Pearl Harbor, the Roosevelt Administration directed the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), led by Allen W. Dulles, to begin investigation of suspected collaborators and spies among ethnic communities of the United States with ties to their (now enemy or occupied) former countries.
For information about individuals in the Yugoslav diaspora groups (Croats, Serbs, Slovenes and Macedonians), the OSS relied upon the reports of one "SK" - S. Karan. SK developed informants within numerous emigre organizations, including the Croatian Fraternal Union, the Croatian Catholic Union and the Serbian National Defense Council, among others. The majority of SK's reports have been declassified and are now available in the National Archives in Washington, DC.
A few disclaimers should be noted about the OSS Files, and intelligence files in general. First, the OSS was an organ of the United States government, and SK's primary motivation was to locate those individuals who might be detrimental to the American war effort. The Independent State of Croatia, under Ante Pavelic, had declared war on the United States on December 14, 1941 - and in a most ostentatious manner. Thus, a man's personal opinions, which would be respected in peacetime, were quite enough alone to attract the unwelcome attention of the authorities. And after several Germans were arrested for plotting sabotage in the US, giving aid and comfort to the enemy was a serious threat and was treated accordingly.
Second, SK, though he seems to have been remarkably well-informed, was not the final investigator. Many of his OSS reports which carry the most serious accusations against his subjects have the handwritten comment of a supervisor (often Allen Dulles himself) that a copy had been forwarded to the FBI, presumably for further investigation of the most serious charges lain within.
Finally, governments open files on all sorts of people. Inclusion in these files is not necessarily an equation with guilt, nor should it ever be. However, the OSS Files are a fascinating snapshot of the Croatian community in America after their new country's entry into the war against their old one, particularly after FBI raids shut down the American branch of the Ustase movement, the "Croatian homedefender" organization, shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
