08/30/2026
Before becoming a household culinary icon, Julia Child (then Julia McWilliams) joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the CIA, in 1942 after being rejected by the military for being too tall at 6'2". Working directly for the head of the OSS, General William J. Donovan, and later in the Emergency Sea Rescue Equipment Section, her most famous contribution was aiding in the development of a shark repellent.
Navy explosives intended for German U-boats were frequently detonated prematurely when curious sharks bumped into them. Child helped test and formulate a repellent recipe using copper acetate to deter the sharks, a mixture that was used to coat ocean explosives and save downed airmen.
Her intelligence career took her to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and China, where she held top-secret security clearances and managed secret communication registry systems. It was in Ceylon in 1944 that she met Paul Child, a fellow OSS officer. After marrying and moving to Paris in 1948 for Paul’s state department job, Julia enrolled at the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu culinary school.
This pivotal transition transformed her from someone who simply enjoyed eating into a master chef, leading to her groundbreaking 1961 cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking and her legendary television career.
