Famous chef Julia Child and other notable Americans have been revealed as members of the Office of Strategic Services, a precursor to the CIA, which operated during World War II.

Details about her spy background and nearly 24,000 other OSS employees were revealed in newly released documents, withheld from public view as classified records for decades by the CIA, according to reports from the Associated Press.

Other notable members included Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, major league baseball catcher Moe Berg, historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., film actor Sterling Hayden, eldest son of author Ernest Hemingway, John Hemingway, President Theodore Roosevelt's son Kermit Roosevelt, and Miles Copeland, father of the drummer for The Police, Stewart Copeland.

President Franklin Roosevelt created the OSS in 1942 to aid wartime intelligence efforts. It also helped arm, train and supply resistance movements, including Mao Zedong's Red Army in China and the Viet Minh in French Indochina, in areas occupied by the Axis powers during the Second World War.

President Harry Truman disbanded the OSS in 1945, and it became part of the CIA.