Platt delivers paper at Raleigh History Club

     Dr. Rorin Platt, associate professor of history at Campbell University, delivered a paper on the role of intelligence agent, Francis Pickens Miller, during World War II. The title of the paper is “A Cavalier in Cloak: Francis Pickens Miller, Interventionism and the Secret War against Hitler.” Platt delivered the paper at the January meeting of the Raleigh History Club. The paper is based on a book on the subject that Platt is currently working on.
     A native of Middlesboro, Ky., Francis Pickens Miller entered the army following the U.S. declaration of war against Germany in 1917. He became field secretary of the Foreign Policy Association and helped found the National Policy Committee, an organization whose primary goal was to develop a sense of national policy based on general interests of the American people rather than special interests. Miller was convinced that Germany posed a threat to a free society and the American way of life. Following the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, Miller became the director of the British section of the OSS. His major contribution to the Allied war effort was the OSS participation in Operation Sussex, in which 50, two-man teams were dropped through Northern France in advance of Allied landings to collect crucial information to the impending invasion.
     Dr. Rorin Platt is a book review editor for “American Diplomacy” and a member of American Diplomacy Publishers Board of Directors. A native of Virginia, he received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Platt received a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland at College Park. He has also studied at Georgetown University and at the University of Virginia and taught at a number of institutions. A diplomatic historian who specializes in American intelligence history, Platt has authored two books and a number of articles and book reviews, including “Virginia in Foreign Affairs, 1933-1941.” In addition, Platt served as a judge for two sessions at the annual meeting of the North Carolina Association of Historians, “Twentieth Century America II” and “Military History.” The Web site for “American Diplomacy” is based at UNC-Chapel Hill.