I can't speak to the OSS connection but my experience with State INR as a historian wading through the 1964 Congo Crisis, as an intelligence analyst in Gulf War 1, and as an intel operator in Zaire and Rwanda was that INR did first rate work.

In many ways that work was possible because INR operated semi-independently of the regional bureaus and was not subject to policy pressures as are the bureaus and the embassies.

Finally my associates at INR stayed in their roles longer and developed greater depth than the analysts at DIA or CIA.

Tom