Editing American International Group (AIG) (section)

==Ties to the OSS and CIA==
AIG’s connections to U.S. intelligence agencies, particularly the OSS and CIA, stem from Starr’s activities during World War II and the Cold War. Starr, a former military intelligence officer, joined the OSS, the precursor to the CIA, during the war. His insurance companies in Asia served as cover for OSS agents, providing a legitimate front for intelligence operations in Japanese-occupied territories. 

In 1943, Starr collaborated with William "Wild Bill" Donovan, the chief of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the CIA. Together, they formed a special "insurance intelligence unit" within the OSS. This unit leveraged Starr's extensive international network and connections in China, including his Shanghai newspaper, to gather wartime intelligence on Nazi Germany and Japan. 

Starr’s network of insurance offices across Asia and the Pacific became nodes in the OSS’s wartime intelligence apparatus, facilitating espionage and resistance against Japanese forces. The OSS even shared office space with Starr's operations in New York City. This intelligence gathering involved identifying factories for sabotage, bridges to blow up, and even "pothole counts for roads used for invasion." 

After the war, Starr’s companies, now under the AIG umbrella, allegedly maintained ties to the CIA. According to Operation Gladio by Paul L. Williams, AIG evolved from American International Underwriters (AIU), which had “suspected ties to the CIA in Southeast Asia.” These ties were facilitated by Starr’s relationships with OSS veterans, including [[Paul Helliwell]], a key figure in CIA financial operations. Helliwell, who set up offshore banks like [[Castle Bank & Trust]], worked with Starr to establish [[Underwriters Bank Limited]], a Bahamas-based entity linked to CIA money-laundering networks.

AIG’s general counsel, [[Duncan Lee]], further solidified these connections. Lee, an OSS veteran and special assistant to William Donovan, later served as counsel for the CIA’s Civil Air Transport, a front for covert operations in Asia. Shockingly, Lee was later exposed as a Soviet mole within the OSS, highlighting the murky world of intelligence AIG operated in. Former CIA Director [[William Colby]], in his memoirs, acknowledged AIG’s role in providing cover for CIA operations, particularly in Southeast Asia, where its insurance offices masked agent activities.