YOU'RE STEPPING ON MY CLOAK AND DAGGER

Irreverent in tone, paint-fresh in its backward look, the password here is nonchalance for the author's experiences in the Office of Strategic Services which he entered as a lieutenant, came out a captain -- and was almost thrown out by more than one apoplectic superior. A volunteer, he toughened up in parachute training, went through spy training, was sent to England for more parachuting, British-style, with a subsequent drop into France --behind Allied lines: Brash -- but a laugh at the ""glory boys"", military foul-ups, the cockeyed things that happen in VIP undertakings; this is funny -- and latterly serious, about what went on -- from one man's place in the scheme of things- in the O.S.S. O.K. on the out- of-step war accountings.