Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information. John Scott (1912-1976) was an American writer who worked in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during World War II. The OSS was the predecessor organization to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Scott migrated to the Soviet Union in 1932 and worked for many years in Magnitogorsk, writing Behind the Urals: An American Worker in Russia's City of Steel about his experiences there.