"Julia Child a Spy!" exulted last week's headlines after the release by the National Archives of hitherto redacted names from Office of Strategic Services (OSS) personnel files.

One can only imagine the fictional narrative fantasies this declassification might inspire: Parachuted behind the lines during the German Occupation of France, the 6-foot-2 Smith College graduate met her future husband, multilingual sophisticate Paul Child, a liaison to the Resistance in the Maquis. In the clandestine world of safe houses,...