Oscar Goldman

Oscar Goldman

Played by Richard Anderson

Appearances

Oscar Goldman is the Director of Operations at the OSI.

Biography

Early Career

Goldman got to the OSI through the Navy, where he held the rank of Executive Officer for Intelligence under Admiral Richter. Goldman's occasional penchant for decisive and somewhat risky action appear to have been partially honed by his unconventional former commanding officer. (Template:TBW)

OSI Career

Oscar was an important figure in the OSI well prior to Steve's bionic replacement surgery. His precise position in the OSI before the beginning of the practical phase of the bionics program is unclear. Nevertheless he was definitely employed by the OSI at the time of Steve's accident, it was Oscar who managed to convince Senator Ed Hill to fast track authorization of the six million dollars required for Steve's operation. Deferring to Oscar's stated need for complete secrecy, Hill pushed an appropriations bill through the US Senate which allowed for the money without specifying its intended use. (Template:SMDM)

Envelope containing final orders of Oscar Goldman (Kill Oscar).

Oscar's position as head of the OSI was considered so important that he arranged standing orders to be killed in the event of his capture. This was to prevent him from revealing classified information through modern methods of interrogation. (Template:TBW). Still, it is unclear just how "senior" a part of the Executive Branch of the United States Government he was. This is largely because the precise nature of the OSI was never revealed. Nevertheless, his relative seniority can be inferred from his direct Presidential orders to participate in nuclear disarmament talks (Template:SMDM), his power to singlehandedly quash Department of Defense contracts for new weapons (Template:TBW), his chairmanship of a task force to recover stolen tactical nuclear weapons (Template:SMDM), his ability to intervene in criminal investigations both domestically (Template:SMDM) and abroad (Template:SMDM) — not to mention the relative speed with which he was able to get General Fuller to authorize Jaime Sommers' bionic replacement surgery.

Code Names

• Snow White (Template:SMDM, Template:TBW and others)

Relationships

Steve Austin and Jaime Sommers

Perhaps due to the fact that he was never seen to have a wife or children, Oscar's most important relationships were likely those with Steve Austin and Jaime Sommers. Unlike Oliver Spencer, Oscar quickly formed a close friendship with Steve, often referring to the bionic man as "pal". While they would often disagree about policy matters, Oscar chose his major battles with Steve. Only rarely did he pull rank with his subordinate. He was mildly jealous — but perhaps more precisely, impressed — with Steve's penchant for romantic success. He once remarked of his friend's prowess, "I should hate him, but I don't." (Template:SMDM). The two were known to socialize together, and occasionally arranged to go on what were effectively double dates. (Template:SMDM) It was largely because of his friendship with Steve that he went against his better professional judgment, to take the risk of making Jaime Sommers bionic. Though this decision led to one of the more profound rifts between Goldman and Austin, it ultimately led to Goldman being Austin's best man at his wedding to Jaime Sommers. (Bionic Ever After?)

Likewise, his relationship with Jaime went well beyond the normal confines of a formal "chain of command". Though he initially saw her in coldly analytical terms as an OSI "asset", he would eventually form an almost paternalistic bond with Sommers. Perhaps because his initial insistence that she be put in the field led directly to her bionic rejection (Template:SMDM), Oscar sometimes seemed reluctant to use her in certain missions. For her part, Jaime occasionally overruled Oscar's caution, but sometimes demanded that he and the OSI give her space. This tug-of-war between Jaime's rights as an individual and her duties as an OSI agent may have been a large part of the reason she ultimately chose a "middle path" of retiring from active duty as an agent, while continuing to support the bionic program itself through lending her talents to the research of Dr. Rudy Wells. (Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman, Bionic Showdown)

His secretaries

Oscar had a revolving supply of secretaries, due to his own security arrangments which required their replacement once every 90 days. (Template:SMDM). In the main, this meant that he was unable to form any particular bond with his secretatries and may have even had difficulties remembering their names. However, once Steve Austin effectively gave Peggy Callahan a Level 6 security clearance by revealing his bionics to her, this policy seemed to be rescinded. Callahan appeared as his secretary for well longer than 90 days. In that time, she once complained to Jaime that Oscar never complimented her work. (Template:TBW)

Besides Callahan, Oscar's other secretaries included:

• Julie Farrell (Template:SMDM)
• Miss Drake (Template:SMDM)
• Sally Johnson (Template:SMDM).

Family

Oscar had an older brother, Sam Goldman, who was dead by the time the practical phase of the bionics program began. (Template:TBW) He has a nephew named Jim Goldman who eventually became an employee of the OSI. (Bionic Showdown) However, this nephew is likely not Sam's son, as Sam died in World War II. Jim's parents died five years prior to the events of Showdown. The identiy of Oscar's other sibling is never revealed.

Deconstructed

• Although Goldman appeared in the original Cyborg novel, an Oliver Spencer was seen as Steve's immediate supervisor in the original 90-minute pilot. Goldman was used exclusively thereafter and for the remainder of the original bionic mythos. Goldman and Spencer may have been simultaneously employed by the OSI, with stories after the initial pilot choosing to concentrate on Oscar's part of the sandbox. This is implied by the pilot's dual usage of the acronyms OSI and OSO, and apparently confirmed by Template:SMDM. There, it is revealed that Oscar had to lobby Senator Ed Hill for the six million dollars needed for Steve's operation. Neither Spencer's fate, nor Oscar's relationship to him, is ever remarked upon in a televised episode.