Verbeil was born in Philadelphia, the son of a Czarist cavalry officer in the Imperial Army of Russia^{[citation needed]}. Journalist Penny Lernoux described WerBell in her 1984 book In Banks We Trust as "a mysterious White Russian."^[​1] In 1942 WerBell joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and served in China, Burma, and French Indochina. As a guerrilla operative during World War II, he carried out a secret mission for the OSS under the command of Paul Helliwell in China with E. Howard Hunt, Lucien Conein, John K. Singlaub and Ray Cline.^{[​2][​3][​4][​5][​1]} Following World War II, WerBell briefly worked as the director of advertising and public relations for Rich's, a department store in Atlanta, Georgia; he left after a year to open his own PR firm.^[​6]