[4], In 1941, six months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, he enlisted in the United States Navy. From 1971 to 1973, he was first secretary at the U.S. Embassy in Tunis, Tunisia, and following that, from 1973 to 1974, he was first secretary at the U.S. Embassy in Dacca, Bangladesh. Two months later he moved on to Romania where his main task was to spy on the activities of the Soviet Union. This secret operation involved recruiting former German officers and diplomats who could be used in the covert war against the Soviet Union. The UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold was so upset by the actions of the USA that he considered resigning from his post. Later, John Loftus, a prosecutor with the Office of Special Investigations at the U.S. Justice Department, accused Wisner of methodically recruiting Nazi war criminals. Death Frank Wisner reportedly committed suicide with one of his son's shotguns on October 29, 1965. He served as third secretary at the U.S. Embassy in Algiers, Algeria. Among his overseas assignments, Wisner served as the United States Ambassador to Zambia (197982); Egypt (198691), the Philippines (199192), and India, 199497. Continue with Recommended Cookies. In all, some 1,700 American POWs were transported. In the darkness I could see only a silhouette of the person entering the room; when the door closed it was dark again, and I could not make out the features of the man standing next to me. After the West German counterintelligence chief, Otto John, defected to the Soviet Union in 1954, Wisner fed Alsop a story that the West German spymaster had been kidnapped by the KGB. Their articles appeared in over 300 different newspapers. Wisner left Bucharest in the last week of January 1945.[6]. Wisner, 72, was U.S. ambassador to Egypt from 1986 to 1991 and developed a close relationship with Mubarak in that time, according to Hazard and news reports. The plot against Arbenz therefore became part of Executive Action (a plan to remove unfriendly foreign leaders from power). After Pearl Harbor, he. Let's run over your presentations." In late 2002, Wisner co-chaired an independent working group that developed a model for the US's post-conflict role in Iraq, should an invasion occur. When this failed he put pressure on Security Council members to vote against the resolution. He worked in the Navy's censor's office before managing to get a transfer to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). While in Bucharest he became friendly with King Michael of Romania. Wisner, as head of the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC), took overall responsibility for the operation. Wisner was a genteel lawyer from Mississippi who grew bored with office life and joined the Navy. Indonesia 1958: Nixon, the CIA, and the Secret War He was so depressed that his wife, Polly, worried that he would try to commit suicide. Frank G. Wisner - Wikipedia During the war William Donovan as head of the OSS, had built up a team of 16,000 agents working behind enemy lines. Phillips, along with E. Howard Hunt, was responsible for running the CIA's Voice of Liberation radio station. Wisner committed suicide. Ernesto Guevara attempted to organize some civil militias but senior army officers blocked the distribution of weapons. The real Angleton, the real Frank Wisner, the real Bill Harvey are stories in their own right. Frankpassed away in July 1963, at age 83. The CIA was feeling particularly embattled that October. It was a warm summer night. "All these people are getting killed, Wisner later said, and we weren't doing anything, we were ignoring it. On October 28, before he drove out to his farm on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, she called the caretaker and asked him to remove the guns from the house. 1944, Wisner was sent to Turkey. Over the next few weeks thousands were arrested on suspicion of communist activity. Theres a general rule in secret operations: If it has a bland name, its important. For faster navigation, this Iframe is preloading the Wikiwand page for Frank Wisner . "What about the Russians? It had also given America resources and experience (concentrated in private hands) with the world outside the Americas, used effectively by the OSS during World War II American government, however, had stayed in America, lending its influence to business but never trying to overthrow other governments for commercial purposes. Even with my curious nature, I myself was unaware, except in the vaguest terms, what political action projects were going forward and how (Frank Wisner was spending Marshall Plan counterpart funds.) On Tuesday, Frank Wisner, a former American diplomat, conveyed a most urgent message to Hosni Mubarak of Egypt: Barack Obama would . What was not said, but what was already clear after the events in East Germany the previous year, was that the exercise of American power, even clandestinely through the CIA, would not be undertaken where Soviet power was already established. A month earlier word had spread through the agency that the New York Times was embarking on a first-ever investigation of the CIA. In 1951 Allen W. Dulles persuaded Cord Meyer to join the CIA. This machinery was in the CIA but the agency shared control of it with the State Department and the Pentagon. ", Assassination of John F. Kennedy Encyclopedia, In December, 1956, Wisner had a mental breakdown and was diagnosed as suffering from manic depression. Frank Vizner (1857-1886) - Find a Grave Memorial Wisner was disappointed by the US government's reaction to this news and he was forced to advise the Romanian royal family to go into exile. Wisner was obviously too sick to go to Spain. Hoover also passed to McCarthy details of an affair that Wisner had with Princess Caradja in Romania during the war. Frank Wisner, the first chief of the CIA's covert-operations unit, provides a top-down view of the early Cold War, while Michael Burke, a jack-of-all-trades charmer, delivers an agent's . He worked in the Navy's censor's office until he managed to transfer to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in 1943. According to Phillips he initially questioned the right of the CIA to interfere in Guatemala: In his autobiography Phillips claims he said to Barnes: "But Arbenz became President in a free election. "Thanks Allen, and thanks to all of you. Legal Statement. After Pearl Harbor, he found himself in the Office of Strategic Services, where he spied behind enemy lines, eventually becoming head of OSS operations in southeastern Europe. Category:Frank Wisner - Wikimedia Commons . Frank Wisner, Jr. WASHINGTON Once a month or so, a coterie of aging diplomats convenes at the elegant Metropolitan Club of New York. Frank Wisner was the first American in, and this - you're talking August, September - I guess September of 1944. Who made that decision?". Work out a new speech for Brad We went to the White House in the morning. He was dismissed from the CIA in 1950 after an arrest a few years earlier brought his homosexuality to the attention of Senator Joseph McCarthy during the Lavender scare that saw a purge of the State Department personnel because of charges of homosexuality. Carlos Castillo and his collection of soldiers now crossed the Honduran-Guatemalan border. However, in 1947, he was recruited by Dean Acheson, to work under Charles Saltzman, at the State Department's Office of Occupied Territories. Five thousand refugees volunteered to be part of a post-nuclear guerrilla force, which was just what it sounds likeFallout: New Stalingrad. First headed by Allen Dulles, Wisner succeeded Dulles in 1951 when Dulles was named Director of Central Intelligence. During this period Wisner worked closely with Kim Philby, the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) liaison in Washington. The CIA propaganda campaign included the distribution of 100,000 copies of a pamphlet entitled Chronology of Communism in Guatemala. The removal of Jacobo Arbenz resulted in several decades of repression. He had upset the US government by nationalizing Iran's oil industry. Wisner came directly from central casting as the shady OSS spy from World War II. Castillo's new government was immediately recognised by President Dwight Eisenhower. An indictment of the CIA, through the lives of four spies I saw Frank three days before he died and he seemed in good spirits. He suffered a breakdown in 1958, and retired from the Agency in 1962. 1930 United States Federal Census. On August 29, 1944, Lt. Comdr. "[15], During the early 1950s, Wisner was the subject of FBI inquiries in connection with his wartime work in Romania, including the claim that he had an affair with Tanda Caradja, daughter of Romanian princess Catherine Caradja during the war; Caradja was alleged in FBI reports to be a Soviet agent. After graduating Wisner worked as a Wall Street lawyer. Finally Brad (Colonel Albert Haney) rehearsed his speech. The growth of the OSS brought conflict with John Edgar Hoover who saw it as a rival to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Let's run over your presentations." PDF The Good Shepherd - Central Intelligence Agency She moved to Lodi in 1934. Wisner managed to get a copy of the speech that Nikita Khrushchev made at the 20th Party Congress in February, 1956, where Khrushchev launched an attack on the rule of Joseph Stalin. Wisner moved to Washington where he associated with a group of journalists, politicians and government officials that became known as the Georgetown Set. Frank Gardner Wisner was born in Laurel, Mississippi, in 1910. 'The Quiet Americans' Examines Tragic Miscalculations In The CIA's "The Empire's Bagman:" Obama Egypt Envoy Frank Wisner Says Mubarak Wisner was too ill to return to his post as head of the DDP. During this period Wisner worked closely with Kim Philby, the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) liaison in Washington. A large staff under Desmond Fitzgerald of the Far East Division was set up. However, Barnes convinced him that it was vital important that the Soviets did not establish a "beachhead in Central America". He had been elected as President of Guatemala in March, 1951. Eisenhower shook hands all around. Probably the most powerful of the Georgetown insiders was Frank Wisner, chief of covert operations for the C.I.A., and one of the most zealous of the anti-Communist crusaders who turned the agency . Accepting that further resistance would only bring more deaths he announced his resignation over the radio. He was a good sprinter and hurdler and in 1936 was asked to compete in the Olympic trials. I suspect that had we known more (it would have just made us more appreciative.) Wisner also met Arthur Schlesinger, an OSS sergeant serving in Germany. Frank Wisners new agency was called the Office of Policy Coordination, which should tell you an awful lot about its business. The Defense Department preferred to save its dirty tricks for times of war. Hoover, claimed that Caradja was a Soviet agent. Your email address will not be published. Soon afterwards it was renamed the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC). On 18th June, 1954, aircraft dropped leaflets over Guatemala demanding that Arbenz resign immediately or else the county would be bombed. His army was outnumbered by the Guatemalan Army. Carlos Castillo and his collection of soldiers now crossed the Honduran-Guatemalan border. Unlike most members of the Georgetown Crowd, Meyer now abandoned his liberal views. Castillo now reversed the Arbenz reforms. As previously described at Mental Floss, one of their more brilliant, but alas, never executed, operations involved airdropping enormous condoms labeled medium behind the Iron Curtain, as a way of demonstrating the anatomical superiority of the American fighting man.). Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Wisners office would be attached to the CIA only on paper, and strictly for funding and quarters. Some of this money was used to bribe journalists and publishers. Frank Gardiner Wisner (June 23, 1909 - October 29, 1965) was head of Office of Strategic Services operations in southeastern Europe in 1944-1945 at the end of World War II, and served as the second Deputy Director of Plans (DDP) in charge of the Directorate of Plans (DDP) of the Central Intelligence Agency from August 23, 1951 to September 1958. . America's First Spy: The Tragic Heroism Of Frank Wisner According to Alex Constantine (Mockingbird: The Subversion Of The Free Press By The CIA), in the 1950s, "some 3,000 salaried and contract CIA employees were eventually engaged in propaganda efforts". Wisner, one of the early members of the Central Intelligence Agency, helped build, and was the . Mossadegh also abolished Iran's feudal agriculture sector and replaced with a system of collective farming and government land ownership. Later that year Wisner established Operation Mockingbird, a program to influence the American media. On his watch, the CIA overthrew the governments of Iran and Guatemalathe only two such successes in the Agencys history. On January 31, 2011, he was sent to Egypt by President Barack Obama to negotiate a resolution to the popular protests against the regime that had swept the country. Frank G. Wisner, an ex-OSS man, was brought in from the State Department to head it, with a cover title of his own invention. 9 of the Most Exclusive University Secret Societies - SPYSCAPE Frank Gardner Wisner was born in Laurel, Mississippi, in 1910. Eisenhower turned to his Chief of the Joint Chiefs. The lights were turned off while Brad used slides during his report. "Great," he said to Brad, "that was a good briefing." Britain and France were both initially in favour but eventually buckled under United States pressure and agreed to abstain. The results were horrifying2500 Hungarians were killed, 200,000 were forced to flee their country, and tens of thousands were arrested and imprisoned. Media in category "Frank Wisner" The following 3 files are in this category, out of 3 total. He whispered a number of questions: "Who is that? Its worth noting that Wisner was the Christopher Hitchens of his daya relentless charmer and bon vivant who threw all the best parties with the most interesting, powerful, and influential guests. In the cases of Frank Wisner and Philip Graham, it played a role in their suicides. He was prescribed psychoanalysis and shock therapy (electroconvulsive treatment). Desmond FitzGerald, a deputy director of the CIA, remembered him as a watchmaker in Detroit on whose shoulders it fell far more than any other man, to build our defenses from the ground up and with all speed., 2023 Minute Media - All Rights Reserved. "He just has many, many friends in. Frank Wisner - Ancestry.com The plot against Arbenz therefore became part of Executive Action (a plan to remove unfriendly foreign leaders from power). Wisner began having trouble with J. Edgar Hoover. In 1948 Frank Wisner was appointed director of the Office of Special Projects. Wisner recruited Philip Graham (Washington Post) to run the project within the industry. Hoover also passed to McCarthy details of an affair that Wisner had with Princess Caradja in Romania during the war. In 1976, at the beginning of the Carter administration, he served under Cyrus Vance as Deputy Executive Secretary of the Department of State. ", Wisner, who had been involved in creating this propaganda, told friends that he felt the American government had let Hungary down. However, he got bored and enlisted in the United States Navy six months before Pearl Harbor. President Dwight Eisenhower responded by claiming that Guatemala had a "communist dictatorship.. had established an outpost on this continent to the detriment of all the American nations". While in Germany he served under Allen W. Dulles. Senator McCarthy succeeded in forcing CIA director Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter to dismiss long-time staffer Carmel Offie in 1950, over Wisner's objections.[19]. Alumni include Frank Wisner, one of the CIA's founders, and US ambassador to the UN Edward Stettinius, Jr. We and our partners use data for Personalised ads and content, ad and content measurement, audience insights and product development. "Incredible". Toriello accused the United States government of categorizing "as communism every manifestation of nationalism or economic independence, any desire for social progress, any intellectual curiosity, and any interest in progressive liberal reforms.". As Thomas Polgar later pointed out: "Sure, we never said rise up and revolt, but there was a lot of propaganda that led the Hungarians to believe that we would help. CDR Frank Gardiner Wisner (1909-1965) - Find a Grave Memorial He condemned the Great Purge and accused Stalin of abusing his power. This included former members of the Nazi Party such as Gustav Hilger and Hans von Bittenfield. The program successfully inserted countless pro-American news stories into coverage while suppressing reporting that might be embarrassing to the country. (1999) has pointed out: "In long exchanges, heated by intellectual passion and alcohol, their vision of a new world order began to take shape. Wisner's friends believed the illness was triggered by the failure of the Hungarian Uprising. [11] He went on to become a member of the board for EOG Resources. Any reaction? Wisner Junior was well-known in the CIA and he worked as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and Under Secretary of . February 1, 2011. He pointed out that they had spent a great deal of money on Radio Free Europe "to get these people to revolt". Most men brought their wives to these gatherings. Nixon asked a number of questions, concise and to the point, and demonstrated a thorough knowledge of the Guatemalan political situation. But Frank was a little excessive, even for me.". The whole arrangement of American power in the world from the nineteenth century was based on commercial concerns and methods of operation his had given America a material empire through the ownership of foreign transport systems, oil fields, estancias, stocks, and shares. 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On 18th June, 1954, aircraft dropped leaflets over Guatemala demanding that Arbenz resign immediately or else the county would be bombed. Frank George Wisner II (born July 2, 1938) is an American businessman and former diplomat. [6][7], Wisner arrived just as Romania joined the Allies and declared war on the Axis. Iranians took to the streets against Mohammed Mossadegh. Wisner worked well with Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda and helped to rebuild bilateral relations between Zambia and the USA after a 1980 spy scandal at the U.S. embassy in Lusaka. Wisner's other great success was the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz. The questions from the unknown man next to me were very insistent, furtive. Four days later, after a day in which Mubarak allies took violent reprisal against democracy activists, Wisner spoke to a security conference in Europe and called it "crucial" that Mubarak stay on in the interest of "stability." Even with my curious nature, I myself was unaware, except in the vaguest terms, what political action projects were going forward and how (Frank Wisner was spending Marshall Plan counterpart funds.) The CIA sent Wisner to the Sheppard-Pratt Institute, a psychiatric hospital near Baltimore. Carmel Offie - Wikipedia Wisner was also deeply involved in establishing the Lockheed U-2 spy plane program run by Richard M. Bissell Jr.[1], Wisner suffered a serious breakdown in September 1958. According to Deborah Davis (Katharine the Great): "By the early 1950s, Wisner 'owned' respected members of the New York Times, Newsweek, CBS and other communications vehicles.". Frank G. Wisner, an ex-OSS man, was brought in from the State Department to head it, with a cover title of his own invention. Frank Wisner died rather suddenly at age 29 years while still living in Tama County, Iowa. With so many talented officers working in covert action, and with most of the foreigners involved being friendly collaborators and not "recruited" assets, the do could scarcely base promotions on the number of recruitments a case officer made each year. The CIA began providing financial and logistic support for Colonel Carlos Castillo. I myself was no great admirer of the Soviet Union, and I certainly had no expectation of harmonious relations after the war. Almost 30 years after the fall of communism in. David Atlee Phillips was appointed to run the propaganda campaign against Arbenz's government. When he finished Alien Dulles said, "Brad, I've never heard such crap." Thus by overthrowing him, America was in effect making a new decision in the cold war. The New York Times reported that he was a personal friend of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. Two months later he moved on to Romania where his main task was to spy on the activities of the Soviet Union. However, there is evidence that he was recruited several years earlier and had been spying on the liberal organizations he had been a member of in the later 1940s. He gained support for this from James Forrestal, the Defense Secretary. It had also given America resources and experience (concentrated in private hands) with the world outside the Americas, used effectively by the OSS during World War II American government, however, had stayed in America, lending its influence to business but never trying to overthrow other governments for commercial purposes. He wanted to start yet another secret agencythis one accountable to virtually no one. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles added that the Guatemala people were living under a "communist type of terrorism". With the help of George Kennan, the Office of Special Projects was created in 1948. To give some idea of how aggressively Wisner worked to build his spy network and subvert the Soviet Union, when the OPC was finally and officially absorbed into the CIA as the Directorate of Plans, it dwarfed the rest of the Agency, and consumed 75 percent of the CIA budget. I suspect that had we known more (it would have just made us more appreciative.) The whole arrangement of American power in the world from the nineteenth century was based on commercial concerns and methods of operation his had given America a material empire through the ownership of foreign transport systems, oil fields, estancias, stocks, and shares. But Frank was a little excessive, even for me.". He orchestrated a massive spy ring, many of whose members were tasked with parachuting into Soviet territory and gathering intelligence. For months, waves of airborne spies in mission after mission landed, and each was killed straightaway. . When the Central Intelligence Agency was established in 1947, its founding officers had to figure out how to build a global network of spies, run secret missions, overthrow governments, and recruit agents. At this time Wisner began plotting the overthrow of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran. The DPP now accounted for three quarters of the CIA budget and 60% of its personnel. Khrushchev's de-Stalinzation policy encouraged people living in Eastern Europe to believe that he was willing to give them more independence from the Soviet Union. Wisner added that he felt personally betrayed by this behaviour. A door opened near me. Tracy Barnes was field commander of what became known as Operation Success. ANCExplorer Frank Wisner grave.jpg. Frank Gardner Wisner was born in Laurel, Mississippi, in 1910. Under this innocuous title, the United States was now fully in the business of covert political operations. Mrs. Wisner had gone to Chicago to visit with friends for a few days, taking her children with her.. In the darkness I could see only a silhouette of the person entering the room; when the door closed it was dark again, and I could not make out the features of the man standing next to me. Allen W. Dulles therefore sent him to London to be CIA chief of station in England. Aid Groups Warn of "Secondary Disaster" as Death Toll from Turkey . Frank George Wisner, II (1938 - d.) - Genealogy Recalled one CIA officer, I would be at a meeting where it was obvious that the decision had been made the night before at a dinner party., Still, the jobs toll on Wisner was becoming apparent. Hector and I smiled at each other as Brad flushed with pleasure. [2] An event carried out Events Participated in References Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA, Penguin, 2007, pp.36-38. His work involved planning a coup in Guyana, a country that had a left-wing government. Nixon asked a number of questions, concise and to the point, and demonstrated a thorough knowledge of the Guatemalan political situation. ", Wisner, who had been involved in creating this propaganda, told friends that he felt the American government had let Hungary down. About Frank G. Wisner. In 1954 Wisner arranged for the funding the Hollywood production of Animal Farm, the animated allegory based on the book written by George Orwell. Later that year Wisner established Mockingbird, a program to influence the domestic American media. Wisner's FBI file tells scurrilous tales of his wild life during and after World War II. Virtual Roundtable: Life Lessons Learned With Frank G. Wisner Husband of Mary (Polly) Knowles a dedicated arts philanthropist and legendary Washington hostess. Kermit Roosevelt, the grandson of Theodore Roosevelt, was put in charge of what became known as Operation Ajax. Later, John Loftus, a prosecutor with the Office of Special Investigations at the U.S. Justice Department, accused Wisner of methodically recruiting Nazi war criminals. Vijay Prashad: Yes, the point is a very good one, why Margaret Scobey herself was not in charge of the deliberations. Wisner managed to get a copy of the speech that Nikita Khrushchev made at the 20th Party Congress in February, 1956, where Khrushchev launched an attack on the rule of Joseph Stalin. CIA's Voice of Liberation also put out similar radio broadcasts. He was a good sprinter and hurdler and in 1936 was asked to compete in the Olympic trials. He was educated at Woodberry Forest School in Orange and the University of Virginia. [vague][15] Wisner was unsuccessful in convincing Mubarak to do so. By this time Operation Mockingbird had a major influence over 25 newspapers and wire agencies. Wisner was told to create an organization that concentrated on "propaganda, economic warfare; preventive direct action, including sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition and evacuation measures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance groups, and support of indigenous anti-Communist elements in threatened countries of the free world". Frank Gardner Wisner was born in Laurel, Mississippi, in 1910. Henry Breck, a junior CIA officer out of Groton and Harvard, watched his grim-faced elders as they mourned. Hector and I smiled at each other as Brad flushed with pleasure. William (Rip) Robertson was also involved in the campaign against Arbenz. He eventually had a breakdown, was hospitalized, and received an aggressive course of electroshock therapy. Internationalist, abrasive, competitive, these men had an unshakeable belief in their value system, and in their duty to offer it to others. [8] Twelve B-17 Flying Fortress planes flew out the prisoners in hourly shifts. 1930s. Nagy also released anti-communists from prison and talked about holding free elections and withdrawing Hungary from the Warsaw Pact. After graduating Wisner worked as a Wall Street lawyer. In the 1950s and early 1960s the CIA's top leaders - men like Allen Dulles, Frank Wisner, Richard Bissell, Tracy Barnes, and Desmond Fitzgerald - were profoundly devoted to covert action. To get better results, add more information such as Birth Info, Death Info and Locationeven a guess will help. He was so depressed that his wife, Polly, worried that he would try to commit suicide. Over the next few weeks riots took place in Poland and East Germany. The President strode from the room.