Frank Wisner

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Frank Gardiner Wisner (June 23, 1909 – October 29, 1965) was head of Office of Strategic Services operations in southeastern Europe at the end of World War II, and the head of the Directorate of Plans of the Central Intelligence Agency during the 1950s.

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[edit] Early life

Wisner was born in Laurel, Mississippi. He was educated at Woodberry Forest School in Orange County, Virginia,[1] and the University of Virginia, where he received both B.A. and LL.B. degrees.[2]

[edit] OSS

After graduating, Wisner worked as a Wall Street lawyer. In 1941, 6 months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, he enlisted in the United States Navy. He worked in the Navy's censor's office until he was able to get a transfer to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS).[3] He was stationed first in Turkey, and then in Romania, where he became head of OSS operations in southeastern Europe. This happened just prior to the royal coup of August 23, 1944. At Wisner's behest, King Michael I of Romania permitted the United States to fly out Allied prisoners of war. On August 29, some 1,350 American airmen who had been held prisoners in Romania were rescued by an U.S. Air Crew Rescue Unit, with Soviet troops only days away from entering Bucharest. Despite continuing fighting between Romanian and Red Army forces, and the presence of the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe in the immediate Bucharest area, the rescue team used the Popeşti-Leordeni Airfield.[4] Twelve B-17 Flying Fortress flew out the prisoners in hourly shifts. In all, some 1,700 American POWs were rescued with the help of the Romanians.[5]

Later, Wisner's main task was to spy on the activities of the Soviet Union. Wisner's agents managed to penetrate the Romanian Communist Party and the Red Army's headquarters in Bucharest.[2] He learned that the Soviet Union planned to take over all of Eastern Europe, and was disappointed at the U.S. failure to move to prevent it. He advised the Romanian royal family to go into exile.

In March 1945, Wisner was transferred to Wiesbaden, where he served as OSS liaison to the Gehlen Organisation.[2] In 1946, he returned to law practice, joining the New York City law firm of Carter Ledyard.

[edit] CIA

Wisner was recruited in 1947 by Dean Acheson to join the State Department's Office of Occupied Territories. In 1948, the CIA created a covert action wing, innocuously called the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC). Frank Wisner was put in charge of the operation and recruited many of his old friends from Carter Ledyard. According to its secret charter, its responsibilities include "propaganda, economic warfare, preventive direct action, including sabotage, antisabotage, demolition and evacuation procedures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance groups, and support of indigenous anti-communist elements in threatened countries of the free world." [1]

Later that year Wisner established Operation Mockingbird, a program to influence the domestic and foreign media. In 1952, he became head of the Directorate of Plans, with Richard Helms as his chief of operations. This office had control of 75% of the CIA budget. In this position, he was instrumental in bringing about the fall of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran and Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán in Guatemala.

The FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover, became jealous of the CIA's growing power. He described the OPC as "Wisner's gang of weirdos" and began carrying out investigations into their past. It did not take him long to discover that some of them had been active in left-wing politics in the 1930s. This information was passed to Joseph McCarthy who started making attacks on members of the OPC. Hoover also gave McCarthy details of an affair that Wisner had with Princess Caradja in Romania during the war; Hoover claimed that Caradja was a Soviet agent.[6]

Wisner worked closely with Kim Philby, the British agent who was eventually unmasked as a Soviet spy.

He was also deeply involved in establishing the Lockheed U-2 spy plane program run by Richard M. Bissell, Jr.[2]

Wisner was devastated when the Soviet Union crushed the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.[2] Soon thereafter, he suffered a breakdown, and was diagnosed as a manic depressive. He underwent psychoanalysis and was subjected to electroshock therapy. After spending 6 months at the The Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital,[2] he was released in 1958. CIA Director Allen Dulles named Wisner Chief of the CIA's London Station, but he was still suffering from mental illness.[2] In 1962, he was recalled to Washington, D.C., and agreed to retire from the CIA.

[edit] Personal life

He married Mary Knowles Fritchey (June 28, 1912–July 9, 2002). They had four children: Frank G. Wisner, Ellis Wisner, Graham Wisner and Elizabeth 'Wendy' Hazard.

Frank Wisner committed suicide using one of his son's shotguns. His funeral service was held at the Bethlehem Chapel in the Washington National Cathedral. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery as a naval commander, his wartime rank.[1]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Frank Gardiner Wisner, at the Arlington National Cemetery website
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Athan Theoharis, Richard Immerman, Loch Johnson, Kathryn Olmsted, and John Prados, "The Central Intelligence Agency: Security Under Scrutiny", Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2006. ISBN 0-313-33282-7 doi:10.1336/0313332827
  3. ^ Spartacus Biography
  4. ^ William R. Cubbins, "Letters from Georgescu", January 4, 1990
  5. ^ Patricia Louise Wadley, "Even One Is Too Many", Ph.D. thesis, Texas Christian University, 1993
  6. ^ Evan Thomas (1995). The Very Best Men: The Early Years of the CIA, 98-106. 
Preceded by
Allen W. Dulles		 Director of the National Clandestine Service
August 23, 1951 – January 1, 1959		 Succeeded by
Richard M. Bissell, Jr.