Thus by overthrowing him, America was in effect making a new decision in the cold war. 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. "He realized that his life would be circumscribed by increasing cycles of depression. Now internal subversion communism from within - was an additional cause for direct action. As one of the agents involved in Operation Bloodstone, Harry Rositzke, pointed out, Wisner was willing to use anyone "as long as he was anti-communist". Wisner focused his efforts on psychological warfare, most notably through Operation Mockingbird, wherein the OPC sought to influence foreign mediaand who better to plant propaganda than the press itself? In 1948 Frank Wisner was appointed director of the Office of Special Projects. He persuaded President Harry S. Truman that the OSS in peacetime would be an "American Gestapo". It compelled a higher degree of intellectual curiosity, accomplishment, and operational savior faire than did espionage ("espionage" referring specifically to the recruitment of foreign intelligence agents). Later, several of the people involved in Operation Success, including Richard Bissell and Tracy Barnes, regretted the outcome of the Guatemala Coup. They also produced three films on Guatemala for showing free in cinemas. 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. 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. "Thanks Allen, and thanks to all of you. According to Loftus, it was all part of a Cold War scheme to wage guerrilla warfare in Soviet-occupied Europe, in which the Nazi collaborators were to play a key role. He condemned the Great Purge and accused Stalin of abusing his power. The real Angleton, the real Frank Wisner, the real Bill Harvey are stories in their own right. He wanted to start yet another secret agencythis one accountable to virtually no one. I myself was no great admirer of the Soviet Union, and I certainly had no expectation of harmonious relations after the war. ", Wisner, who had been involved in creating this propaganda, told friends that he felt the American government had let Hungary down. In 1951 Allen W. Dulles persuaded Cord Meyer to join the CIA. Members of what was later called the Georgetown Ladies' Social Club included Katharine Graham, Mary Pinchot Meyer, Sally Reston, Polly Wisner, Joan Braden, Lorraine Cooper, Evangeline Bruce, Avis Bohlen, Janet Barnes, Tish Alsop, Cynthia Helms, Marietta FitzGerald, Phyllis Nitze and Annie Bissell. After 1953 the network was overseen by Allen W. Dulles, director of the Central Intelligence Agency. The lighted shaft of the Washington Monument could be seen through the trees. In 1964 he became a rural development officer at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, South Vietnam, for the Agency for International Development. (The CIA posted guards to keep the KGB from seeing who was there.). : the individuals concerned have for . He was prescribed psychoanalysis and shock therapy (electroconvulsive treatment). All rights reserved. Jake Esterline was placed in charge of the CIA's Washington task force in the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala. The lights were turned off while Brad used slides during his report. Frank Wisner, the father of American covert operations, was both. Another historical falsehood is that becoming a leader at CIA hinges on membership in Skull and Bones, the secret society at Yale. The most active element of this special staff came from the CIA's clandestine Air Division which at that time was under the control of Dick Helms. The DPP now accounted for three quarters of the CIA budget and 60% of its personnel. Frank Wisner married Antonie Chalupsky, daughter of Frantisek Chalupsky and Katerine Chudly about 1881 and they . Wisner leaked details of the speech to the New York Times who published it on 2nd June, 1956. Thats why when you read about something called the Mission Support Activity, your eyes glaze over before you realize that youre reading about the Joint Special Operations Commands special mission unit for intelligence commandos. A decision was reached to create an organization within the CIA to conduct secret political operations. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. The Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) was funded by siphoning of funds intended for the Marshall Plan. Frank G. Wisner, Sr. did not dabble in small matters. His work involved planning a coup in Guyana, a country that had a left-wing government. Frank Gardiner Wisner - Commander, United States Navy Central Intellignce Agency February 27, 2023 by Michael Robert Patterson Frank Gardner Wisner was born in Laurel, Mississippi, in 1910. 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 was assigned as a vice consul at the American Consulate General in Tangier, Morocco. This became the espionage and counter-intelligence branch of the Central Intelligence Agency. Feit Frank Visner aka Wisner or Vizner was born about 1857 in Cslav, Kutn Hora District, (Central Bohemian District), Bohemia, Austria. He was prescribed psychoanalysis and shock therapy (electroconvulsive treatment). It also highlights the structure and personalities of U.S. decision-making during that late spring of 1994 when hundreds of thousands were killed as the U.S. and other nations stood by. Wisner was transferred to the OSS station in Wiesbaden. During the war William Donovan as head of the OSS, had built up a team of 16,000 agents working behind enemy lines. In July 19, 1954, he created the National Committee of Defense Against Communism and decreed the Preventive Penal Law Against Communism to fight against those who supported Arbenz when he was in power. Iranians took to the streets against Mohammed Mossadegh. In 1954 Wisner arranged for the funding the Hollywood production of Animal Farm, the animated allegory based on the book written by George Orwell. This included former members of the Nazi Party such as Gustav Hilger and Hans von Bittenfield. Castillo now reversed the Arbenz reforms. Wisner was also able to restrict newspapers from reporting about certain events. The OPC had a staff of 10, so this wasnt likely to happen. 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.". It did not take him long to discover that some of them had been active in left-wing politics in the 1930s. First headed by Allen Dulles, Wisner succeeded Dulles in 1951 when Dulles was named Director of Central Intelligence. In March 1953, 209,842 acres of United Fruit Company's uncultivated land was taken by the government which offered compensation of $525,000. Frank Gardner Wisner was born in Laurel, Mississippi, in 1910. Such vague accusations as that "more than ten people have died mysteriously" can always be explained in some natural way e.g. "Great," he said to Brad, "that was a good briefing." The President strode from the room. The CIA propaganda campaign included the distribution of 100,000 copies of a pamphlet entitled Chronology of Communism in Guatemala. 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 . Work out a new speech for Brad We went to the White House in the morning. 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. His lineage is impeccable, since his father, Frank Wisner Sr., was a senior CIA official (from 1947 until his suicide in 1965) who was involved in the overthrow of Arbenz of Guatemala (1954) and Mossadeq of Iran (1953). The CIA sent Wisner to the Sheppard-Pratt Institute, a psychiatric hospital near Baltimore. However, Wisner was cleared of all suspicions by the CIA Office of Security. "What about the Russians? Also involved was Richard Bissell, head of the Directorate for Plans, an organization instructed to conduct covert anti-Communist operations around the world. Thus by overthrowing him, America was in effect making a new decision in the cold war. He described the OPC as "Wisner's gang of weirdos" and began carrying out investigations into their past. During his tenure in Lusaka, he played the role of point man for the Constructive Engagement policy of assistant secretary of state for African affairs Chester Crocker. Wisner was too ill to return to his post as head of the DDP. A door opened near me. During his absence Wisner's job was covered by his chief of operations, Richard Helms. A close friend, Avis Bohlen said he "was so depressed about how the world was going he felt we were losing the Cold War.". The nature of Arbenz's government, however, meant that Operation Success launched both the CIA and the United States on a new path. [2] After graduating from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1934,[3] Wisner began working as a Wall Street lawyer for Carter, Ledyard & Milburn. In June. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. As soon as the war ended Truman ordered the OSS to be closed down leaving a small intelligence organization, the Strategic Services Unit (SSU) in the War Department. Internationalist, abrasive, competitive, these men had an unshakeable belief in their value system, and in their duty to offer it to others. Admiral. 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. "He realized that his life would be circumscribed by increasing cycles of depression. Graham himself recruited others who had worked for military intelligence during the war. Date of death: 29 October 1965: Manner of death: suicide; Place of burial: Arlington National Cemetery (385229.114N 77414.088W, Section 6, grave 9395-C, 1965) Pseudonym: . On Tuesday, April third at Chicago, occurred the sudden death of little Frank M. Wisner, the three and a half years old son of Mr. and Mrs. L.S. I myself was no great admirer of the Soviet Union, and I certainly had no expectation of harmonious relations after the war. However, he got bored and enlisted in the United States Navy six months before Pearl Harbor. The Two Frank Wisners. Castillo's new government was immediately recognised by President Dwight Eisenhower. Nixon asked a number of questions, concise and to the point, and demonstrated a thorough knowledge of the Guatemalan political situation. Soon afterwards it was renamed the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC). The removal of Jacobo Arbenz resulted in several decades of repression. The State Department immediately disavowed his comments and said Wisner had not been serving as an envoy but as a conduit for certain administration views.[16]. Wisner grew very fond of Philby and was unaware that he was a Soviet spy betraying all his operations to his masters in Moscow. While the Guatemalan government valued $2.99 per acre, the American government valued it at $75 per acre. Feb 21, 11:00 am. ", Wisner, who had been involved in creating this propaganda, told friends that he felt the American government had let Hungary down. 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. Two months later he moved on to Romania where his main task was to spy on the activities of the Soviet Union. On Tuesday, Frank Wisner, a former American diplomat, conveyed a most urgent message to Hosni Mubarak of Egypt: Barack Obama would . Arbenz, on the other hand, had simply been trying to reform his country and had not sought foreign help in this. No longer would the Monroe Doctrine, which was directed against foreign imperial ambitions in the Americas from across the Atlantic or the Pacific, suffice. Later that year Wisner established Operation Mockingbird, a program to influence the American media. Name: Frank Wisner By this time Operation Mockingbird had a major influence over 25 newspapers and wire agencies. 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. 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. Theres a general rule in secret operations: If it has a bland name, its important. Vibrant democratic parties, even socialist ones, were preferable to a Communist victory. However, in 1947, he was recruited by Dean Acheson, to work under Charles Saltzman, at the State Department's Office of Occupied Territories. Wisner found one of his boys' shotguns and killed himself on October 29, 1965. [2] An event carried out Events Participated in References Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA, Penguin, 2007, pp.36-38. Wisner's friends believed the illness was triggered by the failure of the Hungarian Uprising. Eisenhower spoke to his Chief of Naval Operations "Watch that sub. He gained support for this from James Forrestal, the Defense Secretary. He later claimed that Wisner had become obsessed with the Soviet Union: "He was already mobilizing for the cold war. Mossadegh also abolished Iran's feudal agriculture sector and replaced with a system of collective farming and government land ownership. 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. Any reaction? [1] He was also tapped for the Seven Society. This included George Kennan, Dean Acheson, Richard Bissell, Desmond FitzGerald, Joseph Alsop, Stewart Alsop, Tracy Barnes, Thomas Braden, Philip Graham, David Bruce, Clark Clifford, Walt Rostow, Eugene Rostow, Chip Bohlen, Cord Meyer, James Angleton, William Averill Harriman, John McCloy, Felix Frankfurter, John Sherman Cooper, James Reston, Allen W. Dulles and Paul Nitze. Nixon asked a number of questions, concise and to the point, and demonstrated a thorough knowledge of the Guatemalan political situation. [5], He works as an international-affairs advisor at the firm of Squire Patton Boggs in Washington, DC.[6]. This information was passed to Joseph McCarthy who started making attacks on members of the OPC. [9], Immediately after the arrival of Major Robert Bishop (September 9, 1944) as head of X-2 (Counter Espionage) branch in Bucharest, Wisner started the search for German records. He worked in the Navy's censor's office before managing to get a transfer to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). 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 2nd Deputy Director of Plans in charge of the Directorate of Plans of the Central Intelligence Agency from August 23, 1951 to January 1, 1959. Frank Wisner took over direct command of the everyday operations of the Indonesian project. 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". FrankWisner18791963Frank Wisnerin U.S. Social Security Death Index (SSDI) Frank Wisnerwas born on September 14 1879. "Incredible". The man who sits at the head of the table is Frank G. Wisner, a bald, barrel-chested, martini-drinking (he gave up cigars, friends say) 72-year-old retired ambassador and businessman. When he finished Alien Dulles said, "Brad, I've never heard such crap." With the help of George Kennan, the Office of Special Projects was created in 1948. According to Deborah Davis, Meyer became Mockingbird's "principal operative". He was educated at Woodberry Forest School in Orange and the University of Virginia. He pointed out that they had spent a great deal of money on Radio Free Europe "to get these people to revolt". His first task was to oversee the return of some 1,350 American airmen who had been shot down in missions against Romanian oilfields. But the navy is watching a Soviet sub in the area; it could be there to evacuate some of Arbenz's friends, or to supply arms to any resisters.". Covert action (orchestrating coups, anti-Communist insurgencies, academic conferences, labor unions, political parties, publishing houses, and shipping companies) required considerable manpower, and it drew the intellectual crme de la crme.