frank wisner death frank wisner death

An example of data being processed may be a unique identifier stored in a cookie. He gained support for this from James Forrestal, the Defense Secretary. Castillo now reversed the Arbenz reforms. In March 1953, 209,842 acres of United Fruit Company's uncultivated land was taken by the government which offered compensation of $525,000. Harrison E. Salisbury commented: "He (Wisner) was the key to a great many things, a brilliant, compulsive man, of enormous charm, imagination, and conviction that anything, anything could be achieved and that he could achieve it. Frank Wisner, Jr., had a more steady career in the State Department, was the ambassador in Egypt between 1986 and 1991. . However, Barnes convinced him that it was vital important that the Soviets did not establish a "beachhead in Central America". The only thing theyre proving is the law of gravity, said one CIA officer. Britain and France were both initially in favour but eventually buckled under United States pressure and agreed to abstain. After leaving the OSS Wisner joined the Wall Street law firm, Carter Ledyard. Their published recommendations included: the establishment of law and order through the retraining of the Iraqi army, focusing on the distribution of humanitarian assistance and reestablishment of vital services, and the importance of avoiding the appointment of exiled Iraqi opposition leaders to dominant positions in the new government. In August, 1952, the Office of Policy Coordination and the Office of Special Operations (the espionage division) were merged to form the Directorate of Plans (DPP). His army was outnumbered by the Guatemalan Army. His army was outnumbered by the Guatemalan Army. Athan Theoharis, Richard Immerman, Loch Johnson, Kathryn Olmsted, and, Assistant Secretary of State for Occupied Areas, guerrilla warfare in Soviet-occupied Europe, "Our History: Featured Alumni: Wisner, Frank G., 1934", Report on X-2 Activities in Bucharest, 25 April 1945, "Foreign Relations of the United States, 19451950, Emergence of the Intelligence Establishment - Office of the Historian", "National Security Council Directive on Office of Special Projects", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Frank_Wisner&oldid=1141757345, United States Navy personnel of World War II, People of the Central Intelligence Agency, People of the Office of Strategic Services, University of Virginia School of Law alumni, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles with unsourced statements from August 2019, Articles with unsourced statements from February 2021, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 26 February 2023, at 17:05. Name: Frank Wisner Frank Justin Wisnerwas born on month day1879, at birth place. They were defiant and proud, but besieged. Arbenz, on the other hand, had simply been trying to reform his country and had not sought foreign help in this. 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. Record information. While in Germany he served under Allen W. Dulles. He had been elected as President of Guatemala in March, 1951. Your email address will not be published. In June. In addition, regardless of the principles being professed, when direct action was taken (whether clandestine or not), the interests of American business would be a consideration: if the flag was to follow, it would quite definitely follow trade. He served in South Vietnam until 1969, when he returned to the State Department as officer in charge of Tunisian affairs. While the Guatemalan government valued $2.99 per acre, the American government valued it at $75 per acre. All rights reserved. . To get better results, add more information such as Birth Info, Death Info and Locationeven a guess will help. Some of our partners may process your data as a part of their legitimate business interest without asking for consent. 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.). The agency hired Bissell to reflect the new CIA. Over the next few weeks riots took place in Poland and East Germany. He was diagnosed as manic depressive and received electroshock therapy. Members are only revealed after their death - a wreath of black magnolias shaped like '7' is laid at the gravesite. 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. Internationalist, abrasive, competitive, these men had an unshakeable belief in their value system, and in their duty to offer it to others. Mussadegh in Iran was left-wing and had indulged in talks with Russian diplomats about possible alliances and treaties. Through think-tanks to foundations, directorates to membership of gentlemen's clubs, these mandarins were interlocked by their institutional affiliations and by a shared belief in their own superiority.". He is the son of Frank Wisner, Sr., a man very well known at the CIA, who was the operational chief to conduct at least three coups d'tat--Arbenz in Guatemala, Mossadeq . In 1951 Allen W. Dulles persuaded Cord Meyer to join the CIA. Funded with money from the CIA and MI6, the pro-monarchy forces quickly gained the upper hand. 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). He was educated at Woodberry Forest School in Orange and the University of Virginia. 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. Frank Wisner 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. Wisner found one of his boys' shotguns and killed himself on October 29, 1965. They were the patricians of the modern age, the paladins of democracy, and saw no contradiction in that. "Great," he said to Brad, "that was a good briefing." It has been estimated that between January and June, 1954, the CIA spent about $20 million on Castillo's army. As a result the resolution was defeated by 5 votes to 4. Wisner also met Arthur Schlesinger, an OSS sergeant serving in Germany. "I got a cable in Kuala Lumpur, where I was stationed," said Arthur Jacobs, the "Ozzard of Wiz" who had been Wisner's aide in the early 1950s. After graduating Wisner worked as a Wall Street lawyer. He said that the country needed "an agrarian reform which puts an end to the latifundios and the semi-feudal practices, giving the land to thousands of peasants, raising their purchasing power and creating a great internal market favorable to the development of domestic industry.". 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.". At Arlington Cemetery, Frank Wisner was buried as a naval commander, his wartime rank. Khrushchev became increasingly concerned about these developments and on 4th November 1956 he sent the Red Army into Hungary. "They don't seem to be up to anything. However, in 1947, he was recruited by Dean Acheson, to work under Charles Saltzman, at the State Department's Office of Occupied Territories. At Arlington Cemetery, Frank Wisner was buried as a naval commander, his wartime rank. Frank Wisner was constantly looked for ways to help convince the public of the dangers of communism. All results for Frank Wisner. [1] He was also tapped for the Seven Society. With the help of resident Anastasio Somoza, Castillo had formed a rebel army in Nicaragua. It was not successful and still suffering from depression, he was released from hospital in 1958. The New York Times reported that he was a personal friend of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. President Dwight Eisenhower was delighted with this result and asked Wisner to arrange for Kermit Roosevelt to give him a personal briefing on Operation Ajax. 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. The DPP now accounted for three quarters of the CIA budget and 60% of its personnel. In April 1962 Richard Helms recalled Wisner to Washington. The Director turned to me "They tell me you know how to write. 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. When this failed he put pressure on Security Council members to vote against the resolution. He lived in Romania with a beautiful Russian spy. The questions from the unknown man next to me were very insistent, furtive. So still, there's still another, you know, year left in the war. The plot against Arbenz therefore became part of Executive Action (a plan to remove unfriendly foreign leaders from power). A large number of these prisoners were tortured or killed. I saw Frank three days before he died and he seemed in good spirits. . 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. The State Department didnt want anything to do with these precursors to the CIA, fearing that some blown secret mission might cripple diplomacy. Frank Wisner took over direct command of the everyday operations of the Indonesian project. "What about the Russians? Eisenhower turned to his Chief of the Joint Chiefs. Over lunch in a glass-enclosed restaurant overlooking Central Park, they engage in verbal thrust and parry over the foreign policy issues of the day. The Director turned to me "They tell me you know how to write. 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. Eisenhower's first question was to Hector (Rip Robertson): "How many men did Castillo Armas lose?" Wisner left Bucharest in the last week of January 1945.[6]. The OPC had a staff of 10, so this wasnt likely to happen. . Mrs. Wisner had gone to Chicago to visit with friends for a few days, taking her children with her.. Frank Gardner Wisner was born in Laurel, Mississippi, in 1910. ", Assassination of John F. Kennedy Encyclopedia, In December, 1956, Wisner had a mental breakdown and was diagnosed as suffering from manic depression. Wisner began his intelligence career in the Office of Strategic Services in World War II. He said that the country needed "an agrarian reform which puts an end to the latifundios and the semi-feudal practices, giving the land to thousands of peasants, raising their purchasing power and creating a great internal market favorable to the development of domestic industry.". [4], In 1941, six months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, he enlisted in the United States Navy. But Frank was a little excessive, even for me.". In 1954 Wisner arranged for the funding the Hollywood production of Animal Farm, the animated allegory based on the book written by George Orwell. Brad finished and the lights went up. While in Germany he served under Allen W. Dulles. Allen W. Dulles therefore sent him to London to be CIA chief of station in England. Admiral. Other journalists willing to promote the views of the CIA included Ben Bradlee (Newsweek), James Reston (New York Times), Charles Douglas Jackson (Time Magazine), Walter Pincus (Washington Post), William C. Baggs (Miami News), Herb Gold (Miami News) and Charles Bartlett (Chattanooga Times). Wisner leaked details of the speech to the New York Times who published it on 2nd June, 1956. Now internal subversion communism from within - was an additional cause for direct action. Arbenz began to tackle Guatemala's unequal land distribution. He was Richard Nixon, the Vice President. [10], Wisner died by suicide on October 29, 1965.[22]. On April 4, 1953, Wisner persuaded Allen W. Dulles to approve $1 million to be used "in any way that would bring about the fall of Mossadegh." His work involved planning a coup in Guyana, a country that had a left-wing government. (A separate Office of Special Operations conducted secret actions aimed solely at gathering intelligence.) Kermit Roosevelt, the grandson of Theodore Roosevelt, was put in charge of what became known as Operation Ajax. 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. Five thousand refugees volunteered to be part of a post-nuclear guerrilla force, which was just what it sounds likeFallout: New Stalingrad. With the help of Romanian Intelligence, they manage to obtain tons of records, including SD files, 200 rolls of German film and a large amount of Russian information. It was later discovered that one commander accepted $60,000 to surrender his troops. [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. Castillo's new government was immediately recognised by President Dwight Eisenhower. 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. Wisner remained as Deputy Director of Plans (DDP) until September 1958, playing an important role in the early history of the CIA. Hoover, claimed that Caradja was a Soviet agent. They plan for apocalyptic scenarios and continuity of government. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles added that the Guatemala people were living under a "communist type of terrorism". The lighted shaft of the Washington Monument could be seen through the trees. ", He didnt take it well. CIA's Voice of Liberation also put out similar radio broadcasts. 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. 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". . A decision was reached to create an organization within the CIA to conduct secret political operations. However, he began to get suspicious in 1951 and he asked William Harvey and James Jesus Angleton to investigate Philby. Iranians took to the streets against Mohammed Mossadegh. "I got a cable in Kuala Lumpur, where I was stationed," said Arthur Jacobs, the "Ozzard of Wiz" who had been Wisner's aide in the early 1950s. 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. In 1976, at the beginning of the Carter administration, he served under Cyrus Vance as Deputy Executive Secretary of the Department of State. Wisner's friends believed the illness was triggered by the failure of the Hungarian Uprising. Hector (Rip Robertson) said only one, a courier . What right do we have to help someone topple his government and throw him out of office?" No senior gure of the time at CIA ever had anything to do with that organization. Over the next few weeks thousands were arrested on suspicion of communist activity. Wisner's other great success was the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz. We drank iced tea as we sat around a garden table in Dulles' back yard. [8] Twelve B-17 Flying Fortress planes flew out the prisoners in hourly shifts. Four months later he agreed to retire from the CIA. 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. By the early 1960s he held right-wing opinions. Khrushchev became increasingly concerned about these developments and on 4th November 1956 he sent the Red Army into Hungary. . Franklived in USA. 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. Wisner expected the United States would help the Hungarians. He also serves on the advisory board of the National Security Network, and on the board of Refugees International. The Scroll and Key tomb is admired for its Moorish Revival style Scroll and Key, Yale, New Haven, Connecticut The results were horrifying2500 Hungarians were killed, 200,000 were forced to flee their country, and tens of thousands were arrested and imprisoned. Henry Cabot Lodge tried to block the Security Council from discussing a resolution to send an investigation team to Guatemala. He talked about his children. Wisner's death saddened but did not shock his colleagues. Tracy Barnes was field commander of what became known as Operation Success. 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.) OSS agents penetrated the Romanian Communist Party and Wisner was able to discover that the Soviets intended to take over all of Eastern Europe. Hoover also passed to McCarthy details of an affair that Wisner had with Princess Caradja in Romania during the war. This became the espionage and counter-intelligence branch of the Central Intelligence Agency. Phillips, along with E. Howard Hunt, was responsible for running the CIA's Voice of Liberation radio station. Admiral. In all, some 1,700 American POWs were transported. Frank G. Wisner Jr. grew up in the long shadow of his secret agent father. We drank iced tea as we sat around a garden table in Dulles' back yard. Wisner was placed in charge of this new branch, and was beginning to find some real successes. In March 1945, Wisner was transferred to Wiesbaden, Germany. In 2012 he succeeded Paul A. Volcker as chairman of the board of trustees of International House, a cultural-exchange residence and program center in New York City. When he finished Alien Dulles said, "Brad, I've never heard such crap." Who made that decision?". Wisner grew very fond of Philby and was unaware that he was a Soviet spy betraying all his operations to his masters in Moscow. When Lansdale was manipulating electoral politics in the Philippines in 1953, Wisner asked Joe Alsop to write some columns warning the Filipinos not to steal the election from Magsaysay. In Hungary the prime minister Imre Nagy removed state control of the mass media and encouraged public discussion on political and economic reform. He described the OPC as "Wisner's gang of weirdos" and began carrying out investigations into their past. "Thanks Allen, and thanks to all of you. Theres a general rule in secret operations: If it has a bland name, its important. ", Later that year Wisner established Operation Mockingbird, a program to influence the American media. In 1951 Allen W. Dulles persuaded Cord Meyer to join the CIA. Wisner moved to Washington where he associated with a group of journalists, politicians and government officials that became known as the Georgetown Set. Accepting that further resistance would only bring more deaths he announced his resignation over the radio. The lights were turned off while Brad used slides during his report. The nature of Arbenz's government, however, meant that Operation Success launched both the CIA and the United States on a new path. Soon afterwards it was renamed the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC). It did not take him long to discover that some of them had been active in left-wing politics in the 1930s. This included James Truitt, Russell Wiggins, Phil Geyelin, John Hayes and Alan Barth. Ernesto Guevara attempted to organize some civil militias but senior army officers blocked the distribution of weapons. [3] He is the son of CIA official Frank Wisner (19091965). 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. Most men brought their wives to these gatherings. After Cairo (from June 15, 1944) he spent three months in OSS Istanbul, Turkey, as head of SI (Secret Intelligence) branch. William (Rip) Robertson was also involved in the campaign against Arbenz. "The cable was from Des FitzGerald. [6][7], Wisner arrived just as Romania joined the Allies and declared war on the Axis. When the war ended, the OSS was shut down and Wisner returned to the soul-draining doldrums of office life. Required fields are marked *. The company wanted $16 million for the land. 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. Mossadegh also abolished Iran's feudal agriculture sector and replaced with a system of collective farming and government land ownership. Hoover also passed to McCarthy details of an affair that Wisner had with Princess Caradja in Romania during the war. 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. 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. Hector (Rip Robertson) said only one, a courier . This was followed by a week of bombing ports, ammunition dumps, military barracks and the international airport. Wisner Junior was well-known in the CIA and he worked as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and Under Secretary of . [20] After a lengthy recovery, Wisner became chief of the CIA's London Station. The questions from the unknown man next to me were very insistent, furtive. 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. No longer would the Monroe Doctrine, which was directed against foreign imperial ambitions in the Americas from across the Atlantic or the Pacific, suffice. Wisner grew very fond of Philby and was unaware that he was a Soviet spy betraying all his operations to his masters in Moscow.