Wisner was born in New York on July 2, 1938. He eventually had a breakdown, was hospitalized, and received an aggressive course of electroshock therapy. Wisner reportedly suffered a mental breakdown after the Soviet Union quashed the Hungarian revolution in 1956, and in 1965 he committed suicide. 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. Frank Justin Wisnerwas born on month day1879, at birth place. He had upset the US government by nationalizing Iran's oil industry. (1999) has pointed out: "In long exchanges, heated by intellectual passion and alcohol, their vision of a new world order began to take shape. Franklived in month1918, at address, Illinois. Phillips, along with E. Howard Hunt, was responsible for running the CIA's Voice of Liberation radio station. "Incredible". He had been elected as President of Guatemala in March, 1951. 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". He gained support for this from James Forrestal, the Defense Secretary. View. "[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. Frank Wisners new agency was called the Office of Policy Coordination, which should tell you an awful lot about its business. In 1951 Allen W. Dulles persuaded Cord Meyer to join the CIA. He was educated at Woodberry Forest School in Orange and the University of Virginia. About Frank G. Wisner. Frank Gardner Wisner was born in Laurel, Mississippi, in 1910. During that time, Wisner and Bishop discovered and penetrated a Russian Intelligence service named GUGBEZ. It was not successful and still suffering from depression, he was released from hospital in 1958. However, he got bored and enlisted in the United States Navy six months before Pearl Harbor. I was vaguely uncomfortable. After leaving the OSS Wisner joined the Wall Street law firm, Carter Ledyard. Another project started by Wisner was called Operation Bloodstone. Wisner began having trouble with J. Edgar Hoover. 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. That beginning took place for him in Romania, simultaneously dealing with the results of the German war and with the coming reality of Soviet power. Wisner grew very fond of Philby and was unaware that he was a Soviet spy betraying all his operations to his masters in Moscow. Another historical falsehood is that becoming a leader at CIA hinges on membership in Skull and Bones, the secret society at Yale. The plot against Arbenz therefore became part of Executive Action (a plan to remove unfriendly foreign leaders from power). All results for Frank Wisner. During his absence Wisner's job was covered by his chief of operations, Richard Helms. [20] After a lengthy recovery, Wisner became chief of the CIA's London Station. A large staff under Desmond Fitzgerald of the Far East Division was set up. The DPP now accounted for three quarters of the CIA budget and 60% of its personnel. Wisner was placed in charge of this new branch, and was beginning to find some real successes. Wisner became head of this new organization and Richard Helms became his chief of operations. Most men brought their wives to these gatherings. All the top officials of the agency, from director on down, were in attendance. In March 1953, 209,842 acres of United Fruit Company's uncultivated land was taken by the government which offered compensation of $525,000. In Hungary the prime minister Imre Nagy removed state control of the mass media and encouraged public discussion on political and economic reform. 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. 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.". The Central Intelligence Agency decided that Arbenz had to be removed from power. If you would like to change your settings or withdraw consent at any time, the link to do so is in our privacy policy accessible from our home page.. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. ANCExplorer Frank Wisner grave.jpg. He also serves on the advisory board of the National Security Network, and on the board of Refugees International. The removal of Jacobo Arbenz resulted in several decades of repression. Jake Esterline was placed in charge of the CIA's Washington task force in the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala. Wisner's friends believed the illness was triggered by the failure of the Hungarian Uprising. 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 became Assistant Director of the Office of Policy Coordination. While in Germany he served under Allen W. Dulles. On his watch, the CIA overthrew the governments of Iran and Guatemalathe only two such successes in the Agencys history. Castillo's new government was immediately recognised by President Dwight Eisenhower. We drank iced tea as we sat around a garden table in Dulles' back yard. Two months later he moved on to Romania where his main task was to spy on the activities of the Soviet Union. 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.". They plan for apocalyptic scenarios and continuity of government. Later that year Wisner established Mockingbird, a program to influence the domestic American media. 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. Henry Cabot Lodge tried to block the Security Council from discussing a resolution to send an investigation team to Guatemala. In fact, according to several of his friends, on social occasions he became very aggressive when discussing politics. He was educated at Woodberry Forest School in Orange and the University of Virginia. Over the next few weeks riots took place in Poland and East Germany. According to Deborah Davis in Katharine the Great, "By the early 1950s, Wisner 'owned' respected members of the New York Times, Newsweek, CBS and other communications vehicles." Wisner was transferred to the OSS station in Wiesbaden. 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. Frank Wisner was brilliant, tortured, and a founder of American intelligence. Hector (Rip Robertson) said only one, a courier . Wisner was educated at the University of Virginia, where he received both a B.A. Eisenhower shook his head, perhaps thinking of the thousands who had died in France. Henry Breck, a junior CIA officer out of Groton and Harvard, watched his grim-faced elders as they mourned. A door opened near me. At this time Wisner began plotting the overthrow of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran. He pointed out that they had spent a great deal of money on Radio Free Europe "to get these people to revolt". In 1948 Frank Wisner was appointed director of the Office of Special Projects. Under this innocuous title, the United States was now fully in the business of covert political operations. When he finished Alien Dulles said, "Brad, I've never heard such crap." 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. It would nominally report to a senior State Department official. He was diagnosed as manic depressive and received electroshock therapy. The military now joined the opposition and Mossadegh was arrested on August 19, 1953. Faked photographs were distributed that claimed to show the mutilated bodies of opponents of Arbenz. With the help of George Kennan, the Office of Special Projects was created in 1948. Wisner moved to Washington where he associated with a group of journalists, politicians and government officials that became known as the Georgetown Set. Wisner told Clare Boothe Luce, the American ambassador in Italy: "All these people are getting killed and we weren't doing anything, we were ignoring it. This machinery was in the CIA but the agency shared control of it with the State Department and the Pentagon. Frank Gardner Wisner was born in Laurel, Mississippi, in 1910. Later, several of the people involved in Operation Success, including Richard Bissell and Tracy Barnes, regretted the outcome of the Guatemala Coup. He described the OPC as "Wisner's gang of weirdos" and began carrying out investigations into their past. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Let's run over your presentations." He worked tirelessly during the Hungarian Uprising in 1956 to roll back Soviet expansion, but was largely ignored for fear of triggering a nuclear war. Wisner was appointed director of the organization. Wisner leaked details of the speech to the New York Times who published it on 2nd June, 1956. [3] He is the son of CIA official Frank Wisner (19091965). Vibrant democratic parties, even socialist ones, were preferable to a Communist victory. The real Angleton, the real Frank Wisner, the real Bill Harvey are stories in their own right. Vibrant democratic parties, even socialist ones, were preferable to a Communist victory. This was the elite which ran American foreign policy and shaped legislation at home. While in Bucharest he became friendly with King Michael of Romania. Alsop was happy to comply, though he doubted his columns would have much impact on the Huks. According to Nina Burleigh (A Very Private Woman) these journalists sometimes wrote articles that were commissioned by Frank Wisner. David Atlee Phillips was appointed to run the propaganda campaign against Arbenz's government. Frank Gardiner Wisner (June 23, 1909 - October 29, 1965) was one of the founding officers of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and played a major role in CIA operations throughout the 1950s. In early 2011, the Obama administration asked Wisner to carry views to Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, including advice that Mubarak should resign to defuse the crisis. Wisner arrived in England in September, 1959. Wisner began his intelligence career in the Office of Strategic Services in World War II. His work involved planning a coup in Guyana, a country that had a left-wing government. 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". Feit Frank Visner aka Wisner or Vizner was born about 1857 in Cslav, Kutn Hora District, (Central Bohemian District), Bohemia, Austria. [citation needed], Wisner married Mary Ellis 'Polly' Knowles (19122002) and they had four children: Elizabeth Wisner, Graham Wisner, Ellis Wisner, and Frank G. Wisner who entered into diplomatic service. 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." Wisner was too ill to return to his post as head of the DDP. Thus by overthrowing him, America was in effect making a new decision in the cold war. He lived in Romania with a beautiful Russian spy. Eisenhower shook hands all around. [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. Wisner was also able to restrict newspapers from reporting about certain events. On August 2, 1936, she married Arthur S. Wisner in Sparks, Nev. Mrs. Wisner had been active in the Emanuel. Khrushchev became increasingly concerned about these developments and on 4th November 1956 he sent the Red Army into Hungary. 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 . In 1954 Wisner arranged for the funding the Hollywood production of Animal Farm, the animated allegory based on the book written by George Orwell. After World War II, American governments were more willing to use their influence and strength all over the world for the first time and to see an ideological implication in the "persecution" of US business interests. Hoover also passed to McCarthy details of an affair that Wisner had with Princess Caradja in Romania during the war. 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. It has been estimated that between January and June, 1954, the CIA spent about $20 million on Castillo's army. 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. [10], Wisner is an advisory board member for the Partnership for a Secure America, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to recreating the bipartisan center in American national security and foreign policy. In April 1962 Richard Helms recalled Wisner to Washington. 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). Carlos Castillo and his collection of soldiers now crossed the Honduran-Guatemalan border. Perhaps he had made up his mind to kill himself. OSS agents penetrated the Romanian Communist Party and Wisner was able to discover that the Soviets intended to take over all of Eastern Europe. The Guatemalan Foreign Minister, Guillermo Toriello, asked the United Nations for help against the covert activities of the United States. George Cristian Maior, former head of Romanian intelligence and current Ambassador to the United States, has written a . post-template-default single single-post postid-2835 single-format-standard. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. 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. American diplomat and politician (born 1938), Genevieve Jeanne Marie du Fresne de Virel, Under Secretary of State for International Security Affairs, United States Ambassador to the Philippines, The Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, "The extended family of Nicolas Sarkozy (de Nagy-Bocsa)", "La Giustizia amministrativa: Raccolta completa contenente le decisioni tutte della IV sezione del Consiglio di Stato, le decisioni pi importanti della Corte dei conti in materia di conti comunali, provinciali ed erariali, e di pensioni, le pi importanti sentenze della Corte di cassazione di Roma in materia elettorale e di competenza e monografie relative a questioni amministrative", "Nomination of Frank G. Wisner To Be United States Ambassador to Egypt", "Guiding Principles for U.S. Post-Conflict Policy in Iraq", "Ambassador Frank G. Wisner Joins Ergo's Advisory Board", "Frank Wisner, the Diplomat Sent to Prod Mubarak", Obama Egypt Envoy Frank Wisner Says Mubarak Should Stay, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, United States Ambassadors to the Philippines, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Frank_G._Wisner&oldid=1135372820, Ambassadors of the United States to the Philippines, Ambassadors of the United States to India, Ambassadors of the United States to Egypt, Ambassadors of the United States to Zambia, United States Under Secretaries of Defense for Policy, People of the Egyptian revolution of 2011, Acting United States Secretaries of State, People associated with Squire Patton Boggs, Short description is different from Wikidata, All Wikipedia articles needing clarification, Wikipedia articles needing clarification from October 2015, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 24 January 2023, at 07:44. Internationalist, abrasive, competitive, these men had an unshakeable belief in their value system, and in their duty to offer it to others. He was Richard Nixon, the Vice President. In 19451946, he returned to law practice at Carter, Ledyard & Milburn. Iranians took to the streets against Mohammed Mossadegh. [4], In 1941, six months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, he enlisted in the United States Navy. These organizations were run by people with well-known right-wing views such as William Paley (CBS), Henry Luce (Time Magazine and Life Magazine), Arthur Hays Sulzberger (New York Times), Alfred Friendly (managing editor of the Washington Post), Jerry O'Leary (Washington Star), Hal Hendrix (Miami News), Barry Bingham Sr., (Louisville Courier-Journal), James Copley (Copley News Services) and Joseph Harrison (Christian Science Monitor). No senior gure of the time at CIA ever had anything to do with that organization. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. A close friend, Avis Bohlen said he "was so depressed about how the world was going he felt we were losing the Cold War.". Members are only revealed after their death - a wreath of black magnolias shaped like '7' is laid at the gravesite. . The plot against Arbenz therefore became part of Executive Action (a plan to remove unfriendly foreign leaders from power). . Brad finished and the lights went up. He was impressive - not at all the disturbing man he was in the shadows. "Instead of a dirge, it was exuberant, powerful, exultant," recalled Tom Braden. 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. Wisner remained concerned about the spread of communism and began lobbying for a new intelligence agency. 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. In 1954 Wisner arranged for the funding the Hollywood production of Animal Farm, the animated allegory based on the book written by George Orwell. 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. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKwisner.htm, Your email address will not be published. Castillo's new government was immediately recognised by President Dwight Eisenhower. I suspect that had we known more (it would have just made us more appreciative.) Secretary of State John Foster Dulles added that the Guatemala people were living under a "communist type of terrorism". The CIA propaganda campaign included the distribution of 100,000 copies of a pamphlet entitled Chronology of Communism in Guatemala. After graduating Wisner worked as a Wall Street lawyer. Wisner became head of this new organization and Richard Helms became his chief of operations. [14], According to its secret charter, the OPC's 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, guerrillas and refugee liberation groups, and support of indigenous anti-communist elements in threatened countries of the free world. We drank iced tea as we sat around a garden table in Dulles' back yard. He was educated at Woodberry Forest School in Orange and the University of Virginia. Wisner remained concerned about the spread of communism and began lobbying for a new intelligence agency. Such vague accusations as that "more than ten people have died mysteriously" can always be explained in some natural way e.g. In the cases of Frank Wisner and Philip Graham, it played a role in their suicides. 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. 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.) He suffered a breakdown in 1958, and retired from the Agency in 1962. Finally Brad (Colonel Albert Haney) rehearsed his speech. 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. At Arlington Cemetery, Frank Wisner was buried as a naval commander, his wartime rank. Media in category "Frank Wisner" The following 3 files are in this category, out of 3 total. Later, several of the people involved in Operation Success, including Richard Bissell and Tracy Barnes, regretted the outcome of the Guatemala Coup. Name: Frank Wisner Early life [ edit] 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.". 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.". When the war ended, the OSS was shut down and Wisner returned to the soul-draining doldrums of office life. Wisner and 21 OSS agents landed in Romania,[5] where he became head of OSS Bucharest. According to Donald N. Wilber, who was involved in this CIA plot to remove Mossadegh from power, in early August, 1953, Iranian CIA operatives, pretending to be socialists, threatened Muslim leaders with "savage punishment if they opposed Mossadegh," thereby giving the impression that Mossadegh was cracking down on dissent. At this time Wisner began plotting the overthrow of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran.