The only thing theyre proving is the law of gravity, said one CIA officer. During his absence Wisner's job was covered by his chief of operations, Richard Helms. Accepting that further resistance would only bring more deaths he announced his resignation over the radio. Work out a new speech for Brad We went to the White House in the morning. Samuel Zemurray, United Fruit Company's largest shareholder, with the help of Tommy Corcoran, organized an anti-Arbenz campaign in the American media. 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." If it gets near the coast of Guatemala we'll sink the son-of-a-bitch. ' The CIA began providing financial and logistic support for Colonel Carlos Castillo. He also serves on the advisory board of the National Security Network, and on the board of Refugees International. Wisner also met Arthur Schlesinger, an OSS sergeant serving in Germany. Wisner was appointed director of the organization. Castillo now reversed the Arbenz reforms. Tracy Barnes was field commander of what became known as Operation Success. 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". Hoover, claimed that Caradja was a Soviet agent. Later, several of the people involved in Operation Success, including Richard Bissell and Tracy Barnes, regretted the outcome of the Guatemala Coup. His first task was to oversee the return of some 1,350 American airmen who had been shot down in missions against Romanian oilfields. Frank Gardner Wisner was born in Laurel, Mississippi, in 1910. 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. He committed suicide in 1965. This resulted in the religious community turning against Mossadegh. Henry Cabot Lodge tried to block the Security Council from discussing a resolution to send an investigation team to Guatemala. From 1974 to 1975, he was Director of the Office of Plans and Management in the Bureau of Public Affairs and in late 1975 became Deputy Director of the President's Indo-China Task Force in the Department.[8]. Now internal subversion communism from within - was an additional cause for direct action. Guillermo Toriello appealed to the United Nations to help protect Guatemalan government. As a result Philby was forced to leave the United States. 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.) Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. 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. Graham himself recruited others who had worked for military intelligence during the war. ", Wisner, who had been involved in creating this propaganda, told friends that he felt the American government had let Hungary down. This machinery was in the CIA but the agency shared control of it with the State Department and the Pentagon. Britain and France were both initially in favour but eventually buckled under United States pressure and agreed to abstain. During that time, Wisner and Bishop discovered and penetrated a Russian Intelligence service named GUGBEZ. (Mockingbird wasnt the OPCs only psychological operation, and Wisners office had a great sense of humor. It is doubtful that many of the lawmakers who voted for the 1947 Act could have envisioned the scale on which the CIA would engage in operational activities all over the world. So still, there's still another, you know, year left in the war. During his absence Wisner's job was covered by his chief of operations, Richard Helms. 1944, Wisner was sent to Turkey. The plot against Arbenz therefore became part of Executive Action (a plan to remove unfriendly foreign leaders from power). 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. http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKwisner.htm Categories: People Articles with hCards At this time Wisner began plotting the overthrow of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran. In 1951 Allen W. Dulles persuaded Cord Meyer to join the CIA. 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. At this time Wisner began plotting the overthrow of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran. After graduating Wisner worked as a Wall Street lawyer. He had been elected as President of Guatemala in March, 1951. 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. 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. He announced a change in policy and gave orders for the Soviet Union's political prisoners to be released. 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. 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. 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 . The State Department didnt want anything to do with these precursors to the CIA, fearing that some blown secret mission might cripple diplomacy. Carlos Castillo and his collection of soldiers now crossed the Honduran-Guatemalan border. Frank Wisner was brilliant, tortured, and a founder of American intelligence. He gained support for this from James Forrestal, the Defense Secretary. Wisner recruited Philip Graham (Washington Post) to run the project within the industry. ", In December, 1956, Wisner had a mental breakdown and was diagnosed as suffering from manic depression. Wisner left Bucharest in the last week of January 1945.[6]. Frank Wisner, the father of American covert operations, was both. 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. A large number of these prisoners were tortured or killed. Ernesto Guevara attempted to organize some civil militias but senior army officers blocked the distribution of weapons. He worked in the Navy's censor's office before managing to get a transfer to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). They also produced three films on Guatemala for showing free in cinemas. Name: Frank Wisner Frank George Wisner II (born July 2, 1938) is an American businessman and former diplomat who had served as acting United States Secretary of State for a few hours following the resignation of the previous acting United States Secretary of State Arnold Kanter at noon on January 20, 1993 until the confirmation by the United States Senate and swearing in of Warren Christopher as United States Secretary of State later that day. In March 1953, 209,842 acres of United Fruit Company's uncultivated land was taken by the government which offered compensation of $525,000. I was vaguely uncomfortable. 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. Frank G. Wisner Jr. grew up in the long shadow of his secret agent father. Sudden Death. [3] He is the son of CIA official Frank Wisner (19091965). The real Angleton, the real Frank Wisner, the real Bill Harvey are stories in their own right. 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. The removal of Jacobo Arbenz resulted in several decades of repression. Wisner committed suicide. On June 18, 1948, the United States National Security Council approved NSC 10/2 which created the Office of Special Projects. The questions from the unknown man next to me were very insistent, furtive. [16], On August 23, 1951, Wisner succeeded Allen W. Dulles and became the second Deputy Director of Plans, with Richard Helms as his chief of operations. 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. While the Guatemalan government valued $2.99 per acre, the American government valued it at $75 per acre. Vijay Prashad: Yes, the point is a very good one, why Margaret Scobey herself was not in charge of the deliberations. 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 wanted to start yet another secret agencythis one accountable to virtually no one. Wisner was placed in charge of this new branch, and was beginning to find some real successes. He whispered a number of questions: "Who is that? He was prescribed psychoanalysis and shock therapy (electroconvulsive treatment). The CIA sent Wisner to the Sheppard-Pratt Institute, a psychiatric hospital near Baltimore. Mossadegh also abolished Iran's feudal agriculture sector and replaced with a system of collective farming and government land ownership. Dulles decided that Richard Bissell rather than Richard Helms should become the new head of the DPP. It was later discovered that one commander accepted $60,000 to surrender his troops. Over the next few weeks riots took place in Poland and East Germany. When he finished Alien Dulles said, "Brad, I've never heard such crap." Hulda Wisner (Hermann) 74, of Lodi, died Thursday morning in a local hospital after a short illness. 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. He condemned the Great Purge and accused Stalin of abusing his power. No longer would the Monroe Doctrine, which was directed against foreign imperial ambitions in the Americas from across the Atlantic or the Pacific, suffice. When this failed he put pressure on Security Council members to vote against the resolution. The CIA propaganda campaign included the distribution of 100,000 copies of a pamphlet entitled Chronology of Communism in Guatemala. 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 was a good sprinter and hurdler and in 1936 was asked to compete in the Olympic trials. This secret operation involved recruiting former German officers and diplomats who could be used in the covert war against the Soviet Union. They were defiant and proud, but besieged. Ernesto Guevara attempted to organize some civil militias but senior army officers blocked the distribution of weapons. By the early 1960s he held right-wing opinions. If it gets near the coast of Guatemala we'll sink the son-of-a-bitch. ' Wisner began having trouble with J. Edgar Hoover. The CIA began providing financial and logistic support for Colonel Carlos Castillo. Instead, President Obama turned to Frank Wisner, Jr., who has had a 36-year career in the State Department. When the project collapsed, however, the Belarusians quickly settled in and obtained US citizenship and intelligence agencies protected them from exposure for decades. He announced a change in policy and gave orders for the Soviet Union's political prisoners to be released. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKwisner.htm, Your email address will not be published. Wisner worked closely with Kim Philby, the British agent who was also a Soviet spy. Wisner was too ill to return to his post as head of the DDP. Phillips, along with E. Howard Hunt, was responsible for running the CIA's Voice of Liberation radio station. In Hungary the prime minister Imre Nagy removed state control of the mass media and encouraged public discussion on political and economic reform. Wisner arrived in England in September, 1959. The lights were turned off while Brad used slides during his report. Finally Brad (Colonel Albert Haney) rehearsed his speech. 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). Mockingbird: The Subversion Of The Free Press By The CIA, DHS Now Spies on Journalists, Keeps Records of Online Activity, Guatemala: The Coup that Radicalised Che Guevara, Smoking Out Fox News Correspondent Mort Kondrackes DIA/PSYOP Roots, Joe Conason on Elizabeth Dilling Glenn Beck's Favorite Nazi, BuzzFeed: Secret CIA Files Say Staffers Committed Sex Crimes Involving Children, Israels Propaganda War Blame the Grand Mufti, Crimes against Humanity in Guatemala: How the CIA and the Pentagon Supported the Military Dictatorship, Islamic Army in Iraq Denies Media Reports that the US Killed 18 Al Qaeda Combatants, Accused Liberian War Criminal Charles Taylor 'Worked with the CIA' (Al Jazeera), The Role of the CIA: Behind the Dalai Lamas Holy Cloak. Wisner leaked details of the speech to the New York Times who published it on 2nd June, 1956. He described the OPC as "Wisner's gang of weirdos" and began carrying out investigations into their past. [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. Legal Statement. (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 other great success was the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz. This was followed by a week of bombing ports, ammunition dumps, military barracks and the international airport. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. 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's suicide was "entirely rational, if you can say such a thing," said his niece Jean Lindsey. At his funeral the Bethlehem Chapel in the National Cathedral was overflowing with old friends who sang "Fling Out the Banner" as Wisner's family marched down the aisle at the end of the service. Aid Groups Warn of "Secondary Disaster" as Death Toll from Turkey . The military now joined the opposition and Mossadegh was arrested on August 19, 1953. He is the son of CIA official Frank Wisner (1909-1965). 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). ", General Ridgeway answered. Wisner added that he felt personally betrayed by this behaviour. The removal of Jacobo Arbenz resulted in several decades of repression. 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. 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. The Guatemalan Foreign Minister, Guillermo Toriello, asked the United Nations for help against the covert activities of the United States. Later that year Wisner established Operation Mockingbird, a program to influence the American media. Admiral. He was assigned as a vice consul at the American Consulate General in Tangier, Morocco. He was a good sprinter and hurdler and in 1936 was asked to compete in the Olympic trials. Later he became an informal adviser to the royal family. [20] After a lengthy recovery, Wisner became chief of the CIA's London Station. This secret operation involved recruiting former German officers and diplomats who could be used in the covert war against the Soviet Union. However, he began to get suspicious in 1951 and he asked William Harvey and James Jesus Angleton to investigate Philby. 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. On his watch, the CIA overthrew the governments of Iran and Guatemalathe only two such successes in the Agencys history.