When the Central Intelligence Agency was make in 1947 , its establish military officer had to count on out how to build a global net of spies , pass hugger-mugger missions , overthrow governance , and recruit agent . It ’s not like other countries were line up to teach the United States the finer detail of espionage , so those first CIA man had to be really bright or slightly brainsick . Frank Wisner , the don of American covert operations , was both .
Wisner was a civilized attorney from Mississippi who get world-weary with billet life and join the Navy . After Pearl Harbor , he found himself in the Office of Strategic Services , where he spied behind enemy lines , finally becoming head of OSS operations in southeastern Europe . When the warfare finish , the OSS was shut out down and Wisner returned to the soul - draining doldrums of place sprightliness .
It was n’t long before the United States recognized the obvious mistake it had made in keep out down its intelligence agency capacity . worsened yet , the few offices still around with any variety of technique in covert action were just too accountable . The State Department did n’t want anything to do with these precursors to the CIA , fear that some shove off hole-and-corner charge might lame statecraft . The Defense Department prefer to save its dirty tricks for times of war . The FBI hat them because they did n’t desire challenger . When Truman bless the CIA into existence , the new agency find a similar response . Would the National Security Council really want to explain to the press why some official had to be bribed or some extraneous election had to be subverted ?
Frank Wisner , who was part of the little web of OSS hands eager to get back in the spy game , had a solution to the job . He wanted to start yet another cloak-and-dagger federal agency — this one accountable to nearly no one .
There ’s a oecumenical rule in secret operations : If it has a bland name , it ’s significant . That ’s why when you show about something call in the Mission Support Activity , your eye glaze over before you realize that you ’re learn about the Joint Special Operations Command ’s special mission unit for tidings commandos . The Defense Mobilization Support Planning Activity ? They be after for revelatory scenarios and persistence of administration . The Combat Applications Group does not write database software for infantry supply shop clerk ; it is considerably known as Delta Force .
Frank Wisner ’s new authority was send for the Office of Policy Coordination , which should tell you an terrible raft about its stage business . As Evan Thomas reported inThe Very Best Men , the OPC ’s charter gave it responsibility for “ propaganda , economic warfare ; preventive unmediated action , include sabotage , antisabotage , destruction and voiding measures ; subversion against unfriendly states , including assist to hole-and-corner resistance groups , and support of indigenous anti - Communist elements in threatened countries of the free world . ” The U.S. governing would “ disclaim any responsibility ” of the OPC ’s deputation .
Wisner ’s power would be attached to the CIA only on composition , and purely for funding and twenty-five percent . It would nominally report to a senior State Department functionary . The OPC ’s mission was to take on the Soviet Union , and right from the starting , the Pentagon — gearing up for World War III — wanted everything from insurgencies in Western Europe to countermine the entire Soviet breeze force , and it wanted them now . The OPC had a staff of 10 , so this was n’t likely to happen .
Wisner focused his efforts on psychological warfare , most notably through Operation Mockingbird , wherein the OPC sought to shape foreign media — and who well to plant propaganda than the insistence itself ? grant to Deborah Davis inKatharine the Great , " By the early 1950s , Wisner ' owned ' respected members of theNew York Times , Newsweek , CBS and other communication vehicle . " The programme successfully enclose uncounted pro - American intelligence stories into insurance coverage while suppressing reportage that might be embarrassing to the nation . The program lasted through 1971 .
( Mockingbird was n’t the OPC ’s only psychological performance , and Wisner ’s office had a great gumption of humor . As previously discover atMental Floss , one of their more superb , but alas , never execute , operations involved airdropping enormous condoms labeled “ medium ” behind the Iron Curtain , as a agency of demonstrating the anatomical transcendency of the American struggle man . )
To present Soviet aggression , Wisner eventually organized a underground army in Europe . Five thousand refugees offer to be part of a “ post - atomic guerilla force , ” which was just what it sounds like — radioactive dust : New Stalingrad . He direct a massive spy ring , many of whose members were task with jump into Soviet territorial dominion and assemble intelligence agency . For months , waves of airborne undercover agent in commission after mission landed , and each was wipe out straight . “ The only thing they ’re proving is the police force of gravity , ” said one CIA ship’s officer .
It was an tiring , stressful , and almost unsufferable job . To give some idea of how aggressively Wisner worked to establish his spy meshwork and subvert the Soviet Union , when the OPC was in the end and officially absorbed into the CIA as the Directorate of plan , it dwarf the rest of the Agency , and consumed 75 pct of the CIA budget . Wisner was placed in charge of this novel branch , and was beginning to receive some real successes . On his spotter , the CIA overturn the governments of Iran and Guatemala — the only two such successes in the Agency ’s chronicle .
It ’s worth noting that Wisner was the Christopher Hitchens of his day — a unforgiving charmer and bon vivant who threw all the good party with the most interesting , powerful , and influential guests . This had the effect of keeping the money hang while allowing Wisner to influence and backchannel policy decisiveness . recall one CIA officeholder , “ I would be at a meeting where it was obvious that the decision had been made the night before at a dinner company . ”
Still , the job ’s toll on Wisner was becoming apparent . He worked tirelessly during the Hungarian Uprising in 1956 to roll back Soviet enlargement , but was mostly push aside for concern of triggering a atomic war . The results were horrifying—2500 Hungarians were killed , 200,000 were forced to take flight their land , and tens of thousands were arrested and imprisoned . " All these people are getting drink down , ” Wisner by and by said , “ and we were n’t doing anything , we were ignoring it . "
He did n’t take it well . While it ’s reductive to say the aftermath drove Wisner mad , it ’s fair to say that it did n’t help matters . He eventually had a breakdown , was hospitalized , and receive an strong-growing course of electroshock therapy . Afterward , he obviously was n’t equip to go back to the Directorate of Plans , so he was made the place tribal chief in London . He retired in 1963 , and committed suicide with a shotgun in 1965 . Desmond FitzGerald , a surrogate 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 amphetamine . ”
