Frank wisner biography
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This book is an excellent biographical history for anyone interested in Cold War history and the CIA’s formative years and those who appreciate the complexities of espionage and its human cost. He became Assistant Director of the Office of Policy Coordination.
Under this innocuous title, the United States was now fully in the business of covert political operations.
The lighted shaft of the Washington Monument could be seen through the trees. If it gets near the coast of Guatemala we'll sink the son-of-a-bitch. 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.
The Determined Spy: The Turbulent Life and Times of CIA Pioneer Frank Wisner
BIOGRAPHY
by Douglas Waller
Dutton. While illustrations are not a central focus, the 16-page photo insert effectively supports the narrative. 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 crème de la crème.
Could booksellers in actual bookshops help? Brad finished and the lights went up.
But his two trilogies – which came to a close this year – were a celebration of humanity and imagination
Following the publication of the novelist’s letters, we count down the best of his books, from the dark magic of The Witches of Eastwick to the misadventures of Rabbit Angstrom
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Mussadegh in Iran was left-wing and had indulged in talks with Russian diplomats about possible alliances and treaties.When he finished Alien Dulles said, "Brad, I've never heard such crap." It was the nearest thing to an expletive I ever heard Dulles use.
Set in a colonial city after the first world war, this story of a battle of wills between an elderly widow and her young servant is deftly told
Editorial: A Children’s Booker prize, library cards for newborns and a major campaign – initiatives to encourage a love of books in children are a cause for celebration
From an acclaimed short-story writer, this epic of power and class across generations in Pakistan is brutal, funny and brilliantly told
The Belgian author’s genius comes to the fore in a dark domestic drama
Maggie O’Farrell, Yann Martel and Julian Barnes are among the authors publishing new novels this year
Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy; Darkrooms by Rebecca Hannigan; The Nancys and the Case of the Missing Necklace by RWR McDonald; Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino; Your Every Move by Sam Blake
A Pulitzer finalist is among the first-time novelists, in tales of love, a surreal prison, teen murder and a tradwife
The wife of William Shakespeare takes centre stage in a rich, sensitive examination of parental grief, sensitively narrated by Jessie Buckley
Matriarchs, absent fathers and troubled childhoods: 2025 was the year French literature focused on family, says writer Anne-Laure Pineau
The 1908 Tunguska comet changes the direction of history and gives rise to a weird new reality in this acclaimed epic from the Polish author
The ‘religious atheist’ author held a reputation as CS Lewis’s opposite.
(A separate Office of Special Operations conducted secret actions aimed solely at gathering intelligence.) This machinery was in the CIA but the agency shared control of it with the State Department and the Pentagon. Any reaction?"
General Ridgeway answered. 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).
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. 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. Vibrant democratic parties, even socialist ones, were preferable to a Communist victory.
(3) Edward G.
Shirley, Atlantic Monthly (February, 1998)
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. Finally Brad (Colonel Albert Haney) rehearsed his speech. "Instead of a dirge, it was exuberant, powerful, exultant," recalled Tom Braden.
Eisenhower shook his head, perhaps thinking of the thousands who had died in France.