Spy for Eternity: Frank Wisner. A sad spy story about a man who thought he could change the world

Frank Wisner – Szomorú kémtörténet egy emberről, aki azt hitte, megváltoztathatja a világot

Abstract

Spy for Eternity: Frank Wisner. A sad spy story about a man who thought he could change the world Editor: George Cristian Maior, Bucharest, RAO Publishing House, 2014, 272 pages. Frank Gardiner Wisner was born in Laurel, Mississippi in 1909. As one of the founding spy chiefs of the CIA, he is undoubtedly a major figure in the Cold War and, just as importantly, an active contemporary who is hailed as the antithesis of the traitorous Kim Philby. This volume was inspired by his biography, which was published under the supervision of George Maior, the former head of Romanian counter-intelligence, under the supervision of the staff of the Open Source Center. At the time of the doctrine of plausible deniability, Romania was the third stop in the life of Naval Lieutenant Wisner, who started from the OSS center in Cairo, and his activities here ended already in January 1945, but it was all the more intense from the point of view of his intelligence career. His real task was to systematically investigate the intentions of the unstoppable Soviet power, and he was considered a pioneer in this activity. Bill Colby, later CIA director, claimed that Wisner succeeded in creating nothing less than "a Templar-like atmosphere charged with saving the West from communist darkness." Among other things, Wisner reports on the escape of paratroopers dropped as part of a secret operation, gives an empathetic description of the deportation of citizens of German ethnicity in January 1945, and reflects on the activities of Hungarian military intelligence officers in relation to the Romanian peace probe, including Ottó Hatz, Gyula Kádár, Ferenc Szombathelyi, István Újszászy his person is also mentioned. After a short detour into civilian life, he managed the OPC (Office of Policy Coordination) in 1948 as the head responsible for operations under the cover of American foreign affairs. This area remained his hunting ground until the late 1950s, when, due to his illness, CIA chief Allen Dulles removed him from the area of ​​special operations. In 1965, he committed suicide on his own farm. He was the instigator and leader of several covert operations: from tip research among refugees from Eastern European countries to recruitment and infiltration into the states of the Iron Curtain (Albania, Poland, Ukraine). He personally led the secret operations. The communist regimes were not overthrown, but he carried out effective activities in other parts of the world, so the overthrow of Iranian President Mohammed Mossadegh or the anti-communist intervention in Guatemala increased his professional recognition. The most comprehensive and far-reaching operation was the Mockingbird launched in 1948, which was "a complex campaign to influence the American media, whose ultimate goal was the worldwide distribution of anti-communist propaganda". The volume does not avoid the sensitive topic of the intelligence officer Wisner's more personal, mental collapse, which manifested itself in excessive alcohol consumption and smoking, but also in irritability, and - more and more - adversely affected his work. The failure of the Hungarian revolution in 1956 intensified his depressive tendencies, reinforcing his growing conviction that the United States of America would lose the Cold War. The Budapest revolution marked by Imre Nagy, referred to in the volume as the second Gomulka, is particularly important because the committee investigating the CIA's off-the-record role accused the intelligence agency of "the Red Sox/Red Cap teams of making unrealistic promises to the leaders of the Hungarian protesters, according to which the AEÁ will support the movement, today it led to the unnecessary incitement of the demonstration and, consequently, to harsher reprisals on the part of the Soviets". Until the end of his life, Wisner had doubts about his activities related to the Hungarian revolution. All in all, the volume depicts the extraordinary complexity of the life of an intelligence officer. A real spy who already understood the Soviet strategy during the Second World War and fought against it until the end of his life. He was an officer who had long excelled in planning and controlling covert operations. The failure of the operations (Philby's betrayal) was not Wisner's fault, who, however competent and persistent he might have been, could not change the world by himself. If we can identify even a little bit with the narrative thread, we can imagine a young officer and his struggles, so we can assist live in the fight against the communist world. Over 70 pages, the authors of the volume make the intelligence officer's life journey more authentic with rich and original photographic material and contemporary documents. A separate name and subject index as well as a chronology help the reader in the complicated narrative and the abundance of technical terms.