Reflections of a Cold Warrior: From Yalta To The Bay Of Pigs

by Richard M. Bissell Jr., Jonathan E. Lewis (Contributor), Frances T. Pudlo (Contributor)

Richard M. Bissell, Jr., the most important CIA spymaster in history, singlehandedly led America's intelligence service from the age of Mata Hari into the space age. In this compelling memoir, Bissell gives readers an insider's view of the personalities, policies, and historical forces surrounding such paramount covert operations as the Bay of Pigs, and tells of the lessons he learned from times of conflict. Illustrations.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

279 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1996

Reviews

[Dr. Barrett Dylan Brown, Phd · Rating 3 out of 5]

So much of this book is incredibly dry and pointless. The exciting portions often are no longer than a sentence like "I was the one who hired the Mafia to assasinate Castro" (actual sentence).

The begining and end are garbage, but the middle portion which deals with Bissell's years in Intelligence are a pudantically thurough depiction of the beauracracy involved with covert operations, hightlighting paperwork and committees rather than action.

[remy · Rating 1 out of 5]

The Cold Warrior’s Hot Mess: Richard Bissell’s CIA Failures and Self-Exonerating Memoir

Richard Bissell was the perfect fit for the early CIA’s archetype of an agent; he was a white man from New England with a wealthy family and an Ivy League degree. Bissell was a well-regarded capitalist economist and a member of the Georgetown Set. He also had demonstrated experience in foreign policy and American intervention, working closely with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) while he served as an administrator for the Marshall Plan: the United States-funded economic recovery program designed to facilitate the reconstruction of Western Europe following World War II.
By the time that Allen Dulles and Frank Wisner recruited Bissell to join the agency in 1954, the CIA had already established itself as an influential and effective weapon for American global dominance in the Cold War; interventions in Iran and Guatemala had gone almost entirely according to plan, and the success of these operations reinforced the Agency’s confidence in covert action as a legitimate tool of foreign policy. At the start of his CIA career, Bissell’s ambition and intellect propelled him to the forefront of some of the Agency’s most consequential covert missions, making him a key role player in the U-2 reconnaissance program and the Bay of Pigs invasion. However, both operations resulted in global humiliation for the United States, marking the CIA’s first public failures and shining a light on covert violations of international law.
Although Richard Bissell was among the few officials to direct both foreign disasters, documentation concerning his specific contributions to the U-2 program and the Bay of Pigs Invasion is surprisingly scarce. In fact, I found it quite difficult to find much information about Bissell’s time in the CIA other than in his book, Reflections of a Cold Warrior. In this memoir, Bissell recounts a selective history of his involvement in the Agency’s catastrophes, diverting blame to frame himself as a bold visionary, undermined by political caution and bureaucratic interference.
At many points throughout his book, Bissell is very vague about his specific duties in these missions. For instance, while introducing the U-2 reconnaissance program, he mentions his “official duties” without ever specifying the details of his work. In that same paragraph, he recalls “a fairly orderly discussion of who would be responsible for what;” however, the only task mentioned by Bissell afterwards is the drafting of a policy paper, which he “prepared for Dulles’s signature.” The diversion of blame, specifically onto Allen Dulles, is a consistent trend. He frequently mentions a lack of oversight of his duties on the project. Bissell states how “Dulles assigned [him] responsibility for managing the U-2 program even though [he] had no previous experience in avionics.” Shortly after, he mentions how he, unlike his coworkers, “did not have to have [his] decisions approved at any higher level.” Similarly, he makes references to the incompetence of his coworkers, saying, “I recall [Frank Wisner] saying that he sometimes felt that Cabell had not worked out for himself what his role ought to be.”
By the time that Bissell mentions the 1960 U-2 shootdown incident, he has essentially absolved himself of guilt and distanced himself from the mission’s political failure. In fact, I noticed a dramatic decrease in Bissell’s use of personal storytelling when referring to this incdient, implying that he appeared as a passive actor in the events leading up to disaster. At one point, he directly blames Eisenhower, saying that “it looks to have been a grave mistake to have given us the general authority to fly so close to the summit, but the decision was an explicit one on Eisenhower’s part.” Near the end of his recollection of the U-2 incident, Bissell aims to draw parallels between disorganization in the U-2 program and operations in Cuba. He mentions how “later, with the Bay of Pigs, what is noteworthy was the lack of similar delegation of authority.”
Bissell moved on from his failure on the U-2 program with a cautious attitude of deniability and secrecy. However, it can be argued that this secrecy led to a critical lack of communication that found the CIA in the midst of another operational disaster. He also describes how Kennedy was “eager to take forceful action” in Cuba after distancing himself from President Kennedy earlier by saying, “ I made it clear to him… that I could not do anything of active nature for him.” Continuing with his criticism of the Kennedy administration, Bissell concludes that “It is hard to believe in retrospect that the president and his advisors felt the plans for a large-scale, complicated military operation that had been ongoing for more than a year would be reworked in four days and still offer a high likelihood of success.”
Although Richard Bissell was the Deputy Director for Plans at the time, the language that he used to describe the preparation of the Cuban intervention is far less direct than the way he describes his role in the U-2 program. It is clear that Bissell’s revisionist history seeks to associate himself with the fragmented success rather than an honest recollection of the events and his personal failures. While Bissell gives himself a lot of credit for the operational success of the U-2 program, he completely distances himself from the program’s political failures, even though he drafted policy for the operation. However, when Cuba is introduced, Bissell rarely uses the pronoun “I.” Instead, he continuously refers to vague scapegoats, “agency planners,” to avoid accountability rather than describe the nature of the CIA’s disaster in the Bay of Pigs. In this chapter, Bissell only mentions his own actions or thoughts if they portray his cautions and concerns, implying that he knew that operations in Cuba would lead to catastrophe. In the moments when he does describe his personal involvement, he prefaces all of his actions with statements like “I recall,” “I remember,” and “I believe.”
Throughout the entire memoir, Bissell sprinkles in irrelevant sentences that flatter himself. Instead of exonerating himself directly, he uses the voices of others to paint a false picture of his competence (even though he simultaneously attempts to frame himself as underprepared). This is exemplified when he states how “Larry Houston recalls how adamant I was that we keep knowledge of the project limited to just a few individuals.” Bissell also quotes Arthur Lundahl complaining about his absence from future CIA operations, “What’s happened to the days of Richard Bissell?”
Ultimately, rather than providing fascinating insight into the CIA’s most famous failures, Bissell’s memoir serves as reputational damage control, contributing further to historians’ frustrations with the CIA’s lack of transparency about its early operations. Historian Jack Pfiefer describes how, “it appears that fear of exposing the Agency’s dirty linen, rather than any significant security information, is what prompts continued denial of requests for release of [records].” Bissell’s perspective barely introduces any historically relevant information about either mission (only about 100 out of 275 pages of the book focus on his time at the CIA). Additionally, unlike many other autobiographical texts written by former CIA agents, Reflections of a Cold Warrior fails to acknowledge any governmental censorship that occurred during the publication process. Therefore, given the sensitive nature of CIA failures such as the U-2 program and the Bay of Pigs invasion — and consistent efforts to conceal the details of these operations — Reflections of a Cold Warrior is a testament to the persistence of CIA censorship that aims to distance itself from its messy foundation.