Richard M. Bissell

Richard M. Bissell     (spook)
Born	Richard Mervin Bissell Jr. September 18, 1909 Hartford, Connecticut
Died	February 7, 1994 (Age 84) Farmington, Connecticut, United States
Member of	JFK/Assassination/Perpetrators, The Georgetown Set
Director of the National Reconnaissance Office In office September 1961 - February 1962 Co-director with Joseph V. Charyk  CIA/Deputy Director for Plans  In office 1 January 1959 - 17 February 1962 Preceded by Frank Wisner Succeeded by Richard Helms  First Co-Director of the National Reconnaissance Office In office September 1961 - February 1962

Not to be confused with Richard Bissell, of USAID.

Richard Mervin Bissell Jr. was a US spook.

Bckground

Richard Bissell studied history at Yale University, and was tapped, but declined membership in Skull and Bones, although his brother William joined.

Career

Frank Wisner persuaded him to join the Central Intelligence Agency. Bissel became a senior CIA officer responsible for major projects such as the U-2 spy plane and the Bay of Pigs Invasion. According to the Independent, Bissell was "the central covert operations man in the Central Intelligence Agency for the central period of the cold war":

Not the most well-known nor the highest-ranking official, Bissell was the man who planned and gave the orders for such low points in American cold-war dirty tricks as the overthrow of Patrice Lumumba, the disastrous invasion of Cuba and the numerous (failed) attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro.

 

A Document by Richard M. Bissell

Title	Document type	Publication date	Description
Document:1968 Bissell Meeting	speech	1968	Spook meeting discussing the inner workings of the CIA

 

Events Participated in

Event	Start	End	Description
Colloquium on Counterintelligence	24 April 1980	26 April 1980	Spooky 1980 Washington conference
Colloquium on Intelligence and Policy	9 November 1984	10 November 1984	A spooky conference in November 1984

Many thanks to our Patrons who cover ~2/3 of our hosting bill. Please join them if you can.