Reflections of a Cold Warrior: From Yalta to the Bay of Pigs

Richard M. Bissel Jr. followed the preferred path to spy superstardom: Groton, Yale, military service in World War II, and a stint helping to write the Marshall Plan, followed by time as an operative and then as an assistant to Allen Dulles, director of the CIA. In 1959, he assumed the reigns as head of the agency's covert operations. But his career ran into a brick wall with the ill-fated Bay of Pigs operation. In Reflections of a Cold Warrior, Bissell, who died in 1994, recounts his involvement in operations ranging from the overthrow of a democratically elected government in Guatemala to the creation of the U-2 spy plane project to the fiasco in Cuba.