America’s First Spy: The Tragic Heroism of Frank Wisner

In this exciting book, distinguished Romanian diplomat and scholar George Cristian Maior - currently serving as Romania’s ambassador in Washington - recounts the thrilling tale of America’s first spy drama - the legendary Frank Wisner’s intelligence operations in Romania as World War II ended and the Cold War dawned. An Office of Strategic Services operative who later rose to become the Central Intelligence Agency’s operations chief before his tragic suicide, Wisner’s mission bestrode two worlds and witnessed profound changes that global politics have grappled with ever since.

Painstakingly reconstructed with the aid of specialised literature and relevant archival collections, especially those of the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and the U .S. Department of State’s Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), Ambassador Maior also worked extensively with the declassified documents of Romania’s wartime and immediate postwar espionage agency, the Special Intelligence Service (Serviciul Special de Informa?ii: SSI). Maior also had unprecedented access to previously unpublished materials from the personal archive of Frank Wisner’s son, the leading American diplomat Frank G. Wisner, II. The picture that emerges is one of danger and stealth, a real-life spy thriller unfolding just as the Cold War began.