Frank Wisner was a leading light of the early CIA, a director of clandestine operations who came of age in the second world war then fought the cold war by fair means or foul, from funding American cultural outreach to orchestrating coups in Iran and Guatemala.
Before becoming a biographer, Douglas Waller reported for Newsweek and Time. His new book, The Determined Spy, is about Wisner, a man who lived an extraordinary life but came to be buried at Arlington national cemetery, under a simple headstone, identified merely as a commander in the US naval reserve.
