"The biggest surprise in Waller’s lively biography of Frank Wisner…is how stunningly naïve U.S. covert and martial operations have been at times. As Waller shows, Wisner’s tenure provides one of the harsher lessons of the world of espionage: What appears to be a success at the time may not prove so over the long run." — The New York Times
"Waller offers us a picture of a postwar America that felt it had the power, and the right, to craft the rest of the world to its liking." —The Nation
“In this sweeping, immersive, and full-bodied study, journalist Waller, who authored a 2011, biography of OSS founder Wild Bill Donovan, turns to another central figure in American spycraft, Frank Wisner.” —Booklist (Starred Review)
"A revealing look at the early history of a spy agency with a decidedly checkered past." —Kirkus
“In The Determined Spy, Douglas Waller does an admirable job of piecing together long hidden and very forbidden secrets, among them development of the notorious MKUltra mind-bending drugs intended to create human robots. For more than a decade, during the coldest days of the spy war with Moscow, Frank Wisner ran the CIA’s most secret department as deputy director of plans. For spy-readers, Waller’s new book is a wonderful follow-on to his earlier book on the founder of the OSS, Wild Bill Donovan.” —James Bamford, national bestselling author of The Puzzle Palace, Body of Secrets, and SpyFail
"Secret agents, soaring ideals, coup plots and intelligence disasters — all of it runs through Douglas Waller’s remarkable biography of CIA pioneer Frank Wisner. This is a tale of a shadow warrior at the dawn of the Cold War who fervently fought for freedom then tragically succumbed to personal demons." —David E. Hoffman, national bestselling author of The Billion Dollar Spy
"Unknown to the public, Frank Wisner was one of the most powerful men in the world during the early days of the Cold War. He ran covert actions for the CIA when the spy agency was at the peak of its ambition. That Wisner ended up in a mental hospital and later died by suicide was a fascinating and profound tragedy. A thorough and fair-minded historian, Doug Waller reveals the whole story, in gripping detail, and he tells it brilliantly." —Evan Thomas, New York Times bestselling author of The Very Best Men and The Road to Surrender
“Thanks to an illustrious career of tracking the intelligence world, there are few who write about the CIA with as much authority as Douglas Waller and as much understanding of the human beings involved. In The Determined Spy, he deftly lays out the challenges, the compromises and the controversies of the CIA, but also the heavy personal cost to one of its early and most powerful leaders, Frank Wisner. With sensitivity but also admirable rigor, Waller reveals the story of a flawed man who fought the Cold War in the shadows with everything he had but was consumed by his own demons. A must for students of spying.”—Sonia Purnell, author of Kingmaker: Pamela Harriman’s Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue
