Richard M . Bissell , Jr . Richard Mervin Bissell , Jr . ( September 18 , 1909 – February 7 , 1994 ) was a Central Intelligence Agency officer responsible for major projects such as the U - 2 spy plane and the Bay of Pigs Invasion . Early years . Richard Mervin Bissell , Jr . was born in the Mark Twain House in Hartford , Connecticut , and went to Groton School in Groton , Massachusetts . Two of his fellow pupils at Groton were Joseph Alsop and Tracy Barnes . He studied history at Yale University , turning down membership in Skull and Bones , and graduating in 1932 , then studied at the London School of Economics . He returned to Yale where he was granted a Ph . D . in economics in 1939 . His brother , William , also attended Yale and became a member of Skull and Bones . OSS , Marshall Plan . Bissell worked closely with the Office of Policy Coordination ( OPC ) , which had helped to organize guerrilla fighting , sabotage and espionage during World War II . In July , 1947 Bissell was recruited by Averell Harriman to run a committee to lobby for an economic recovery plan for Europe . The following year he was appointed as an administrator of the Marshall Plan in Germany and eventually became head of the Economic Cooperation Administration . Georgetown Set . Bissell moved to Washington , D . C . , where he associated with a group of journalists , politicians , and government officials that became known as the Georgetown Set . This included Frank Wisner , George Kennan , Dean Acheson , Desmond FitzGerald , Joseph Alsop , Stewart Alsop , Tracy Barnes , Thomas Braden , Philip Graham , David Bruce , James Truitt , Clark Clifford , Walt Rostow , Eugene Rostow , Charles " Chip " Bohlen , Cord Meyer , James Angleton , William Averell Harriman , John McCloy , Felix Frankfurter , John Sherman Cooper , James Reston , Allen W . Dulles , and Paul Nitze . Many wives accompanied their husbands to these gatherings . Members of what was later called the Georgetown Ladies ' Social Club included Katharine Meyer Graham , Mary Pinchot Meyer , Anne Truitt , Sally Reston , Polly Wisner , Joan Braden , Lorraine Cooper , Evangeline Bruce , Avis Bohlen , Janet Barnes , Tish Alsop , Cynthia Helms , Marietta FitzGerald , Phyllis Nitze , and Annie Bissell . Work with CIA . Bissell worked for the Ford Foundation for a while but Frank Wisner persuaded him to join the Central Intelligence Agency ( CIA ) . U - 2 ' spy plane ' . In 1954 he was placed in charge of developing and operating the Lockheed U - 2 ' spy plane ' . Bissell and Herbert Miller , another CIA officer , chose Area 51 in 1955 as the site for the test facility for the U - 2 , and Bissell supervised the test facility and its build up until he resigned from the CIA . The U - 2 spy plane was a great success and within two years Bissell was able to say that 90 % of all hard intelligence about the Soviet Union coming into the CIA was " funneled through the lens of the U - 2 ' s aerial cameras " . This information convinced President Dwight D . Eisenhower that Nikita Khrushchev was lying about the number of bombers and missiles being built by the Soviet Union . Eisenhower now knew that United States enjoyed a major advantage over the Soviet Union , and this knowledge gave him the confidence to warn against the US " military - industrial complex " . ( CIA pilot Gary Powers ' U - 2 was shot down on May 1 , 1960 . A week later President Eisenhower claimed that the CIA had carried out these spying missions without his authority . ) In 1956 , after the Soviet Union protested the first U - 2 overflights , Bissell initiated Project RAINBOW to develop radar camouflage for the aircraft . When this was unsuccessful , he initiated GUSTO to develop a follow - on aircraft . This evolved into Project OXCART , under which the CIA developed and operated the Lockheed A - 12 . CIA Deputy Director for Plans . In 1958 Allen Dulles appointed Bissell as the CIA ' s Deputy Director for Plans ( DDP ) , replacing Frank Wisner ( who had suffered a mental breakdown ) . Richard Helms stayed on as Bissell ' s deputy . The Directorate for Plans reportedly controlled over half the CIA ' s budget and was responsible for what became known as the CIA ' s Black Operations . ( DDP oversaw plans to overthrow Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán , Patrice Lumumba , Rafael Leónidas Trujillo , Abd al - Karim Qasim , Ngo Dinh Diem , and others . Bissell ' s main target was Fidel Castro . ) As DD / P , Bissell also oversaw the early stages of Project OXCART , the development of the Lockheed A - 12 . CIA Plans to Overthrow Castro . Mafia ties . In March 1960 , President Eisenhower approved a CIA plan to overthrow Castro . ( See Operation 40 ) . The strategy was organized by Bissell . Sidney Gottlieb of the CIA Technical Services Division was asked to come up with proposals that would undermine Castro ' s popularity with the Cuban people . ( Gottlieb also ran the MK - ULTRA project from 1953 - 1964 . ) These schemes were rejected and instead Bissell decided to arrange Castro ' s assassination . In September 1960 , Bissell and Allen W . Dulles , the director of the Central Intelligence Agency ( CIA ) , initiated talks with two leading figures of the Mafia , Johnny Roselli and Sam Giancana . Later , other crime bosses such as Carlos Marcello , Santo Trafficante , Jr . and Meyer Lansky became involved in this first plot against Castro . The strategy was managed by Sheffield Edwards ; Robert Maheu , a veteran of CIA counter - espionage activities , was instructed to offer the Mafia $ 150 , 000 to kill Fidel Castro . The advantage of employing the Mafia for this work is that it provided CIA with a credible cover story . The Mafia were known to be angry with Castro for closing down their profitable brothels and casinos in Cuba . If the assassins were killed or captured the media would accept that the Mafia were working on their own . The Mafia played along in order to get protection from the FBI . The plot failed . Bay of Pigs Invasion plans . In March 1960 a top - secret policy paper was drafted entitled : " A Program of Covert Action Against the Castro Regime " ( code - named JMARC ) , " to bring about the replacement of the Castro regime with one more . . . acceptable to the U . S . in such a manner as to avoid any appearance of U . S . intervention . " This paper was based on operation PBSUCCESS , the policy that had worked so well in Guatemala in 1954 . In fact , Bissell assembled the same team as the one used in Guatemala : Tracy Barnes , David Atlee Phillips , Jacob Esterline , William " Rip " Robertson , E . Howard Hunt and Gerry Droller ( aka " Frank Bender " ) . Added to the team were Jack Hawkins ( Colonel ) , Desmond FitzGerald , William Harvey and Ted Shackley . President - elect John F . Kennedy was given a copy of the JMARC proposal by Bissell and Allen W . Dulles in Palm Beach , Florida on 18 November 1960 . According to Bissell , Kennedy remained impassive throughout the meeting . He expressed surprise only at the scale of the operation . In March 1961 John F . Kennedy asked the Joint Chiefs of Staff to vet the JMARC project . As a result of " plausible deniability " they were not given details of the plot to kill Castro . The JCS reported that if the invaders were given four days of air cover , if the people of Trinidad , Cuba joined the rebellion and if they were able to join up with the guerrillas in the Escambray Mountains , the overall rating of success was 30 % . Therefore , they could not recommend that Kennedy go along with the JMARC project . At a meeting on 11 March 1961 , Kennedy rejected Bissell ’ s proposed scheme . He told him to go away and draft a new plan . He asked for it to be " less spectacular " and with a more remote landing site than Trinidad . It appears that Kennedy had completely misunderstood the report from the JCS . Bissell now resubmitted his plan . As requested , the landing was no longer at Trinidad . Instead he selected Bahia de Cochinos ( Bay of Pigs ) . This was 80 miles from the Escambray Mountains . What is more , this journey to the mountains was across an impenetrable swamp . As Bissell explained to Kennedy , this means that the guerrilla fallback option had been removed from the operation . As Allen W . Dulles recorded at the time : " We felt that when the chips were down , when the crisis arose in reality , any action required for success would be authorized rather than permit the enterprise to fail . " In other words , he knew that the initial invasion would be a disaster , but believed that Kennedy would order a full - scale invasion when he realized that this was the case . According to Evan Thomas ( " The Very Best Men " ) : " Some old CIA hands believe that Bissell was setting a trap to force U . S . intervention . " Edgar Applewhite , a former deputy inspector general , believed that Bissell and Dulles were " building a tar baby . " Jake Esterline was very unhappy with these developments and on 8 April attempted to resign from the CIA . Bissell convinced him to stay . On April 10 , 1961 , Bissell had a meeting with Robert F . Kennedy . He told Kennedy that the new plan had a two out of three chance of success . Bissell added that even if the project failed the invasion force could join the guerrillas in the Escambray Mountains . Kennedy was convinced by this scheme and applied pressure on those like Chester Bowles , Theodore Sorenson and Arthur Schlesinger who were urging John F . Kennedy to abandon the project . On April 14 , Kennedy asked Bissell how many Douglas B - 26 Invader s were going to be used . He replied sixteen . Kennedy told him to use only eight . Bissell knew that the invasion could not succeed without adequate air cover . Yet he accepted this decision based on the idea that he would later change his mind " when the chips were down " . Invasion fails . Instead the operation tried to rely on Radio Swan , broadcasts being made on a small island 100 miles off the Honduran coast by David Atlee Phillips , calling for the Cuban Army to revolt . They failed to do so . At 7 a . m . on April 18 , Bissell told Kennedy that the invasion force was trapped on the beaches and encircled by Castro ’ s forces . Then Bissell asked Kennedy to send in American forces to save the men . Bissell expected him to say yes . Instead he replied that he still wanted " minimum visibility . " The invasion failed . That night Bissell had another meeting with John F . Kennedy . This time it took place in the White House and included General Lyman Lemnitzer , the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Admiral Arleigh Burke , Chief of Naval Operations . Bissell told Kennedy that the operation could still be saved if American warplanes were allowed to fly cover . Admiral Burke supported him on this . General Lemnitzer called for the Brigade to join the guerrillas in the Escambray Mountains . Bissell explained this was not an option as their route was being blocked by 20 , 000 Cuban troops . Within seventy - two hours all the invading troops had been killed , wounded or had surrendered . Bissell had a meeting with John F . Kennedy about the Bay of Pigs operation . Kennedy admitted it was his fault that the operation had been a disaster . Kennedy added : " In a parliamentary government , I ' d have to resign . But in this government I can ' t , so you and Allen ( Dulles ) have to go . " As Evan Thomas points out in " The Very Best Men " : " Bissell had been caught in his own web . ' Plausible deniability ' was intended to protect the president , but as he had used it , it was a tool to gain and maintain control over an operation . . . Without plausible deniability , the Cuba project would have been turned over to The Pentagon , and Bissell would have become a supporting actor . " Post - CIA . As a face - saving exit from the CIA , John F . Kennedy offered Bissell the post as director of a new science and technology department . This would leave him in charge of the development of the Lockheed A - 12 , the new spy plane that would make the U - 2 obsolete . Bissell turned down the offer and in February 1962 he left the Central Intelligence Agency and was replaced as head of the Directorate for Plans , by Richard Helms . Bissell became head of the Institute for Defense Analyses ( IDA ) in 1962 . IDA was a Pentagon think tank set up to evaluate weapons systems . Later he worked for United Technologies in Hartford , Connecticut ( 1964 – 74 ) , which supplied weapons systems . He also worked as a consultant for the Ford Foundation . Richard Bissell died in 1994 . His autobiography , " Reflections of a Cold Warrior : From Yalta to the Bay of Pigs , " was published two years later .