Were it not for a handful of loud, persistent voices shouting “Fire” about Stalin’s intentions toward Western Values, the Cold War may well have never occurred, or may at least have been less brutal, less deadly. And maybe the United States wouldn’t have compromised its stated moral codes so egregiously in the decades following the end of the Second World War.

A liberal Southern lawyer was one of those few, loud voices. Frank Wisner, a man socially ahead of his time, did what he thought was necessary to stop what he considered a spreading scourge of tyranny and violence. And in doing so, he enabled innumerable crimes against humanity.