High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Richard Mervin Bissell, Jr. (September 18, 1910 ? February 7, 1994) was an American CIA officer responsible for major projects such as the U-2 'spy plane' and the Bay of Pigs Invasion.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.