Background
Hecksher was born in Hamburg, Germany and emigrated to the United States in 1934 or 1938.
Hecksher was born in Hamburg, Germany and emigrated to the United States in 1934 or 1938.
Hecksher took part in the Normandy invasion, and was wounded in Antwerp. He later became an intelligence officer with the Army and interrogated some of the top Nazi leaders, including Julius Streicher. He joined the Office of Strategic Services and in 1946 became head of its counterintelligence section in Berlin.
Later, this section would become the Central Intelligence Agency"s Berlin Operating Base, also known as BOB. Hecksher would eventually work under Central Intelligence Agency station chief William Harvey at BOB. Hecksher became heavily involved in Central Intelligence Agency covert operations, including the Berlin Tunnel project
He was Central Intelligence Agency Station Chief in Santiago, and was involved in covert actions in the period before the coup d"etat owhich overthrew Chilean president Salvador Allende Gossens in 1973. Accusations persist that Hecksher, the Central Intelligence Agency and the United States Government were instrumental in the coup.
In 1990, Hecksher died from complications of Parkinson"s disease in Princeton, New Jersey.