Winkler, Max

Max Winkler

Biography

Max Winkler, former mayor of New Braunfels, spent a number of years working for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), first joining the agency in 1953. Winkler worked as an undercover agent in operations dedicated to overthrowing Cuban Dictator Fidel Castro in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In the late 1960s, Winkler headed the first Head Start Program in the United States, which was located in President Lyndon B. Johnson's birthplace, Stonewall, Texas. Winkler later served three times on the New Braunfels City Council and as principal of Seele Elementary School, located in New Braunfels.

Texas 150 Oral History

Winkler talks about how he got started in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), primarily through working on a program dedicated to eradicating the spread of foot and mouth disease in Mexico in the 1940s and 1950s. Winkler describes his adventures and exploits, spending much of the interview discussing his role in training Cuban nationals to overthrow Castro during the disastrous Bay of Pigs in Cuba in the early 1960s. He details how Fidel Castro took control of Cuba and instituted communism, due in large part to Hugo Chavez, whom Winkler interviewed. Along with describing the trainees, Winkler recalls how the CIA treated number of imprisoned defectors. Winkler also shares how the United States worked with President Ydigoras of Guatemala during this period. Eventually, Winkler and his wife (also a CIA agent) left the Foreign Service and moved to New Braunfels. Winkler administered Lyndon B. Johnson's Head Start Program in Central Texas, the first in the country, before becoming principal of Seele Elementary.