He played a pivotal role in the early years of the CIA, serving as a station chief in Berlin and Hong Kong during the Cold War, before moving on to popularize Blue Nun wine.
Refugee, prisoner, wine merchant, spy: Peter Sichel was many things in his long, colorful life, but he was probably most often credited as the man who made Blue Nun one of the world’s most popular wines in the 1970s and ’80s. At its peak in 1985, 30 million bottles of the slightly sweet German white wine were sold—its label featured smiling nuns holding baskets of grapes in a vineyard.
By the time Mr. Sichel (pronounced See-Shell) took over the family wine business in 1960, he had lived a long, secret life. For 17 years, first at the Office of Strategic Services during World War II and then at the Central Intelligence Agency — from its creation in 1947 until his retirement in 1959 — he played a critical role in gathering intelligence for the United States.
He died Feb. 24 at his home in Manhattan, said his daughter, Bettina Sichel. He was 102.
As a 19-year-old German immigrant to the United States who volunteered for the U.S. Army the day after Pearl Harbor, Mr. Sichel was recruited to work for the OSS as part of an effort to create an American intelligence service where there was none.
He served in Algeria in 1942 and 1943, then led an OSS unit attached to General George S. Patton's Third Army as it moved from southern France into Alsace in late 1944. His duties included interrogating German prisoners of war and recruiting volunteers to infiltrate German lines and report to him.
One of Mr. Sichel's OSS colleagues, George L. Howe, wrote a novel about one such case, which was made into a highly acclaimed 1951 film, “Decision Before Dawn,” directed by Anatole Litvak and written by another of Mr. Sichel's colleagues, Peter Viertel.
After Germany's surrender, Mr. Sichel became the OSS's station chief in postwar Berlin. He was 23 and known as the “Wunderkind.” As the OSS became the CIA and the Allied military united front turned into the international standoff that became the Cold War, he oversaw espionage operations.
