Prior to this he ran the CIA's operations in Berlin and later in Hong Kong during the early stages of the Cold War.
[5] While he was at school in England, his parents escaped from Nazi Germany on a ruse, and the family settled in France.
Sichel escaped to the USA via Portugal and Spain and joined the US Army a week after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
He was recruited by the US Office of Strategic Services, running agents in Germany for which he was given the Distinguished Intelligence Medal.
[7] Sichel continued to work for the Central Intelligence Agency in Berlin, Washington and Hong Kong until 1960, when he left, saying "I left because the CIA did things I didn't like, such as send people into the Ukraine to work in fabricated resistance groups.
Until 2006, he was a principal shareholder of Bordeaux Château Fourcas-Hosten in Listrac, which he sold to members of the Hermès family.