My wife, Denise Kiernan, has an article in today’s Washington Post. It’s a review of a most excellent book about women who served in the CIA, from its WWII beginnings as the OSS to modern times. Denise really enjoyed the book, and it was a fun review to write. The text appeared online Friday, but you’ll find it in the print edition of the Sunday paper, in a story entitled:
The daring housewives and coffee fetchers behind America’s spy agency
Apologies if you encounter a paywall. I have not found a way around those, except to maybe activate your reader view, or access via a local library’s server.
Regarding the review: yes, I know that probably sounds like a belittling headline, but you have to read the article to grasp what was really going on. These women were not taken seriously by their superiors, and were thus able to achieve great things because no one was looking too closely, nor expected them to contribute greatly.
As Denise says in the review:
Women asked to create filing systems, for example, had access to and eyes on everything. Women taking dictation heard all. A “housewife” was not merely a societal or familial designation, it was, in many cases, the ultimate cover.
Intrigued? Go check out the book (affiliate link), by longtime author and journalist Liza Mundy:
The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA
Credits: The newspaper photo at top by me; newspaper clip from the Washington Post; book cover via Crown Books.