2: 8. The Triumph, the Skepticism, and the Legacy of the Sisterhood Liza Mundy Book: The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA Even with high-level attention on the bin Laden compound, the targeters faced continued doubt and hesitation from seni
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 19 October 2025
⏱️ 9 minutes
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Summary
Even with high-level attention on the bin Laden compound, the targeters faced continued doubt and hesitation from senior operational leadership, a symptom of the CIA's humiliation over 9/11 and the bad intelligence regarding WMDs in the Iraq War. Nevertheless, the "ground-level targeters" were "very close to 100% confident" in their precision, using detailed aerial imagery analysis, including counting the laundry on the line, to determine the number of people and families inside the compound. When the SEALs raided the compound, they were astonished by the precision of the targeters' intelligence. In retirement, key figures like Barbara Sude and Heidi August continued their lives. The women later gathered at a writers' retreat for a cathartic moment, drinking wine and reading aloud the memoirs of the men they had worked for, often "shouting with frustration." The book also notes that the character of Maya (from Zero Dark Thirty) was based on a single woman who left the agency unpromoted.
Transcript
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| 0:26.6 | This is CBSI on the world. I'm John Batchel. Liza Mundy, very generously speaking with me of her |
| 0:32.5 | rich new book. It is the story of the sisterhood, the secret history of women at the CIA. |
| 0:44.4 | Sometimes they call themselves a sisterhood. There were adventures plenty over 70 years, 80 years now, since the OSS was formed in the crisis of the Second War. |
| 0:53.1 | And whatever happened to, the senior officials who provided the information that warned and warned and warned of 9-11, |
| 0:57.0 | 9-11 was a sharp turn in the road and we haven't recovered from it. Not yet. |
| 0:58.0 | Not yet. |
| 0:59.0 | So whatever happened to. |
| 1:01.0 | We begin with Barbara Sude. |
| 1:04.0 | Oh, the Arabic scholar. |
| 1:05.0 | Where is she now, Liza? |
| 1:07.0 | Well, she is retired and living in North Carolina. |
| 1:10.0 | She stayed with the hunt for bin Laden for a long time. |
| 1:14.1 | And until, you know, she was really well past retirement age at that point. |
| 1:18.8 | But she hung on for a long time thinking that, you know, that they might get him on her watch. |
| 1:25.9 | And when she retired, she did get a call from a colleague saying, turn on the TV, you know, that they might get him on her watch. And when she retired, she did get a call from a |
| 1:29.5 | colleague saying, turn on the TV. You know, it's been a good day at the office. And our super |
| 1:36.4 | agent, Heidi August, where is she? She's living in California. She is resourceful and well connected as ever able to put herself into a new community and immediately begin to build ties and really serve her community when volunteer organizations. |
| 1:56.0 | And as we talked about a number of the women who served in the clandescent service in the Cold War really had to sacrifice having families, having marriages, having children. |
| 2:08.9 | And so the women take care of each other. |
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