6/8: The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA Hardcover – October 17, 2023 by Liza Mundy (Author)

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6/8: The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA Hardcover – October 17, 2023
by Liza Mundy (Author)

https://www.amazon.com/Sisterhood-Secret-History-Women-CIA/dp/0593238176/ref=asc_df_0593238176&mcid=d8b024f8944a3cfb869a04c0b84ba964?tag=bngsmtphsnus-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=80608071597838&hvnetw=s&hvqmt=e&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=&hvtargid=pla-4584207596928557&psc=1

Created in the aftermath of World War II, the Central Intelligence Agency relied on women even as it attempted to channel their talents and keep them down. Women sent cables, made dead drops, and maintained the agency’s secrets. Despite discrimination—even because of it—women who started as clerks, secretaries, or unpaid spouses rose to become some of the CIA’s shrewdest operatives.

They were unlikely spies—and that’s exactly what made them perfect for the role. Because women were seen as unimportant, pioneering female intelligence officers moved unnoticed around Bonn, Geneva, and Moscow, stealing secrets from under the noses of their KGB adversaries. Back at headquarters, women built the CIA’s critical archives—first by hand, then by computer. And they noticed things that the men at the top didn’t see. As the CIA faced an identity crisis after the Cold War, it was a close-knit network of female analysts who spotted the rising threat of al-Qaeda—though their warnings were repeatedly brushed aside.

After the 9/11 attacks, more women joined the agency as a new job, targeter, came to prominence. They showed that data analysis would be crucial to the post-9/11 national security landscape—an effort that culminated spectacularly in the CIA’s successful effort to track down bin Laden in his Pakistani compound.

1900 KARACHI

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm John Duchner with Liza Mundi. Her new book is The Sisterhood, The Secret History of Women at the CIA.
0:10.0	It is the summer of 2000 again and again.
0:13.1	The C. T. The Alex station have been alerting
0:16.0	that there's movement, there's information.
0:18.4	There's reason to believe they're going to attack the United States,
0:22.2	not overseas. It reminds me so much of how Roosevelt and his
0:26.8	staff believed the Japanese were going to attack Singapore. They were not, didn't think
0:32.4	that it would be attacking the United States.
0:34.3	Who would attack the United States?
0:35.7	This ragtag bunch that lives in caves.
0:38.4	Well, Cindy Stor and Barbara Sioux and Gina Ben from State and certainly Heidi Field's, Heidi Field. and they are not ragtag at all they have the capability and Liza you can't change
0:54.7	history so the day of the attack where everybody is and how they respond to it what
1:00.6	is their memory now you've talked to all of them. What do they remember
1:03.4	about that day?
1:05.4	They all remember being in the building when it happens and they remember seeing, watching
1:11.6	it on CNN.
1:12.6	I mean that's essentially how the CIA found out about the 9-11 attacks on CNN,
1:16.5	even though just as you say that women have been warning, they have been writing about it,
1:20.1	they have been trying to thwart it.
1:21.4	And the CIA and the Clinton of then Bush
1:24.9	administration have been trying to figure out what they could do about bin Laden.
1:28.1	Should we assassinate him? Should we try to kill him? Can we do that? What if civilians are put in danger so there have been those
	...

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