Chatter: Spy Disguises in Fact and Fiction with Jonna Mendez
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 7 March 2024
⏱️ 88 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jonna Mendez advanced in her Central Intelligence Agency career to become Chief of Disguise despite the many institutional challenges to women's promotions. And now she has written a memoir, In True Face, about it all.
David Priess spoke with Jonna about career options for women at CIA in the early Cold War, her own start there in the 1960s, how photography classes set her on a path that ultimately led to service as Chief of Disguise, her interactions over the decades with Tony Mendez, the tandem-couple problem for intelligence professionals, semi-animated mask technology and other CIA disguises, her experience briefing President George H. W. Bush in the Oval Office, how the story behind the Canadian Caper became declassified and eventually the movie Argo, the International Spy Museum, and more.
Among the works mentioned in this episode:
The book In True Face by Jonna Mendez
"How the CIA Used a Fake Sci-Fi Flick to Rescue Americans from Tehran," by Joshuah Bearman, WIRED, April 24, 2007
The movie The Ides of March
The movie Argo
The book Argo by Antonio Mendez and Matt Baglio
The book The Master of Disguise by Antonio Mendez
The movie Mission Impossible
The TV show The Americans
The TV show Homeland
The movie Casino Royale
Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising. |
| 0:04.0 | To access an ad-free version of the Lawfair Podcast, |
| 0:08.0 | become a material supporter of Lawfair at Patreon.com slash Lawfair. That's Patreon.com |
| 0:16.4 | slash Lawfair. Also check out Lawfair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, lawfare no bull, and the aftermath. |
| 0:30.0 | Welcome to Chatter. I'm David Prius. This week, former CIA officer John Mendez on spy disguises in fact and fiction. |
| 0:49.0 | You know, a lot of that process came out of Hollywood makeup out of John Chambers and Planet of the Apes and his half masks where you had chimpanzees that really could emote. |
| 0:54.4 | That's what started the mask program. |
| 0:56.7 | When Hollywood saw our full-faced animated mask, |
| 1:00.8 | they couldn't believe it. |
| 1:03.6 | Almost all of the people we were working with were men. |
| 1:07.3 | If you approach a man with a wig in your hand, |
| 1:10.4 | you have a situation just up front. They don't want to wear that wig. |
| 1:15.0 | They don't want a clue on a mustache. |
| 1:18.0 | I did not write this book to write about discrimination against women. |
| 1:22.0 | I set out to write about discrimination against women. |
| 1:22.8 | I set out to write a memoir of my career. |
| 1:26.0 | I kind of wandered into this subject and couldn't, |
| 1:29.5 | no matter where I turned, couldn't get away from it and had to include it. |
| 1:33.5 | John amendez, it's about damn time that I talked to you on chatter. It's so nice to be with you here in person in the |
| 1:45.1 | goat rodeo studio. Thanks for joining me. Thank you for inviting me. I feel the |
| 1:49.2 | same. It's been a while since we had a conversation. Yeah and it's been a while since we had a conversation. Yeah, and it's been a while since I saw a new book of yours, but guess what? |
| 1:57.0 | We've got one. |
... |
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