Chatter: The Secret History of Women at the CIA with Liza Mundy
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 19 October 2023
⏱️ 87 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Journalist Liza Mundy’s new history of the world’s most storied spy service focuses on the women of the CIA, who for decades worked in jobs that men found less glamorous or career enhancing, and that proved vital to the interests of U.S. national security. The Sisterhood covers practically the entire history of the agency, from its pre-World War II days as the Office of Strategic Services, through the Cold War and the 9/11 attacks, followed by the successful hunt for Osama bin Laden.
Shane Harris spoke with Mundy about why she decided to write about the women of the CIA and what that story reveals about the hidden history of the agency. Mundy’s previous book, Code Girls, was about American women who worked as code breakers during WWII.
Among the works mentioned in this episode:
The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/653184/the-sisterhood-by-liza-mundy/
Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/liza-mundy/code-girls/9780316352550/?lens=hachette-books
Mundy’s website: http://www.lizamundy.com/
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad-free version of the LawFair |
| 0:07.2 | podcast become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash LawFair, that's patreon.com slash |
| 0:16.9 | LawFair. Also check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair |
| 0:25.6 | no bull, and the aftermath. |
| 0:35.7 | This is chatter, I'm Shane Harris. This week, journalist Liza Mundi on the history of women |
| 0:41.9 | at the CIA. |
| 0:46.5 | Women proved sort of over and over that in spycraft, when you're moving around the street, when |
| 0:50.1 | you're meeting with assets, trying to get people to pass secrets to you or running |
| 0:54.6 | expiltration networks, it really does help to have people underestimate you and just think, |
| 0:58.8 | oh, that's an ordinary housewife. |
| 1:02.3 | For the Naval Code Breaking Service, there was literally a document that said, new source |
| 1:07.6 | women's colleges, and you know, until then an educated woman really could just expect |
| 1:12.5 | to be a school teacher, if that, and only while she was single. |
| 1:18.9 | Early analysts who were recruited, they were described as sneaker ladies as women in tennis |
| 1:23.6 | shoes, because they worked at desks, they hadn't even been overseas, operations officers, |
| 1:28.0 | and yet they were pioneering this new kind of intelligence gathering. |
| 1:37.8 | Liza Mundi, welcome to chatter, thanks very much for joining us today. |
| 1:41.1 | Thank you so much for having me, I'm so happy to be here. |
| 1:43.2 | And I'm really glad we could do this in the studio too, which is just really nice, it's |
| 1:46.5 | really both locals. |
| 1:48.6 | So I have to admit, I was very excited when, and maybe even a little jealous, actually, |
| 1:53.6 | when I heard the yearbook was coming out, the sisterhood, the secret history of women |
... |
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