This is John Bachelor, conversation with the author Lisa Mundy, her book The Sisterhood, The Secret History of Women at the CIA.

This passage which Lisa narrates wonderfully is about Heidi August and Libya, the year in 1969, the rise of a

man named Gaddafi out of the Air Force barracks. Lisa tells the story winningly. Heidi was a heroin, a clerk in

Libya in 1969 and all the seniors missed what Heidi saw from her window.

His Lisa Mundi on Heidi August, rescuing what was to be rescued at the CIA station in Libya at the moment of Gaddafi's coup.

More of this later.

That a coup was being fermented in Libya.

And that was the main thing that the CIA in

Africa at that time was supposed to report if there was going to be a coup that was the

thing you wanted to get back to Washington Fast and they were caught completely flat-footed.

She would, for the next month, she would say to her superiors, why didn't we know?

Why didn't we know we were sharing a base with the Libyan Air Force.

Kodafi took English classes on this base.

Like, why didn't we have any assets in the Air Force?

So she calls her superiors.

She tells him what's happening.

She tells the American military what's happening.

And she drives through the gunfire with her friend,

also a clerk, who was visiting from Tunisia.

And they have to burn out a station.

And burning out a station means opening all the safes, taking out all the classified cables,

everything that you don't want to be exposed in a coup, all the American intelligence from all over Africa

...