This is John Batcher. What follows is an excerpt from a two-hour conversation with the author,

Liza Mundi. Her new book, The Sisterhood, The Secret History of Women at the CIA, is greatly recommended.

It's witty, it's fun, it's historically accurate. It tells the story

of the CIA from the days of the OSS, how women were a vital part of the operation were poorly treated, ignored, and then at the same time critical to the success of the OSS and the CIA.

Perhaps in the 21st century we can see this and the 20th century could not,

but then again I doubt that the culture was profoundly different

the women of the CIA once they emerged into the Cold War of the 19 late 40s into 50s were deployed as clerks and yet in this

particular excerpt Liza Mundi tells the story of one clerk who rises to the level of being

an officer, a successful officer, an officer so successful, Bill Casey, DCI at the time Reagan administration, gives her an assignment.

Here's the story of a clerk who succeeded immediately as an officer and went on to adventures all across the globe in the late 20th century.

Liza Mundi, more of this later.

Because she doesn't think that she's ready and it was extraordinary because after 10 years of being a clerk, a male mentor said, you know, Heidi, you really are better than being a clerk and they got her a slot at the farm to

train to be a case officer and then just as you said, she was sent to Geneva where she made an incredibly

important recruitment and was able to obtain an extremely important piece of communications technology because she recruited a woman clerk for from another country.

One of the things that CIA officers have to do

is figure out once they spot someone

who has the information or the technology that they want,

and that's called spotting, they have to figure out what this person's vulnerabilities are.

That's called elicitation. They have to elicit as much information about this

person so they can figure out, okay, how am I going to get to this person or what's going to persuade them to spy for us and pass this information? Is it money? Do they have a child or a parent who needs medical care and revenge is a powerful motivator and she

figured out that this other woman clerk wanted revenge against her bosses and

the and the woman was was willing to pass her the information. against her

...