Women have been vital to the Central Intelligence Agency since its founding, rising from clerks and secretaries to powerful leaders at all levels of the organization. Despite the institution’s efforts to hold them back, many of these women found subtle, sometimes surreptitious, ways to help one another advance. They noticed things men didn’t see, becoming some of the toughest, shrewdest operatives the agency employed, while making unique sacrifices.
In her new book The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA, award-winning journalist and the New York Times bestselling author Liza Mundy introduces three generations of intrepid women who found creative ways to work within – and expand – the confines of the roles to which they were funneled for decades. Mundy conducted 100s of interviews to capture the stories of these women who beginning in the 1940s and ‘50s built the CIA’s critical archives, wrote cables, and maintained their colleagues’ secrets. She explores how they fought blatant sexism and unfair bias in the 1970s and ‘80s to become operatives—often using their invisibility and second-class status to their advantage; and finally she reveals the women who transformed spy craft by spearheading the modern era of data analysis to combat increasingly cunning international terrorism. Joining her this evening to discuss their own experiences are two women featured in the book: Molly Chambers whose work included applying new CIA tracking techniques to humanitarian missions including finding some of the “Chibok girls” kidnapped by Boko Haram in Nigeria; and Lisa Harper, who became the first female division chief and returned from retirement to join the hunt for Osama bin Laden.
The Sisterhood will be available for sale and signing after the conversation.
