The Sisterhood

October 23, 2023
Drawing on more than 100 interviews with former CIA operatives, journalist Mundy (Code Breakers) demonstrates in this eye-opening survey that female operatives have made important contributions to the agency from its 1945 founding to the present day, despite facing decades of discrimination. Mundy shows how, in the CIA’s early years, most women agents hoped to enter the exciting world of undercover intelligence, but instead were systematically sidelined into positions as secretaries, typists, and similar support roles. Sexual harassment and office sex were also common, at least through the 1980s. And yet, Mundy makes clear, women agents were often able to obtain and analyze information that their male counterparts could not. For example, a woman perceived as a secretary or housewife could attend events and listen to important conversations without being suspected of spying. Likewise, female agents trapped at desk jobs in “analysis” and “targeting” departments made tremendous advances in those fields; Mundy recounts the story of Cindy Storer, who as a senior analyst in 1992 was the first at the CIA to realize that Osama bin Laden should be considered a serious threat. But Mundy is no hagiographer; her evenhanded account tracks how women’s growing influence led to increased opportunities for abuses of power, including analyst Alfreda Bikowsky’s exuberant support for the “enhanced interrogation techniques” used against terrorism suspects after 9/11. It adds up to a vivid and immersive new history of the CIA.