It’s been 70 years since the CIA ‘Petticoat Panel’ found women’s careers were stalling because their male supervisors dismissed them as ‘more emotional and less objective’. We’ve come a long way, but women still only make up 40 percent of the workforce in the 18 US intelligence agencies. Today we’re celebrating six sassy women who climbed to the top and did it their way.
Michele Rigby Assad
When Michele trained as a CIA clandestine officer she was taken aback when her Agency ‘mentor’ wouldn’t speak to her directly or even look at her when they were in the same room. It seems the old-school thinking was still alive and kicking but Michele is no pushover. The Arabic speaker soon found herself on the frontline, handling Iraqi spies and becoming a target for ISIS terrorists.
When the FBI’s director presented Sylvia Elizabeth Mathis with her snub-nosed Smith & Wesson revolver and leather attaché case in 1976, Agent #2658 made history as the first-ever black female FBI agent. At a time when African-American women like Rosa Parks and Dorothy Height were changing the US landscape, Mathis made her mark away from the spotlight.
CIA analyst Sarah M. Carlson left the safety of the US behind for Libya in 2014, a wartorn country where even Tripoli International Airport was under the command of rebel forces. Dictator Colonel Gaddafi was long gone and a deadly power vacuum arose in his wake. Under a hail of rocket fire, Sarah needed to evacuate 150 American Embassy staff caught in the crossfire of civil war.
Former Department of Defense certified military interrogator Lena Sisco worked as a US Naval officer in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in the years directly after 9/11. In addition to her incredible experiences, we asked Lena about her top interviewing and negotiating skills, so you too can get to the truth.
Get a FREE copy of a hot new thriller, spy story, or crime novel every Monday with a special Story Mondays ticket to SPYSCAPE HQ. Next Monday it's Red London - a sharp and nuanced race-against-the-clock story ripped from today's headlines, a testament to author Alma Katsu’s 35-year career in national security. It’s a rare spy novel written by an insider that feels as prescient as it is page-turning and utterly unforgettable. Don't miss your FREE copy when you experience SPYSCAPE HQ next Monday.
Our True Spies podcast went behind enemy lines with Virginia Hall, the Allied heroine of WWII. She was known as the ‘Limping Lady’ having lost part of her left leg in a hunting accident. As one of Winston Churchill's Secret Army, the US-born spy organized resistance efforts in occupied France to disrupt Nazi plans ‘by any means necessary’. As the Germans closed in, betrayal was a constant, deadly threat.
Nada Bakos joined the controversial hunt for one of the Iraq War's deadliest terrorists. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was considered a low-level criminal until the US government named him as one of the world's most dangerous insurgents. His presence in Iraq was part of the justification for the Allied invasion in 2003 but did the facts stack up? As one of the CIA's senior targeting officers, it was Nada's job to find out.
