CIA clerks and typists, 1952 CIA archives
The Secret History of CIA Women -- Tasneem Raja, Mother Jones
It was "Mad Men" with security clearances, but some skilled female spies rose high in the ranks.
A few years ago, four veteran CIA officers, with more than a 100 years of collective experience over four decades, were asked to speak frankly about serving in the agency as women. The taped conversations, used for internal review by the CIA, reveal encounters with male attitudes from the officers' early years that aren't surprising—it was indeed a Mad Men world, albeit with security clearances. The transcripts, part of a trove of recently declassified CIA documents, also contain wry, Peggy Olson-esque recollections in which being a woman proved an asset—and hardly in the "femme fatale" vein of intelligence gathering.
"You could always tell them by their socks," said Meredith, then-deputy chief of the CIA's European Division, about spotting foreign agents. (All last names in the document are redacted.) She joined the agency with her husband in 1979 as a "contract wife," a spouse sent abroad by the CIA with her agent-husband to provide secretarial-type support work for low pay. When dressing to blend in with the crowd, Meredith recalled, undercover agents—on all sides—tended to overlook shoes and socks. "That would never occur to my husband to look at."
Read more ....
Update: The secret history of CIA women and their gadgets including bugged evening wear, surveillance compact mirrors and 'how to spot an enemy operative by his socks' -- Daily Mail
My Comment: And in today's CIA .... half of the CIA’s workforce are women.
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