I heard about this book from Jennifer and found it to be a great listen. It recounts the experiences of women in the CIA and is subtitled, The Secret History of Women at the CIA. Jennifer mentioned it in connection with the women analysts who had been gathering data about Osama bin Laden for years before 9/11. It was a source of frustration that despite what they knew, the attack was not thwarted. That, of course, is a complicated question that involves many problems.
The CIA of old was most dependent on information gathered from “assets” that spies recruit from the enemy. In those days it was thought that women could not do this kind of work and those operatives were the rock stars of the CIA. In contrast the information that was gathered about Bin Ladin was all publicly available; the analysts relied on what they found online about to learn about Al Qaeda and how it operated.
In the early years of the CIA few women were employed for any jobs other than clerical. This book recounts the few that made their way into this work, occasionally moving from the clerical world to be analysts. Eventually women were able to become case officers. The stories of many women and their frustrations are recounted.
One aspect of the work that women were allowed to do in the early days brought up fun memories for me. The women analysts in the early days worked in “the vault” at the CIA, a windowless high security area. For five summers beginning after my junior year of high school, I worked in the Pentagon in a division called International Security Affairs which was the Department of Defense’s little State Department. I worked in the office where all correspondence and documents were filed after being catalogued. I do remember hearing it said that the women in that office were able to find materials that no one else could find, thanks to their meticulous cataloging. My own most important work involved cheerfully going to the snack bar for everyone in the office twice a day and I was happy to do that rather than file small tickets. There was a vault in the office, most notable to me as the place where I heard that some people went to smooch.
Liza Mundy, The Sisterhood, Crown, 2023, 452 pages (I listened to the audiobook). Available in the public library.