Female spies who forged the CIA

Many of the agents who played a crucial role in establishing the organisation now known as the Central Intelligence Agency – or CIA – were women. And yet, in the early days of the agency in post-WW2 America, they had to fight hard for career progression, status and recognition. Speaking with Elinor Evans, Nathalia Holt shares the lives of four women who undertook life-threatening missions and harnessed crucial intelligence in the early days of the agency.

Nathalia Holt is the author of Wise Gals: The Spies Who Built the CIA and Changed the Future of Espionage (Icon Books, 2023)