On International Women’s Day more than 25 years ago, the CIA created a list of nine female spies who have made an exceptional contribution to US intelligence.
The 11-page document unearthed by news collaborative Muckrock is titled “The Role of Women in Intelligence.” It includes the text of a speech made by John N. McMahon, then-deputy director of central intelligence, addressed to an audience within the US spy agency. The document is historically declassified and was made available to the public in 2007, long after it was created in March 1984. It is part of a 13-million-page trove of declassified documents put online by the CIA in Jan. 2017.
Unlike present-day career spies, the agency’s list of most ”outstanding women” in history were women from different walks of life who passed secret information from foreign sources to US intelligence.
Patience Wright
An 18th century sculptress, Wright entertained the King and Queen of England regularly at her London studio—and transmitted their gossip to the US government.
Lydia Darragh
In 1777, Darragh walked across the British frontline to warn then-general George Washington of an attack at the Battle of White Marsh, during the US Revolutionary War.
Harriet Tubman
A runway slave, Tubman helped bring other slaves from the south to the north of the United States, and spied for the Union Army during the US Civil War.
Claire Phillips
During World War II, Phillips opened a nightclub on the Manila waterfront in the Philippines in order to spy on members of the Japanese navy trying to unwind.
Constance Babington-Smith
A member of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, Babington identified the V-1 rockets that struck London in 1943 using imagery intelligence, and discovered that they were being launched from Peenemünde, Germany.
Virginia Hall
Under the guise of a New York Post stringer in Lyon, France, Hall was employed by the US government as a spy and secretly assisted the French Resistance movement at the start of WWII.
Rose O’Neal Greenhow
Greenhow was a widowed socialite and Confederate sympathizer who met with congressmen and generals in Washington DC to obtain intelligence during the US Civil War. She was eventually imprisoned, but according to the CIA list, she still “directed a network of at least 50 spies from her prison cell.”
McMahon also celebrated two contemporary senior female members of the CIA, but their names are redacted in the document. He also did not forget to remind the audience that, although women could serve as “university presidents, members of congress, doctors, lawyers” and even spies, their essential duties were also “mothers and homemakers”. It was the 1980s, after all.