http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2002/apr/spies/index.html
[Ed: amusing that "sleeper agents" who infiltrated "occupied
territories" are
glorified by the winner of that conflict.. but when the US is the
occupier, the
resistance agents are "terrorists"..]
The Lady Was a Spy
Exhibit Presents the Untold Stories of Women in
Espionage
Listen to Susan Stamberg's report.
April 4, 2002 -- During World War II, entertainer
Josephine Baker
helped the French Resistance by smuggling secret
information written
in invisible ink on her sheet music. Ironically,
Baker's fame made it
possible for her to complete her missions
unnoticed, Linda McCarthy,
curator of a new exhibition on female spies
throughout history, tells
NPR's Susan Stamberg on Morning Edition.
Passport checkers were so
starstruck by
Baker that they never
suspected she was
a spy. As she toured Europe,
she and her
entourage -- which included
other
members of the resistance --
were
allowed to pass through.
"One thing about espionage,
at its peak it's
an equal opportunity
employer,"
McCarthy says. "And there are
times,
quite frankly, where women
can get into
situations where men can't."
The National Women's History
Museum
exhibit, Clandestine Women:
The
Untold Stories of Women in
Espionage,
also features the story of
another unlikely
operative, Julia Child.
Decades before becoming a
famous chef,
she worked for the Office of
Strategic
Services. (The OSS was the
predecessor
to the CIA.) She was assigned
to solve a
problem for U.S. naval forces during World War
II: Sharks would
bump into explosives that were placed underwater,
setting them off
and warning the German U-boats they were intended
to sink.
"So... Julia Child and a few of her male
compatriots got together and
literally cooked up a shark repellent," that was
used to coat the
explosives, McCarthy says.
<snip>
