Sisterhood of spies - Elizabeth P. McIntosh

The daring missions of America's World War II intelligence agency, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), are the stuff of legend, yet the contributions made by the 4,000 women--including Julia Child and Marlene Dietrich--who served in the OSS are largely unheralded. To tell their fascinating stories, McIntosh, a veteran of sensitive OSS and CIA operations, draws on her own experiences and on interviews with more than 100 OSS women who served all over the world. Captured in rich detail are the riveting tales of clandestine spies, saboteurs, cryptographers, cartographers, analysts, and experts in propaganda, recruiting, and communications, along with the less visible but no less important drivers and secretaries. The book was first published in 1998 to great reviews.