--- title: How Housewives Played a Critical Role In the CIA description: 'The best spies are the ones you’d never suspect,' writes Liza Mundy. canonical: https://time.com/6324307/housewives-cia-essay/ author: Liza Mundy article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2023-10-18T11:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:48:49.982Z article:section: Ideas og:title: How Housewives Played a Critical Role In the CIA og:description: 'The best spies are the ones you’d never suspect,' writes Liza Mundy. og:url: https://time.com/6324307/housewives-cia-essay/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt42827094ba93ec3f/698a413e011682284498385e/house-wife-spy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1732 og:image:height: 974 og:image:alt: house-wife-spy og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Housewives Played a Critical Role In the CIA twitter:description: 'The best spies are the ones you’d never suspect,' writes Liza Mundy. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt42827094ba93ec3f/698a413e011682284498385e/house-wife-spy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- # How Housewives Played a Critical Role in the CIA > Sponsored content. 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ## Video: Why Malcolm X’s Family Is Suing the FBI, NYPD, and CIA 58 Years After His Death [Watch (HLS stream): Why Malcolm X’s Family Is Suing the FBI, NYPD, and CIA 58 Years After His Death](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/3231qqnr.m3u8) (2:37)  _Published 2023-02-23. The family of civil rights leader Malcolm X marked the anniversary of his 1965 assassination on Tuesday by announcing plans to sue the FBI, New York Police Department, and CIA for $100 million, claiming they concealed evidence related to his murder._ Oct 18, 2023 11:00 AM UTC  Woman holding a magnifying glass is reflected in the mirror of a powder box. Amateur investigation concept illustration. Woman holding a magnifying glass is reflected in the mirror of a powder box. Amateur investigation concept illustration. Getty Images by [Liza Mundy](https://time.com/author/liza-mundy/) ## Liza Mundy Oct 18, 2023 11:00 AM UTC When it comes to women and spying, popular culture fixates on the femme fatale: a Mata Hari type of female agent, wanton and—of course—sinister, using her sex to steal secrets. This “honeypot” stereotype recently cropped up in _The Sun_, a British tabloid, [in a piece](https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/24080063/putin-beauties-spy-britain-us/) claiming that Russia is assembling an “army” of “deadly beauties” to help win its contest with the West. A throwback to the spicy if dubious intrigue of Cold War-era spy tales, the article cited a handful of small-time models and beauticians apprehended in various London suburbs as evidence of massive spy “networks.” Vladimir Putin, it seemed, was running “seduction schools” to train “glam spies” and turn them loose on the U.S. and Britain. It was surely no coincidence that the thinly sourced piece ran alongside a lurid string of photos of bikini-clad hotties looking ruthless. It's true that human intelligence (HUMINT) remains a critical piece of the spy landscape, even in our era of Russian bot farms and AI-powered drone attacks. But historically, when it comes to women and espionage, the most effective agent is generally not a “Bulgarian bombshell,” but rather the woman you’d never give a second glance. Historically, women spies have traded not on their sexuality but their perceived insignificance. So useful are the trappings of drab domesticity—the trundling baby carriage, the hefting of grocery bags—that the CIA had a term for the safety they confer: it was called “housewife cover.” And many of the people who have used this cover were, in fact, actual wives. --- For decades during the Cold War, thousands of women kept the Central Intelligence Agency running. Chief among these were the wives of male agents, who often served alongside their husbands, receiving tradecraft training but little to none of the pay. Back then, free spousal labor was common in government service: during much of the Cold War, even into the 1980s, wives of politicians and diplomats were expected to serve as full-time adjuncts. At the U.S. State Department, male diplomats’ performance evaluations took into account wives’ willingness to roll bandages and host potlucks. In the military, wives formed auxiliaries, even broke enemy ciphers, observing a strict hierarchy depending on the rank of the men they married. ### More From TIME But the CIA took the expectation of free spousal labor to new heights. Many wives functioned as clandestine extensions of their spymaster husbands. At the CIA, the formal title for spy is “case officer.” The job entails working overseas and convincing foreign “assets” to hand over their country’s secrets. Case officers work undercover, often posing as executives or diplomats. And it’s this kind of secretive yet social role in which spouses are natural allies; at a diplomatic reception, who better than a wife to sidle around to the wife of a potential asset, chat her up, and issue an invitation to dinner, cracking open the door to a recruitment? While James Bond movies are set in casinos and ski resorts, much real-life spy work unfolds in the home, where a case officer can expect privacy and exert control. Wives were the people who made that happen.  Courtesy of Penguin Random House LLC. The Cold War spywife also needed to know how to react in an emergency. At any time of day or night, a wife might hear a knock on the door and find herself confronted with a “walk-in,” the term for a foreign national who shows up unannounced, with secrets to hand over. “You answer the door, and it’s a Russian wanting to defect,” recalls Lisa Harper, a retired case officer who, in the 1970s, was obliged to serve as an unpaid wife before ascending to the case officer ranks. Often, the husband would be away on a mission, and the wife had to handle the walk-in. “The smart husband has prepared his wife for this eventuality. Who do you call at the embassy? What is the code word you say?” For decades, it was an open secret that many senior CIA officers built their careers with the help of apt and loyal wives. Director William Colby’s 1978 memoir _Honorable Men: My Life In the CIA_ is full of praise for his first wife, Barbara Colby, who, on an early posting to Sweden, “did much to shore up my weak cover” by jumping into the “job of the junior diplomat’s wife with her typical enthusiasm and charm.” In Vietnam, her “warm and outgoing personality” carried them through dinners and receptions. Women made great spies, but the CIA nonetheless [discriminated against women](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1994/07/20/many-female-cia-officers-allege-bias/a324eafb-10ea-4b72-8a71-90985229893c/) who wanted to join the case officer ranks; for decades, it was widely held that female spies could not operate in male-dominated cultures. Yet at the very same time, spy wives were proving the opposite: housewife cover transformed an apparent weakness—lower status—into a strength. Whatever a housewife was doing—shopping, lunching—it surely wasn’t important, adversaries thought. If she reached beneath a chair to pick up a message, who would notice? The more patriarchal the culture, the more a wife could get away with. The Soviet spy service, KGB, tracked suspected CIA officers as they moved from one diplomatic posting to another, so that by the time a case officer was posted to Moscow, his true identity was likely known to the KGB. The minute an American case officer pulled out of a garage or parking space, three or four Soviet surveillance cars—or more—would materialize. In these “hard target” countries—the Soviet Union, Cuba, China—the bulk of a case officer’s job was physical, low-tech, exhausting, and time-consuming. A huge amount of time was spent trying to elude surveillance. Sometimes, the goal was to make a dead drop, which entailed placing a message in a fake rock, tree trunk, or other hiding place; or, leave a coded signal such as a chalk mark on a wall or mailbox; or make a “brush pass,” where a message or payment could be handed off on, say, an escalator. Even harder was a “car toss” in which the case officer would fling a message out of a car, in a bottle or other projectile, aimed at a bush or other pickup site. With a wife to help, all these feats became more doable. The wife, sitting innocently in the passenger’s seat, might roll down the window and make the toss. Or she could drive so her husband could toss when a bend in the road caused the surveillance car to lose sight of them. Not only did a female companion make a man less conspicuous, but an alert wife could help spot a tail. Wives working in hard targets underwent the same CIA anti-surveillance training as did their husbands, and often turned out to be better at detecting a disguised stranger. Women are always alert to interlopers in their personal space. All in all, a competent wife was a case officer’s most important asset. Take the example of Shirley Sulick, a much beloved CIA spouse who was one of the best. Shirley and her husband Michael (Mike) Sulick were an early biracial couple: Mike, now retired, is white, and Shirley, who died in 2021, was Black. During Mike’s CIA career—he rose to head the agency’s clandestine service—Shirley’s charisma and good nature were crucial to his well-being and his career trajectory. For a lot of wives, “If they haven’t been overseas before, whether it’s Tokyo or Peru, whatever, it could be daunting,” Mike Sulick told me. But no aspect of overseas work was daunting for Shirley, who could socialize with anybody. She was elated when they went to Moscow and she could concentrate on pleasures like evasive driving. “This,” she said, “is my wheelhouse.” Shirley had a heavy foot and enjoyed messing with the Soviet adversaries. “I’m going to go out and play with the boys,” she would tell her husband, before setting out in the car to lead their surveillance on a chase.  Shirley Sulik in the Soviet Union from 1988-1990. Courtesy of Mike Sulick Working a hard target made for a constrained marital existence, since apartments were bugged. But there were ways to exploit the lack of privacy. At one New Year’s Eve party, Mike Sulick pretended to get very drunk, and Shirley propped him up as he staggered home. Knowing the Soviets were listening, he slurred his words and demanded she bring him Irish coffee. His surveillers assumed they could safely sleep in on the following holiday morning. Instead, Mike got up early and struck out unobserved. Wives could also help with dead drops. Shirley Sulick made a point of carrying a huge purse, out of which she would let fall a pencil or lipstick, and sweep up a message along with it. They’d go on a picnic or tour a church, and Mike would make a big production of taking a photo. While the KGB officers watched, Shirley would go around the side and pick up whatever had been placed there. So effective was this time-tested housewife cover that, as women finally began to be hired and paid to do spy work in the 1970s and 1980s, female case officers continued to deploy harmless domesticity, when it made sense to do so, as a cover identity. Sometimes the tactic even fooled other CIA women. One female operative recalled to me about being in an U.S. embassy compound and seeing an American woman suntanning by a pool. She experienced a flash of envy, thinking this was some languid wife accompanying her husband on a cushy posting. Only later did she realize it was a colleague, doing the same work she was. These days, the helpmeet might be a husband or same-sex partner, but the point remains the same: the best spies are the ones you’d never suspect. _Adapted from the book_ [THE SISTERHOOD: The Secret History of Women at the CIA](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/653184/the-sisterhood-by-liza-mundy/) _by Liza Mundy. Copyright © 2023 by Liza Mundy. Published in the United States by Crown, an imprint of Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved._ ## Transcript 58 years ago today. In This Very Room. One of the greatest thought leaders. Ever known in the 21st century. Was assassinated. Is since that time. There has been speculation as to who was involved. In the assassination of Malcolm X. On November 18th. 2021. It was confirmed and substantiate it that. The government agencies. The New York Police Department. The f b. I the district attorney of New York. Had factual evidence. Exculpatory evidence. That they fraudulently, concealed. From The Men Who were wrongfully convicted. For the assassination of Malcolm X, nobody can imagine. Well, they've had to endure. And so for this great Injustice, we will be filing. A wrongful death lawsuit against these governmental entities for 100 million dollars. On behalf. Of his daughter's. Dad are coming forward for the truth to come to light concerning his murder. I would like a father to receive the justice that he deserves the truth about the circumstances, leading to the death of our father is important. Not only to his family, but too many followers, many admirers. Many who look to him for guidance for love. And it is our hope that litigation of this case will finally provide some unanswered questions. 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