The Sisterhood

“Welcome to my mother Esther Coopersmith’s modest bungalow,” said Jeffrey Coopersmith as he welcomed his friend Liza Mundy. “Her latest book, The Sisterhood: The True Story or The Secret History of Women at the CIA is where Liza vividly describes how women have served and protected the US even when the US did not always serve and protect them. This is a story that many people have waited a very long time to be told, including Nancy Pelosi. I had the opportunity to meet with Speaker Pelosi and I told her about this event and she asked me to share this message with all of you. And I quote, ‘Please thank my dear friend Esther for bringing everybody together as she always does. And Jeffrey, please thank your friend for bringing the public’s attention to this subject because I served on the House Intelligence Committee for 30 years, longer than anyone. I always wanted a book about women in the CIA.’ One day Liza’s book will not be as necessary and that all books about the CIA will also be about women.”

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“This book highlights the work of women who were in the agency long before me,” said Abigail Span Berger, (former CIA case officer and current Representative from Virginia)  “the women who will continue to serve into the future, the extraordinary work that those women have done and will continue to do. We all have our own sisterhoods within the agency, the women we came in with, the people who believed in us and the women that we believe in. And so to be able to see the stories of those women in this book, whether it’s the specific story of one woman or the themes that so many of us experienced, is absolutely beautiful. And then she talks about the sisterhood the way that so frequently women would find each other and talk to each other and strategize with each other. And sometimes it was of our own doing and sometimes it was because there were moments when the challenges that we face out in that role was unique. I thank Liza once more for telling this extraordinary story. The stories reflected in this book are so real and so true and so important and they need to be told. And so I’m so grateful that this book exists, that there is an opportunity for people to understand some of the adventures, some of the challenges, the absolute creativity and bullishness that you have to have to do this job. So I am delighted to be in this gathering tonight and to be celebrating the, what should I call them, the underestimated women who have used that underestimation to actually excel in the espionage world.”

Read more here.