I love a great spy story!

Hello All,

I have to start this week by saying how grateful I am for the former presidents and first ladies coming together to discuss the importance of getting the Covid vaccine! And I am grateful that the vaccines are becoming more plentiful. What a tremendous effort this has been by so many people to develop a vaccine – produce it – get it delivered – and into arms! There are hundreds of thousands of people who have been involved. Many thanks to all of them! I am definitely looking forward to the end of this pandemic!

Many of you know the funny stories of my three careers goals when I was really young. I initially wanted to be a nun. Okay, okay – stop laughing! I grew up with the television show The Flying Nun – and it looked like fun! Of course, being brought up Baptist – and then, and now, my often colorful vocabulary – were definitely deterrents to this! Then I briefly wanted to be a FBI agent. However, that meant I would need to carry a gun. As my mother is quite correct in reminding me, graceful I am not. So there was a true concern that I would accidently shot myself! Then I found the book world of Cherry Ames, who I followed from student nurse to hospital nurse to clinic nurse to cruise ship nurse…..and then the dolls that I wrapped up in bandages…..and a nurse was born!

However, I absolutely love a good spy novel/movie/story. I have lived my wildest FBI/private investigator/crime solver dreams in my penchant for spy novels! Jason Bourne – yes indeed! Lee Child’s Jack Reacher – what a ride! Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum – read the new novel the day it comes out. So it will not be a surprise that some of my favorite real life stories to read are about women who have spied to save their country!

There are so many women whose whole goal was to make a difference in and for the lives of others. War time heroes who literally risked life and limb to save people, information, secrets – to protect their country. Women who often went unrecognized and unrewarded for their work. I want to share the story of one of them.

The most dangerous and effective American spy of World War II was Virginia Hall (married name Goillot). Ms. Hall’s story was written about in “The Wolves at the Door: The True Story of America’s Greatest Female Spy” by Judith Pearson, in “A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy who Helped Win World War II” by Sonia Purnell, and “Hall of Mirrors” by Craig Gralley . Her story is evidently on display at the CIA Museum inside headquarters at Langley in Hampton, but this is off-limits to the public!

Ms. Hall was born into a wealthy family in 1906. She was raised, as were many women at that time, to marry into similar privilege. She wanted a life of adventure! She was said to describe herself as “capricious and cantankerous”. She attended Radcliff and Barnard Colleges, studying French, Italian and German. She also attended George Washington University, where she studied French and economics.

Ms. Hall traveled to France so she could continue her studies. There she decided she wanted to be an ambassador, but got turned down many times by the State Department (probably because she was a woman – at that time there were only six women of the 1,500 diplomats). She did end up in a clerical role at the U.S. Consulate in Turkey. She loved to hunt! While in Turkey, she accidently shot herself in the foot. She developed gangrene, and her left leg had to be amputated below the knee. She fought hard to learn how to walk with a wooden leg, which she named “Cuthbert”. This resilience drove her to do more!

When World War II erupted, Ms. Hall volunteered to drive an ambulance. France was soon overrun, so she escaped to Britain. During this time she met a spy, who recognized Ms. Hall’s desire to help, who introduced her to Nicolas Bodington, who worked with the British intelligence service, the newly-created Special Operations Executive (SOE). A spy was born!

Ms. Hall, posing as a reporter for the New York Post, was among the first British spies sent into Nazi-occupied France. She was a natural, staying ahead of the Gestapo and the infamous Klaus Barbie (better known as the Butcher of Lyon), who were looking for the “limping lady”. Barbie called her “The Enemy’s Most Dangerous Spy” and had wanted posters printed with  “We must find and destroy her.” She stayed at a convent and the nuns helped her. She became friends with a female brothel owner and received information that the French prostitutes gathered from the German troops. She helped British airmen who had been shot down over Europe to escape back to England. She created safe houses. She was quite a chameleon, known to dress as “four different women in the space of an afternoon, with four different  code names.” It is said that her SOE commanders reported that this “gallant lady was almost single-handedly changing minds about the role of women in combat.”

Ms. Hall narrowly missed being captured by the Nazis at the end of 1942. She escaped to Spain – walking three days in the dead of winter in heavy snow over the Pyrenees Mountains. I cannot even imagine the sheer nerve and determination of this remarkable woman, walking in the  snow with her 8-pound wooden leg! She was actually arrested and jailed in Spain because of the lack of an entry stamp on her passport – she “illegally” entered the country! She made it back to Britain about six weeks later, after an inmate who was released from the same prison was able to get word to the American officials in Barcelona. The American Embassy then helped secure her release. .

Ms. Hall was not content to stay still, and asked to be allowed to go back to spy in France. The British refused because she was still wanted by the Gestapo. At that time, the Americans were ramping up their own intelligence service, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS – the precursor to the CIA). The Americans needed her – and she wanted them! She dyed her hair gray and had dental work done, grinding down her teeth, so she was less recognizable. She worked with a make-up artist so she could learn to draw wrinkles and learn other tricks to change her appearance. Back to France she went! She worked with the French resistance fighters and  called airdrops in to blow up bridges and sabotage trains.  She requested arms, supplies and personnel, using a generator powered by a bicycle. She was the mastermind behind several jailbreaks for captured fellow agents. She endured incredible hardships. She developed a network of over 1,500 people to help her – including a French-American soldier, Paul Goillot, who ultimately became her husband.

Ms. Hall was recognized by both the British (Member of the Order of the British Empire), the French (the Croix de Guerre) and President Harry Truman – all in private, so she could remain undercover. William Donovan, the OSS chief, awarded Ms. Hall the Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary heroism, the only civilian woman to receive one in World War II. She went on to work at the CIA in the Special Activities Division for over 15 years – one of the first women hired by the new agency – ultimately retiring in 1996. CIA agents have said “that the techniques she developed to build up the French Resistance still inform the agency’s missions today, including Operation Jawbreaker in Afghanistan before and after 9/11.” She never spoke publicly about her work. She died in 1982 in Maryland.

Ms. Hall’s contributions are finally coming to light. The French and British ambassadors in Washington honored her in 2006 on the 100th anniversary of her birth. In 2016, a CIA field agent training facility was named the Virginia Hall Expeditionary Center.

What an incredible story – of spirit, of bravery, of intelligence, of perseverance, of confidence, of commitment. I hope she realized at the time that her tireless and important efforts made a difference in the lives of so many people. I know she rests in well deserved peace.

Our day to day lives may not be as awe inspiring as Ms. Hall’s life. With our actions, we make a difference every day. We impact the world, even when we may not realize it. Thank you for making a difference.

Phyl