Is Jonna Mendez the ultimate cosplayer? She spent 27 years with the CIA and was the CIA’s Chief of Disguise. Recently she published an autobiography where she takes off her Mask.

Jonna Hiestand Mendez began her CIA career as a “contract wife” performing secretarial duties for the CIA as a convenience to her husband, a young officer stationed in Europe. She needed his permission to open a bank account or shut off the gas to their apartment. Yet Mendez had a talent for espionage, too, and she soon took on bigger and more significant roles at the Agency. She parlayed her interest in photography into an operational role overseas, an unlikely area for a woman in the CIA. Often underestimated, occasionally undermined, she lived under cover and served tours of duty all over the globe, rising first to become an international spy and ultimately to Chief of Disguise at CIA’s Office of Technical Service.

Fun interview with Inside Edition. She touches on a number of details including the OTS which is exactly analogous to James Bond’s Q:

Read more from The Washington Post

‘In True Face’ was published by PublicAffairs on March 5

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