My Mom worked for the CIA too
Laos 1968-1969
During our time in Laos, my mom got tired of the boredom and got a job working for the Agency. She worked in the same secure building as my dad and the Chief of Station (COS), Ted Shackley.
Security Clearance
My mom had a higher security clearance than my dad, which seems counterintuitive considering all the secret projects he worked on.
Her job was clerical based, but she also had to compose and read cables (government encrypted email). This meant she knew a lot about all projects and what each agent was involved with.
The Agency used compartmentalization as a firewall between each project, in case if a project or Agent gets compromised, it would limit the damage because knowledge of other projects were isolated.
What bothered her staying at home
Poisonous snakes
Laos is a hotbed of venomous snakes
Banded krait is very dangerous, and the locals called this snake a one or two steppers, meaning if you get bit, you can only walk a few steps before the neurotoxins kick in and start paralyzing your lungs, and you drop.
My mom had a banded krait crawl through the kitchen breezeway, and she ran to the dining room, stood on a dining chair, and screamed her head off.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banded_krait
Cobra and King Cobra
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_cobra
Pit Viper
Vipers come in many colors, brown, green, striped, and more.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trimeresurus
Tokay Geckos
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokay_gecko
Sounds of the mating call is in this Wikipedia link.
Wikipedia says they only get to one foot long.
I have had many close encounters with Tokay geckos at least two feet long, including the tail with very scaly top sides. Their bottom side is pinkish and much lighter in color.
The big ones have a deep throaty "cackling" windup then a huge EEEEKKKKOOOO.
Tokay geckos in Laos are not cute or friendly. They like living in your attics, on the roof of your house, and hidden spots in your ceiling.
The Laotian Tokay geckos are huge, scaly, aggressive, and are not afraid to hunt or attack humans. They have very sharp teeth with tons of germs in their mouth. Scaly like a lizard alligator and camouflaged with jungle colors.
Like all geckos they have suction cup feet that allow them to crawl walls and ceilings.
Coming back from school one day, my mom met my brother and I at the front porch while sweeping, and she looked back to see a medium size (foot long) Tokay attached to the wooden front door. She proceeded to beat the gecko with her broom and screaming in panic. Momma bear instincts to protect her offspring were confirmed once again.
My brother and I entered the house by the backyard door to escape the mayhem.
Chinchucks
Chinchucks (real name is unknown) are harmless tiny (one inch or so) lizards, sometimes translucent or beige, and we had 100’s of them in our house, all over the walls and ceilings. They were a mosquito eating machine, so we just ignored them since they were so beneficial.
During a ladies lunch that my mom threw for wives of the Agency, wives of diplomats, and other local women, there was an incident.
When the hot soup was about to be served, most of the ladies looked to see a chinchuck crawling across the ceiling near the dining table.
Sure enough, it lost its footing and fell with a splash into the soup cauldron.
It did a death wiggle in the soup while all the ladies screamed and jumped up from the table.
Lack of security
Being in Vientiane, Laos during the secret war was never safe.
We had many armed communists Pathet Lao (PL) in town, but we had a strange agreement where the good guys would not attack the bad guys and vice versa.
Once outside the city, all bets were off.
The embassy provided a single guard at night, armed with a wooden club, up against SKS, AK-47, and B70 RPG rockets, used by the PL.
The embassy guard had a spiffy blue uniform and beret, but he slept in a chair on the front porch all night. The guards were all lowland Laotian and not very brave.
So we had the illusion of security.
Thanks, no thanks, Ambassador Sullivan.
Within the Agency, Sullivan was known as Field Marshall Sullivan by the controlling and micromanaging way he ran the secret war along with the Agency.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Sullivan
But I went to school with his beautiful daughter, so there was that.
Why she was bored
Intelligent and Driven
My mom was educated, intelligent, and goal oriented.
She was also an artist, charismatic, well-spoken, and tall.
Dinner Parties
Planning and executing parties was one of the duties of a Government wife.
All the politics and brown nosing gets tiring.
Conclusion
She worked for the Agency for a year or two.
Years later, she worked for some brilliant space scientists at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) who put space experiments into orbit near Venus (Pioneer Venus) and the Moon.
She remarried, a genius physicist and computer expert at Texas Instruments (TI).
She thrived being around smart people.
Addendum
Marti Peterson, a former Agent, lived in Pakse Laos and worked as a clerk for the Agency, which partially followed my mom’s path.
But Marti spent many decades undercover. Listen to her story:
https://www.amazon.com/Widow-Spy-Martha-D-Peterson/dp/0983878129
CIA Technical Services Division (TSD)