The Lady Is a Spy

by Don Mitchell

  Filling out all the applications was “a major operation” for Virginia. While the Agency had undertaken a background investigation of her by the spring of 1950, she stayed with NCFE until the end of 1951 when she was sworn in at a CIA office in Washington, DC, on December 3, 1951, as an intelligence operations officer. Virginia joined the Agency on a trial period of one year—at the federal salary level of GS-13 ($8,360 per year). She was forty-five years old.

  In 1952, Virginia was one of only six female GS-13-grade intelligence officers in the CIA’s clandestine service (and one of only eighteen female GS-13 officers in the Agency). Virginia and her colleagues were the highest-ranking women in the Agency’s clandestine service. Virginia would find the CIA to be different from the OSS in a number of respects, particularly when it came to gender equality.

  Entrance to the original CIA Headquarters at 2430 E Street, N.W., in Washington, DC.

  The urgency of World War II had broken down many of the barriers that had prevented women from playing important roles in defending the nation. Women like Virginia were an integral part of the OSS, serving as operational officers, analysts, and support officers. Many of these women came to the new CIA to continue their intelligence careers, but they would find that their salaries and ranks at the Agency did not reflect their previous achievements. For male OSS veterans, it was a different story.

  The disparities between the ranks and salaries of male and female CIA employees were so stark that in 1953, director of Central Intelligence Allen Dulles formed an internal review of women’s career status at the Agency. The panel included a number of prominent female Agency employees, including several OSS veterans. The so-called “Petticoat Panel” provided a statistical comparison of women’s career opportunities at the CIA with opportunities for women in other federal government agencies. It was a bleak picture.

  At the time, women made up 39 percent of the Agency’s workforce. The panel’s report noted that while the median grade for female employees was GS-5, the median grade for men was GS-9. Almost 69 percent of the CIA’s male employees served at the GS-7 grade, while only 19 percent of the Agency’s female employees were at the GS-7 level or higher. No women ranked above the GS-14 level or held a senior executive position at the CIA, while 10 percent of the male workforce was ranked above GS-14.

  This gender inequality would change notably over the decades, but during Virginia’s years at the CIA, it was an uphill struggle for women to receive the career opportunities they deserved. Virginia was invariably evaluated by male supervisors who were generally unlikely to have had Virginia’s level of operational experience. Indeed, Virginia probably had more operational intelligence experience than many of her male CIA colleagues, including a number of directors of Central Intelligence who ran both the CIA and the entire Intelligence Community.

  Virginia began her career at the CIA as a case officer in the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC), the Agency’s covert action element, as the head of the paramilitary desk. In this position, she directed and planned paramilitary activities for France, “preparing projects, interviewing and recruiting staff agents, planning training and cover for those agents, and giving support and guidance to the field.”

  Virginia with two dogs.

  Virginia’s World War II experiences were excellent preparation for this job. Among her duties was to plan for the possibility of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe. That responsibility included preparing escape and evasion networks of agents, and “stay behind” resistance and sabotage networks, as well as gathering the operational intelligence in support of those agent networks.

  As the result of a CIA restructuring in 1952, Virginia became one of the first female operations officers in the new Deputy Directorate of Plans (DDP), where she focused on the Balkans as a member of the Southern Europe Division’s paramilitary staff. In her new role, she prepared strategic plans and reports for senior officials, as well as monitored and supported field operations. Acknowledging Virginia’s wartime experience, her supervisors stated that she “has an unusually clear understanding of agent operations and problems.”

  In July 1954, Virginia began a new assignment as an operations officer on the Political and Psychological (PP) staff, reviewing the Western Europe Division’s paramilitary and political and psychological activities. She conducted a country-by-country review of the region’s plans and operations. Virginia was praised by her managers, “and her experience was deemed her greatest strength.”

  A CIA official recalled Virginia at the Agency during this time. She was a “gung-ho lady left over from OSS days overseas. Young women in sweater sets and pearls listened raptly to Virginia Hall gas [or “have fun”] with muscular paramilitary officers who would stop by her desk to tell war stories. She was elegant, her dark brown hair coiled on top of her head with a yellow pencil tucked into the bun. She was always jolly when she was around the old boys. She was a presence!”

  Virginia was highly regarded for her work at the fledgling intelligence organization. In one of the first personnel reports written about Virginia at the CIA, she was evaluated as follows:

  Generally speaking Miss Hall executes her duties … in an excellent manner. Her long experience in the field, including approximately five years as a clandestine agent, assists her materially in carrying out present assignments. She has an unusually clear understanding of agent operations and problems … She has consistently shown her ability to grow with the job and to assume new responsibilities. There is every reason to believe that, given a greater responsibility commensurate with her experiences and talents, she will continue to perform a valuable service for the Agency … A very hard-working and conscientious person, Miss Hall possesses a high motivation and keen awareness of the importance of our work which are well balanced by a realistic approach based on sound thinking and her own extensive experience in wartime underground operations. While frank and outspoken in matters relating to her assignment, she is always pleasant, cooperative, and willing to examine objectively differing points of view.

  Asked to characterize Virginia’s outstanding strengths, her manager responded at the end of 1954: “independence, willing to accept responsibility, versatility, experience.” And what were her outstanding weaknesses? “[N]one.”

  Virginia transferred to the CIA’s Near East and Africa (NEA) Division in May 1955, continuing her work as a paramilitary officer. Specifically, she was involved in “planning and implementing a major political action project; arranging and preparing for participation in the project as case officer—principal agent.” In the first half of 1956, Virginia traveled periodically for her job, presumably to the Near East and Africa regions. She ultimately wrote a report with her conclusions and recommendations about what she had observed in the field.

  Formal portrait of Virginia.

  Virginia’s time at NEA was probably the low point of her CIA career. During her tenure in the office, a manager gave Virginia a middling performance rating. The individual who evaluated her stated that she performed most of her duties acceptably but “occasionally reveals some area of weakness.” The man rating Virginia conceded that he was “at no time during the rating period in actual supervision of the employee.”

  Virginia was understandably angry about this performance review and submitted a lengthy rebuttal, asserting that the review was unjustified. She was incredulous that the rater “has written the fitness report on me that he apparently did.” Virginia appealed the matter to CIA Inspector General Lyman Kirkpatrick at least three times.

  The previous supervisor who had sent Virginia on her temporary duty assignment—and who left to take another position almost immediately thereafter—characterized her performance as “highly competent” and “outstanding.” That earlier supervisor blamed NEA for any concerns regarding Virginia, since “without guidance from those offices,” he stated, “Hall could not have expected to plan third-country operations based on her survey and should not have been criticized for failing to do so.”
Virginia’s subsequent work ratings were high, and the complaint was apparently an aberration during her tenure at the CIA.

  In January 1957, Virginia left NEA to work as an area operations officer at CIA’s Western Hemisphere Division. She supervised guidance for Political and Psychological operations in countries in that region, and arranged cover stories and travel for agents. Her supervisors thought highly of her work, noting “her versatility, intelligence, and competence that stood out” and detected “no outstanding weaknesses.”

  Despite any frustrations she was experiencing with her work, Virginia found happiness in her personal life. Virginia had maintained a relationship with Paul Gaston Goillot, her Jedburgh colleague. Their relationship had evolved from being wartime colleagues, to friends, to falling in love. After the war, Virginia moved to New York City; Paul lived there as well, working as a chef. It would take almost thirteen years from the time they met in occupied France until the couple got married on April 15, 1957. Virginia Hall, eight years older than her new husband, became Virginia Hall Goillot.

  Perhaps part of the long delay in getting married was that Virginia’s mother never really cared for Paul. Virginia’s niece, Lorna Catling, recalled that in the eyes of Virginia’s mother, “he was not good enough for her daughter—period.” When Virginia and Paul finally got married, none of Virginia’s family attended. Virginia’s mother begrudgingly accepted the fact of their marriage, and until she died in 1965, she was “polite but never very warm to Paul.” She saw that Paul made Virginia happy “and nothing was going to change, so she might as well accept it since she loved Dindy too much to cause a break.”

  Virginia and Paul with their dogs.

  After their marriage, Virginia and Paul lived in Chevy Chase, Maryland—a suburb of Washington, DC—then later moved out to a forty-acre farm in Barnesville, Maryland. Paul invested with a partner in a restaurant, with Paul working as the chef. Unfortunately, the business failed and Paul ended up spending his time looking after the farm. The pair loved the outdoor life, enjoying their standard poodles along with the other farm animals. Virginia also liked to make cheese. One of Virginia’s favorite hobbies was gardening, and Lorna remembers visiting the farm one spring and seeing an entire hillside covered with daffodils.

  Lorna liked Paul tremendously. “He was funny, and a clown, and a tease.” Paul and Virginia were extremely close. Virginia was the dominant personality in the relationship, but Paul “didn’t mind her bossing him around.”

  He was shorter than Dindy, but their early married life was fun. They found a great deal of happiness in shared memories. He was good for her. He lightened her life. If she asked him to take a few days off with her and go fishing, he was always ready and obliged.

  But Paul’s easygoing disposition changed years later after he suffered a stroke.

  Virginia continued working at the Agency after getting married. By the early 1960s, Virginia was responsible for all operational planning and activities related to British Guiana and the British West Indies, and her performance ratings by her CIA managers continued to be excellent. Going into 1961, the reviews by Virginia’s supervisors made special note of “her knowledge of the region and its personalities, her experience with covert action, and her concise and well-considered dispatches and cables.” She was also considered to be especially skilled at identifying flaws in operational proposals made by CIA stations, or offices, in the region.

  Virginia (right foreground) at the wedding reception of her niece, Lorna Lee Hall, to Timothy Catling, on June 30, 1956.

  In a 1962 evaluation of her work performance, Virginia’s manager said that she was “… a superior officer in all respects. She is an experienced person whose work reflects sound judgement, imagination and care for detail. She has been handling one sensitive active operation with regard to British Guiana, in addition to her task responsibilities, in which she consistently demonstrates the above qualities.”

  In December 1962, eleven years after joining the CIA, Virginia was finally promoted from GS-13 to GS-14—an extraordinarily long time for promotion for an individual of her background and demonstrated ability. At around this time, Virginia received the following performance evaluation:

  At present, this employee is the assistant to the undersigned in the conduct of an operation which requires considerable liaison with the British. This employee has an excellent knowledge of the area and the personalities involved. Because of her prior experience, she also has a good understanding of CA [covert action] principles and frequently contributes suggestions … She prepares well thought out dispatches and cables. She accepts criticism of her work cheerfully and takes steps to correct her errors. She gets along well with her fellow workers and she has given close supervision to the two secretaries who work under her direction … This employee is cheerful and has a good sense of humor. She is a definite asset in her present position …

  The supervisor who wrote this performance evaluation gave Virginia an overall superior rating. He noted, rather gratuitously, that Virginia lived thirty-five miles outside of Washington, DC, stating that this would make it difficult for her to remain after normal working hours or to come into the office at “unusual hours” if necessary, though he conceded that Virginia was willing to do so.

  One of Virginia’s CIA colleagues observed: “I was distressed at the insensitive treatment accorded Virginia Hall toward the end of her career. No one knew what to do with her, and she was usually at a lonely desk in war plans or the paramilitary offices.” He noted that “She was sort of [an] embarrassment to the noncombat CIA types, [by] which I mean bureaucrats. Her experience and abilities were never properly utilized. At the very least she should have been lecturing to trainees at the CIA … She was out of the loop, the proverbial round peg, and through no fault of her own. I really ached over her and her low-level status.” A number of Virginia’s male colleagues at the Agency believed that she had been pushed aside because her extensive experience overshadowed her male counterparts, “who felt threatened by her.”

  An aerial view of the new CIA Headquarters in Langley, VA, in 1962.

  In 1966, when Virginia turned sixty years old—the CIA’s mandatory retirement age at the time—she left the Agency. She was also suffering from a number of medical issues. Virginia spent her retirement years living with Paul at their home in Barnesville, Maryland.

  In retirement, Virginia continued to enjoy gardening; her standard poodles; making cheese; weaving her own cloth on a handloom; solving crossword puzzles; and reading history, spy stories, and travel books from her library.

  Virginia (left) with unknown woman in 1972.

  Virginia’s health declined over the years, and she died on July 8, 1982. She was seventy-six years old. The Baltimore Sun newspaper did not report the cause of her death but noted of her funeral, “With simple services that contrasted to the drama of her World War II career, a Baltimore school girl who became the French underground’s ‘limping lady’ was buried at Druid Ridge Cemetery in Pikesville, Maryland.” She was laid to rest along with other members of the Hall family. Her husband, Paul, joined her there several years later when he died on April 2, 1987.

  Virginia in a barn with animals.

  In 1943, Virginia had been made an official Member of the Order of the British Empire for her wartime service. But at the time, British officials were unable to locate Virginia to bestow upon her the prestigious Royal Warrant, signed by King George VI and his mother, Queen Mary, who was the Grand Master of the Order. This was rectified sixty-three years later in December 2006 at a ceremony in Washington, DC, where both the British and French governments paid tribute to Virginia Hall.

  At the home of the French ambassador to the United States in Washington, DC, the British ambassador presented the Royal Warrant to Lorna Catling on behalf of her aunt. The French ambassador read a letter from French president Jacques Chirac, characterizing Virginia as “a true hero of the French Resistance” and paying tribute to her “indomitable brave
ry, her exceptional selflessness,” and calling her a “leader and organizer [who] contributed greatly to the Liberation of France.” At the ceremony, a painting was unveiled depicting Virginia radioing London from a barn near Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, in occupied France during World War II, requesting supplies and personnel. The painting is now prominently displayed at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

  Virginia’s Member of the Order of the British Empire medal (left) and King George’s royal signature (right).

  Virginia never sought publicity for her World War II exploits, but as the years passed, historians sought her out to learn more about her extraordinary story. She might have been surprised, and even uncomfortable, to know that her obituary would be published in the New York Times. She became an icon, not only for women and people with disabilities, but for those who are fascinated by espionage and stories of heroism during one of the darkest periods in world history.

  Like many unsung heroes, Virginia Hall stood up and risked everything to defend liberty. A free and democratic France is part of her enduring legacy.