The Wind of Change Podcast - Coming May 11
A power ballad helped bring down the Soviet Union. Was it written by the CIA? Journalist Patrick Radden Keefe investigates the secret history of Cold War espionage and heavy metal.
The Jordan Harbinger Show - Jonna Mendez | The Moscow Rules
On this episode, we’re joined by Jonna Mendez, a former chief of disguise at the CIA’s Office of Technical Service — or, for those of us who have seen James Bond, she was basically Q, but for the CIA during the Cold War.
Spy Wars with Damian Lewis: EPISODE 5 - Escape from Tehran
In November 1979, 53 American employees of the U.S. Embassy in Iran were taken hostage by Islamic revolutionaries. Six diplomats managed to escape, but getting out of the country seemed impossible. Enter CIA officer Tony Mendez, who used inspiration from Hollywood to school six frightened diplomats in the art of assuming false identities and pulled off a bold rescue mission during one of the darkest moments in American foreign policy history.
Lawfare - How Do You Spy When the World Is Shut Down?
The novel coronavirus presents significant challenges to the mission and operations of every government agency and department—and the Central Intelligence Agency is no exception. In fact, the agency’s intelligence officers now face a more difficult challenge than ever when it comes to their efforts to recruit spies.
TEDx Bermuda - The life and death theatre of espionage
As a retired CIA intelligence officer with 27 years of service, her career comprised of multiple under cover assignments. She joined the CIA’s Office of Technical Service (OTS) in early 1970, (often compared to “Q” Branch in the 007 movies), holding the position of Chief of Disguise. She also worked closely with her husband in writing Argo and Moscow Rules. Jonna is a founding board member at the International Spy Museum.
POLITICO - Tony Mendez: The CIA’s Master of Disguises
The CIA was having a midlife crisis as it neared its 50th anniversary in 1997. A generation of spies had retired after the Cold War ended. Recruiting new blood was painfully hard; only 25 newly minted clandestine services officers had passed the test the previous year, a rock-bottom low. Times were tough at the world’s most conspicuous secret service.So, the agency decided to cheer itself up with a ceremony celebrating 50 of its all-stars. I was covering the CIA for the New York Times and got a look at the honors list. Many had gone on to the great safe house in the sky. But one name among the living caught my eye. I picked up the phone, called the CIA’s public information office and put in a request to interview Antonio J. Mendez.
The Wall Street Journal - The CIA’s Former Chief of Disguise Drops Her Mask
One morning during the presidency of George H.W. Bush, Jonna Mendez, then the CIA’s chief of disguise, entered the White House wearing a mask. She had originally disguised herself as an African-American man but decided that mask wouldn’t work, not least because her voice would give her away. Instead, she borrowed the face of a female colleague. “It was a little nerve-racking,” she recalls. “I hadn’t really worn it anywhere."
I SPY Podcast - Foreign Policy : Jonna Mendez, The Master of Disguise
On today’s episode, CIA agent Jonna Mendez is sent to a capital city in Asia to help steal a top-secret encryption machine from a Soviet Embassy. Mendez’s job in the operation is to fashion disguises for the team. She would go on to become the chief of disguise at the CIA’s Office of Technical Service.
SpyCast - Moscow Rules: A Conversation with Jonna Mendez
SPY Historian Vince Houghton sat down with former CIA Chief of Disguise Jonna Mendez to talk about operating in VERY denied areas, and her newest book, The Moscow Rules: The Secret CIA Tactics that Helped America Win the Cold War.
The New York Times - Four Books About the C.I.A.’s Exploits and Secrets
Tony Mendez, the C.I.A.’s top disguise artist for many years, who died in January, took magic out of the living rooms and into the streets of Moscow. And in this memoir of arcane C.I.A. skulduggery, Mendez and his wife, who would eventually run the unit, demonstrate what a serious business it was: Every time C.I.A. operatives left the Moscow embassy with a K.G.B. agent in tow, they risked the lives of their Russian informants. They had to shake their tails. But how?
PBS News Hour - Meet the CIA’s disguise artists who helped Cold War spies disappear
Legendary spy power couple Jonna and Tony Mendez met while working for the CIA in the Soviet Union, building the tools of espionage: the disguise kit, the camera that could hide anywhere, the cyanide pen. There they followed guidelines they called the "Moscow Rules" -- now the name of a new book they co-wrote before Tony's death. Jonna Mendez talks with Nick Schifrin about their work and mission.
CBS The Takeout Podcast - Ex-CIA chief of disguise on "The Takeout"
What makes a good disguise? According to Jonna Mendez, the CIA's former chief of disguise, it's about more than cosmetology.
Radio New Zealand - Jonna Mendez: Master of disguise
Jonna Mendez was undercover in the lobby of a fancy American hotel when she locked eyes with a dangerous terrorist, guarded by two armed men. A potentially fatal mistake that could have cost her life, she later found out.It may sound like something straight out of a spy fiction movie, but that’s the reality Mendez lived as the former CIA chief of disguise who worked alongside her husband for the intelligence agency.
5280 Denver's Mile High Magazine - Undercover Art: How Tony Mendez Became Both a Spy and Artist
While Mendez became an international man of mystery, his Park Lane paintings languished in a warehouse after the hotel was demolished. A local man later salvaged them, and his daughter, Lesa Leiter of Thornton, discovered the true identity of the “A. Mendez” who had signed the pieces.Following Mendez’s death at age 78, Leiter sold the paintings to Simon Lofts, the co-owner of Workability, a Denver co-working outfit. Lofts plans to hold a public unveiling on August 26; they’ll permanently hang in Workability’s Sherman Street office. “My father would be thrilled that his work is in the public eye,” says Toby Mendez, one of Tony’s four children and an esteemed sculptor himself, “and being seen once again.”
The Lawfare Podcast - Jonna Mendez on 'The Moscow Rules'
Jonna Mendez is a former CIA Chief of Disguise, who is also a specialist in clandestine photography. Her 27-year career, for which she earned the CIA's Intelligence Commendation Medal, included operational disguise responsibilities in the most hostile theaters of the Cold War, including Moscow, and also took her into the Oval Office. She is the co-author, with her late husband Tony Mendez, of "The Moscow Rules: The Secret CIA Tactics that Helped America Win the Cold War."
VICE - The Spies of Comic Con
Perhaps no one in the world is more familiar with the crossover between science fiction and spycraft than the final panelist, Jonna Mendez, the former CIA chief of disguise, who described how she and her husband (whose work freeing hostages in Iran was dramatized in the Ben Affleck film Argo) studied the mask-making techniques from some of Hollywood’s top monster makers.
Orange County Register: Comic-Con 2019: Former CIA agents explain 6 ways to conduct and evade surveillance
Here are 6 CIA-tested espionage techniques you can use the next time you need to conduct or escape surveillance — hypothetically speaking, of course.
Valuetainment - CIA Chief Disguise Officer Opens Up
Jonna Mendez, the fomer CIA Chief of Disguise sits down with Patrick Bet-David to talk about her life in the CIA.
Commonwealth Club - Jonna Mendez: Inside The CIA And The Moscow Rules
Join us for a conversation with a real-life spy about her experiences as a covert operative and her role in the advancement of the American intelligence strategy that helped America win the Cold War.
History News Network - The Cold War Spy and CIA Master of Disguise Writing the History of CIA Tactics in the Cold War
Jonna Mendez is a former Chief of Disguise with over twenty-five years of experience as a CIA officer working in Moscow and other sensitive areas.