Wise Gals by Nathalia Holt (Omnibus)

In the wake of the Second World War, four agents were critical in helping build a new organization we now know as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

The unsung story of the women who worked for the early American intelligence agency the OSS, where crucial decisions were made to recruit and turn spies.

Adelaide Hawkins, Mary Hutchison, Eloise Page, and Elizabeth Sudmeier, called the “wise gals” by their male colleagues because of their sharp sense of humour and even quicker intelligence, were not the stereotypical femme fatale of spy novels.

They were smart, courageous, and ground-breaking agents at the top of their class, instrumental in both developing innovative tools for intelligence gathering - and insisting (in their own unique ways) that they receive the credit and pay their expertise deserved.

Through their friendship and shared sense of purpose, they rose to positions of power and were able to make real change in a traditionally “male, pale, and Yale” organisation.

Wise Gals sheds a light on the untold history of the women whose daring foreign intrigues, domestic persistence, and fighting spirit have been and continue to be instrumental to US security.

Nathalia Holt's never-before-told story, first published in 2022.

Omnibus of five episodes abridged by Polly Coles.

Read by Nicola Stuart-Hill.

Producer: Clive Brill

A Brill production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in January 2023.