In our third segment this Women's History Month, let's pull back the curtain on a woman whose career was built on illusion, whose brilliance and tradecraft were hidden in plain sight, and whose work helped shape the course of history from the shadows. Meet Jonna Mendez, the former CIA Chief of Disguise, whose story reads like a spy thriller but is, in fact, rooted in the gritty, high-stakes theater of Cold War intelligence.
Some two years ago, I had the pleasure of seeing Mendez as the keynote speaker at the ACFE Global conference where she provided first-hand accounts of her profession, about which few know anything. Her book, In True Face: A Woman’s Life in the CIA, Unmasked, had just been published. Book sales reportedly set a new ACFE record with hers selling out within the hour. Her CIA career spanning nearly three decades stuck with me. She proved that in the world of high-stakes espionage, the most powerful weapon isn't always a gun—it’s a well-placed wrinkle, a change in gait or a swath of latex. Staying visible, yet becoming seeming invisible.
A Girl from Kansas
Originally from Wichita, Kansas, Mendez began working for the CIA in the 1960s after traveling across Europe in her early 20s and falling for, and marrying, a fellow American she met while working at a bank in Germany. After learning he was a CIA officer, she moved quickly past her initial assignment as a “contract wife” tasked with helping her husband maintain his cover. Her true craft turned out to be designing disguises, and her skills landed her hazardous assignments in risky locations including Russia and East Germany.
The Evolution of the “Instant Disguise”
While Mendez mastered the slow, methodical transformation of one’s identity, her true genius was on display in the development of the “Instant Disguise.” In the streets of Moscow, Berlin and elsewhere, a CIA officer might only have seconds to lose a tail. Traditional makeup takes hours but under Mendez’s leadership, the agency developed “quick-change” technology that allowed operatives to shed their identity and adopt another while walking through a crowded bus station or turning a corner. A few examples of the “Instant Disguise” techniques perfected during her tenure include:
- The “Five-Second” Mask: Among her most famous innovations, these were high-end medical-grade latex masks that could be pulled over the head. These were pre-molded with realistic skin textures, pores and age spots. An officer could duck into a photo booth as a young man and emerge five seconds later as an elderly woman, leaving surveillance teams baffled.
- The Pop-Up Persona: By using “breakaway” clothing—outfits held together by specialized magnets or hidden threads—an operative could step out of a trench coat and suit to unveil a completely different figure, such as a construction worker or a tourist, in a single fluid motion.
- The Animated Mannequin (Jack-in-the-Box): To fool KGB “tails” during a drive, Mendez helped develop lifelike, inflatable mannequins. An officer would roll out of a moving car in a “blind spot,” and at the same moment, a realistic decoy would pop up in the passenger seat. To a tailing car, it looked like the target never left the vehicle.
Posture and Gait Alteration: Mendez’s disguises weren’t just about one’s face. Her team developed “orthotics” or simple stones placed in a shoe to force a limp, or weighted vests that changed how a person carried his or her shoulders. Changing a person’s “physical signature” was often more effective at fooling a tail than a fake mustache.
The Oval Office Reveal
The pinnacle of Mendez’s career—and a moment that has since become intelligence lore—occurred in the early 1990s when she requested a meeting with President George H.W. Bush to demonstrate the agency's new capabilities. She sat in the Oval Office, briefed the President and chatted with him for several minutes. A former CIA Director himself, Bush had no idea he was speaking to a woman in a mask until she “peeled” off her face.
In a Male Dominated Field, a Legacy in the Shadows
Only years after retiring in 1993, did Jonna Mendez begin sharing her story publicly through books, interviews and museum exhibits. Today she sits on the board of the Spy Museum in Washington, DC, which, for those of you who haven’t visited, is one of my all-time museum favorites. The techniques she helped pioneer became legendary inside intelligence circles. Her career reminds us that the history of espionage isn’t just about daring missions, dramatic confrontations or semi-automatic weapons with silencers. It’s not about the loudest – or strongest – in the room. It’s also about creativity, patience (almost a lost skill in today’s world) and the power of illusion. And during a time when the world was divided by ideology and suspicion (much like today), one woman quietly gave American intelligence officers the ability to walk through danger unnoticed. To step around a corner. To reemerge as someone entirely new. Visible, yet invisible.
For more on Jonna Mendez, see her books: