Unlikely CIA Spy Shares Her Story

As an undergraduate at the University of Southern California in 1998, Tracy Walder’s aim was to become a high school history teacher. Today she has achieved her ambition, even if her special topic, and indeed her classroom, are just a little out of the ordinary. She runs a special course on Spycraft, and on a shelf near her desk are photographs of her with leading US politicians and some of her on assignment for the CIA and FBI. Also hanging on the wall is an American flag whose stripes contain the names of every person killed in the terrorist attack on the US on September 11, 2001.
For the astonishing fact is that for five years after graduating, Walder – a young woman in her early 20s – had a distinguished career as a counter-terrorism officer in the CIA, followed by a spell in intelligence in the FBI. She was involved in tracking down terrorists, and succeeded in foiling a succession of planned chemical attacks worldwide. She skillfully debriefed captured fighters until they gave her the information needed to seize others and frustrate future attacks. She briefed senior intelligence officers from around the world, and gathered information from them on behalf of the US.