Mastering the Art of Illusion and Disguise

By Jonna Mendez

Jonna Hiestand Mendez is a retired CIA intelligence officer with over 25 years of service. When she retired in 1993 she had risen to the position of Chief of Disguise at the CIA. She's also a founding board member of the International Spy Museum. She has continued her career as a photographer, a consultant/lecturer and an author. Jonna continues to act as a consultant to the U.S. Intelligence community.

How far-fetched are James Bond’s gadgets or shows like Mission Impossible, where under-cover agents switch into different disguises? Not as far-fetched as you think. The CIA’s Office of Technical Service (OTS) is in charge of creating all those gadgets and disguises. Jonna Mendez, who spent 27 years at the CIA, eventually became the Chief of Disguise at the OTS.

She spoke to The Cipher Brief’s Executive Producer Leone Lakhani about how she rose up the Agency’s ranks from a secretarial job, and how she learned from Hollywood makeup artists and magicians, to master the art of illusion and disguise.

“The Cipher Brief has become the most popular outlet for former intelligence officers; no media outlet is even a close second to The Cipher Brief in terms of the number of articles published by formers.” —Sept. 2018, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 62

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