A woman's work
Kim Cattrall is giving her voice to pioneering intelligence officer Eloise Page, the USA’s first female spy in a male-dominated world
Mike Coppola/Getty Images for Tribeca Festival
- Kate Battersby
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The acronym CIA is so well known that it sometimes feels as if the foreign intelligence service of the United States government must have been around for ever. But in fact, the Central Intelligence Group, as it was initially named, was founded two years after the Second World War ended, when it was tasked with gathering, processing and analysing global security information through intelligence and covert action.
Now, an award-winning team has created Central Intelligence, a ten-part Radio 4 drama (available as a box set on BBC Sounds from Friday) charting the inside story of the CIA from its earliest days. Starring Kim Cattrall, it’s told from the perspective of Eloise Page, who joined on the agency’s first day in 1947 and became one of its most powerful women.
It portrays her working relationships with early CIA leaders Allen Dulles (Ed Harris) and Richard Helms (Johnny Flynn) in an organisation that was for a long time run by a “pale, male and Yale” hierarchy of men, whose decisions – good and bad – shaped modern history. “This is a human story full of false starts, gaffes, blunders, and, thankfully, triumphs – a thrilling story of Russian roulette,” says Cattrall.
The writer of the piece is the Australian Greg Haddrick, whose curiosity was sparked by his work on the 2018 Netflix drama Pine Gap, a political thriller about the Australian-American intelligence facility outside Alice Springs. “The intelligence people I spoke to for Pine Gap said that it’s amazing what’s on open source if you know where to look for it,” says Haddrick. “That led me to Eloise Page, who was clearly fascinating, even though there was comparatively little information about her.
“In the beginning, the CIA was a blokes’ world. The women were better at hiding themselves than the men, who couldn’t stop talking. Eloise was in the shadows much of the time, which gave a lot of scope for drama.”
Needless to say, Haddrick is thrilled to have Cattrall, Harris and Flynn bringing his words to life. “I was completely bowled over,” he says, shaking his head. “Kim as Eloise has a lot to carry and I’m so impressed with how she owned that character, sounding both contemporary and yet giving the gravitas of the time.”
Eloise was in the shadows much of the time
Haddrick agrees that the series focuses heavily on CIA failures, although his reason for that is straightforward. “They had more failures than successes in the early years,” he explains. “In the late 1940s the Americans were new at this game. If we come back for returning series, you’ll see how they got better at covert operations, learning from their mistakes. But it was a rocky road – and of course successes tend to be less obvious.
“Many moments and lines sprinkled through it are verbatim from sources – but whether those sources are right, you don’t really know. I’ve learnt that if something is said that sounds outlandish, it’s almost certainly true. The more outrageous something seems to be , the likelier it is I haven’t made it up.
“There’s a line quoted by four or five different sources – ‘If he’s not a Communist, he’ll do until one comes along’. I have Allen Dulles say this, even though he didn’t. But he agreed with it as it was a broad idea held by many in the CIA.”
Ultimately, Haddrick is certainly clear that the CIA is a force for good. “Since 9/11 their management of the information they hold has matured a lot – for example, Joe Biden releasing intelligence to Ukraine warning Russia was about to invade.
“In the early days the motive was, ‘We have to stop Russia and aren’t we exceptional.’ They ended up with a victory but at an enormous cost. One of the things the show is trying to say is that the cost of those operations between the 1940s and the 1960s is still with us.
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“Australians are like the British – we’re the little brother who can poke the big brother and say, ‘Don’t think you’re that cool. You’ve stuffed up along the way.’”
Authors
Kate Battersby
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