"Her many achievements and storied life are an inspiration to all women," CIA Director John Brennan said to honor Elizabeth "Betty" McIntosh, a reporter-turned-operative who engaged in some of the most cloak-and-dagger schemes over four decades as one of the few female spies at the agency. Born in Washington, D.C., McIntosh got a degree in journalism and worked as a reporter for several papers. Based in Hawaii, she covered the attack on Pearl Harbor firsthand, providing dramatic accounts of that tragic day.

Two years later, she was working in Washington covering Eleanor Roosevelt, then the first lady, at the White House when she got an assignment to profile an industrialist, who happened to be working undercover for General William "Wild Bill" Donovan, the legendary chief of the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor agency to the CIA. He recruited her to work for the OSS, which was using the art of spycraft to outwit the Nazis and the Japanese army.