My White House – Mission Impossible: How I, the First Female Head of the CIA’s Disguise Division, Deceived the Secret Service, Infiltrated the Oval Office, and Shocked the President… by Peeling MY Face Off

Australia

At the height of the Cold War, Jonna Mendez was head of the CIA’s disguise division – a division of the agency charged with outfitting covert agents operating abroad.

In 1991, the department was developing remarkably lifelike latex masks, and Mendez was eager to deploy their cutting-edge new spy technology where it was needed most: Soviet Russia.

But first Mendez had to prove that her deception would work under the most dangerous circumstances.

So she arranged the ultimate test.

Could she fool the security of the White House and the President of the United States himself?

Excerpt from ‘In True Face: A Woman’s Life in the CIA, Exposed’

In 1989, our fully animated ethnic and gender reassignment mask was ready for the catwalk.

I put on a man’s suit and put on a black man’s mask, with matching tight-fitting latex gloves painted exactly the same skin color, including the veins.

Exercises like these, if successful, provided a proof of concept.

Can I convincingly change my gender? What about the skin color? Can I change both at the same time?

I had already disguised a white male field officer as an African student during a live operation, but this was new mask technology, and we were constantly testing new scenarios and pushing the proverbial boundaries further than before.

When I was fully disguised, I had someone accompany me to the office of Frank Anderson, our office director. I was introduced as a new contractor. I nodded and walked to his desk, but said nothing, aware that I didn’t sound like a man.

I reached out and shook his, which I knew would be the moment of my revelation. As soon as he felt the latex on my right hand, I pulled off the mask with my left hand. His eyes lit up as I turned back into myself.

He loved it and insisted that we model it for the director of the CIA, Judge William Webster.

A week later, as we entered Webster’s office on the seventh floor of CIA headquarters, I was more than a little nervous.

Anderson had always supported our disguise program, but I had not yet met Judge Webster, a former director of the FBI.

Anderson, a tall, broad-shouldered executive, entered first, followed by a 6-foot-2 black man wearing a suit and tie.

Jonna Mendez met President HW Bush in the Oval Office, wearing one of the most advanced face masks in the disguise department

After Jonna took off the mask, the president’s eyes almost sparkled as he asked questions

The ‘Becky’ mask that fooled the president and White House security

“Sir,” said Frank, “I would like to introduce you to…”

His voice trailed off as I extended my hand, again wearing latex gloves.

As soon as I took off the full face mask, Judge Webster’s face lit up like an excited little boy.

Amazed by the mask’s ability to change ethnicity and gender, he and Frank decided that we should demonstrate this new ability to the President, George HW Bush.

I hesitated before saying anything, but I had to.

“I don’t think I can carry this to the White House,” I said. “While it’s lifelike and animates well, I can’t walk or talk like a black man. The Secret Service takes one look at me, asks me a question and it’s all over.’

Anderson and Judge Webster conceded my point. We decided to present a woman’s mask to the president.

Immediately dismissed from their meeting, I returned to my office and the disguise labs with orders to prepare another mask. However, this wouldn’t be just any mask. It should be the best mask we’ve ever made.

Our first assignment was choosing a face. The sculptor played a crucial role in the making of each mask. We specified gender, ethnicity, age range, and sometimes even a specific identity, but ultimately the sculptor’s hands shaped the final product.

At that time, one of our top sculptors, a young Latina woman named Becky, was preparing to move to California.

As a parting gift and as a joke, she decided to give me her face. She knew her facial dimensions would easily fit over mine, and it was a perfect solution. Younger! More beautiful! No woman in her right mind would turn that down.

We were officially racing against the clock, and a lot depended on my meeting with the president. To get this new mask into production and into the hands of field officers, we needed additional funding. It was crucial to gain support from the White House and the date for the meeting was rapidly approaching.

Five days later I was in our lab in Langley putting the finishing touches on “Becky.”

Jonna Mendez dances aboard the SS United States as she sails to New York

Jonna worked in a photo lab in Europe early in her CIA career

Jonna Mendez was once the CIA’s master of disguise, helping agents conceal their identities and involve themselves in dangerous spy missions abroad

The mask was a masterpiece.

Our meeting with the President was a success!

Two days after that, I waltzed into the White House, walking through security behind Judge Webster. However, we got stuck in the president’s office. His previous meeting lasted a long time.

I tried to disappear into the woodwork, overwhelmed by the usual paranoia I felt the first time I wore a new mask in public.

This was a pretty high-level launch of a mask we’d never tested in the field, and I nervously chewed the end of a pencil as I pretended to study my notes. The delay seemed to last forever. I feared that even if the mask didn’t betray me, my nerves would.

Trust is everything, I told myself as I waited impatiently for the big moment.

When we were finally called into the Oval Office, we walked inside to find chairs arranged in a horseshoe in front of the president’s desk.

Knowing that I would be the first to speak, Judge Webster instructed me to sit in the chair on the far right. As soon as we sat down, we got straight to work.

Webster introduced me by name and explained that I was here to show the president some of the agency’s new disguise options. I pulled out the folder I had brought with me, which contained photos of the President himself in disguise from when he was Director of the CIA.

After explaining that our disguise capabilities had improved greatly since his time in the agency, I began listing all the ways we could use them to evade the KGB.

We could convincingly disguise an officer, and even create a clone of an officer: a twin brother! If necessary, we can change an agent’s ethnicity or gender, or ‘borrow’ someone else’s identity.

This technology would change the way we would be able to counter KGB intimidation on the streets of Moscow.

As I was speaking, I noticed the President looking at the area at my feet, probably looking for a bag that contained our new disguises. When I told him I was wearing it, I raised my hand to remove it.

Before I even touched my mask, he jumped up from his chair. ‘Hold on. Just a minute, don’t take it off yet,” he said, walking around me and peering at my face and neck.

At that moment he knew I was wearing something fake. A false nose? A prosthetic?

He tilted his head, no doubt searching for the seams of whatever I was wearing. When he seemed satisfied, I lifted my hand again and pulled off the mask.

CIA disguise chief Jonna Mendez (right) with two friends in Amsterdam

Jonna Mendez and her husband after their wedding in Switzerland

A few tricks from Jonna’s disguise department from the end of the Cold War

Suddenly charismatic and intensely curious, his eyes almost sparkled as he asked questions.

As the President graced me with his attention, Dan Quayle tiptoed into the meeting, clearly unamused that he had missed the moment of my big reveal.

But as my conversation with the president came to a close, it seemed clear that we would have the support of the men in this room to roll out our new mask.

Once I got back to the outer office, I was approached by the White House photographer who had been at the meeting taking pictures.

“Excuse me,” she said, “what did you do there?”

“I thought you were taking pictures of it,” I replied.

“Well, I did, but what was that?”

“I can’t talk about it,” I said after a moment’s silence. ‘It is secret.’

I never looked for copies of those photos, and I didn’t receive them until ten years later.

When I did, the package included a photo of me wearing the mask and one of me talking while holding it in front of me…except the mask is airbrushed out of the second photo.

That’s the one I have hanging in my office.

I seem to be lecturing the president, with my hand in the air, and when friends look at it and ask what I’m saying to him, I always answer the same way: “I can’t talk about it – it’s classified.”