A CIA Officer’s Personal Story Set During the Cold War

Widow Spy – The Book

The Widow Spy is my very personal account of the two men who were heroes in my life.

The first was my husband John, who was a CIA officer. I accompanied him on his assignment to a small city in Laos. There he conducted paramilitary operations during the Viet Nam war. John was among the highly motivated CIA officers assigned to contain this huge movement of North Vietnamese Army troops and war materiel headed to South Vietnam along the Ho Chi Minh trail. After 15 months there, John was killed in a helicopter crash.

The story of The Widow Spy continues as I joined the CIA and became one of the first women operations officers ever assigned to Moscow in the mid-1970s. I picked up secret packages from our highly placed agent TRIGON, my second hero. He was providing Soviet government secrets to us. In the end, I was ambushed and arrested by the KGB.

TRIGON's value to the US government was exceptional. TRIGON provided volumes of actual filmed secret Soviet documents which he passed to us in dead drops. These documents revealed the Soviet government's plans and intentions to influence world events.

Although the story in The Widow Spy ends there, much has happened to bring new life to the ongoing tale. Listed on this website is a book by TRIGON's daughter Alejandra Suarez Barcala, who he never knew he had. She tells of her discovery of her father's identity and his historical contributions through his memoir that he gave Pilar, Alejandra's mother, as well as letters to her mother.

The Widow Spy will be published in Russian in Moscow Autumn 2020. We hope to receive translation rights for a book about the KGB’s investigation of TRIANON (their name for TRIGON). Articles, podcasts, and videos in English and Russian about the case appear on this website and are updated frequently.

I have spoken in many times since The Widow Spy’s publication in 2012. The Widow Spy is also the subject of several TV series and YouTube videos.