She was assigned to the Cairo Desk where the agency made its first - and historic - foothold. Stuart is quick to point out she wasn’t an agent. But she got results. The world was at war and while soldiers, sailors and airmen put their lives on the line, so did these spies. “Loose lips sink ships” was drilled into their minds. She still speaks about the OSS in the present tense, like the two other OSS veterans who spoke to the Herald last year. “You have to be smart enough to keep your mouth shut.” “You didn’t make a lot of inquiries dealing with secret intelligence,” Stuart said earlier this month about her whirlwind years in the OSS. Edgar Hoover wanted that assignment, but failed. But there never would have been a CIA without the OSS. The Office of Strategic Services morphed into today’s Central Intelligence Agency. She’s among the last surviving members of the elite agency that only existed to help win the war.

Virginia Rathbun Stuart, 99, of Providence, was one of them. Heroes of a Generation: OSS spy Martin Gelb, 100, fought behind enemy lines

Female survivig american spy agent ww2