“In True Face: A Woman’s Life in the CIA, Unmasked,” by Jonna Mendez with Wyndham Wood (Public Affairs, 2024, 295 pages, $30.00)
Jonna Hiestand graduated from high school in Wichita and attended Wichita State University, majoring in English literature. She spent most of her childhood in a large house on 20 acres that butted up to the city limits. When she was 20 years old, she was invited to the wedding of her best friend from Wichita, which was taking place in Germany. The wedding invitation changed her life, leading her into the shadowy world of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Hiestand, whose last name is now Mendez, recounts all that followed and some that preceded in a fascinating book, “In True Face: A Woman’s Life in the CIA.” It’s been designated a Kansas Notable Book by the State Library of Kansas.
Joanna Mendez
Photo credit Tina Leu Photography
Mendez decided not to leave Germany after the wedding. She was working at a bank in Frankfurt when a co-worker, John Goeser, proposed. Goeser confessed that his bank job was a cover; he actually worked for the CIA.
Or as Mendez writes, “I was discovering that I hadn’t married just John Goeser; I had married the CIA as well.”
As Mrs. John Goeser, she was eligible to be hired as an entry-level CIA contract employee — a “contract wife,” as they were then called. It was the start of a 27-year career with the agency. After beginning with clerical work, she worked in clandestine photography. She was then given a choice of assignments and became a specialist in disguise and identity transformation. In 1988, she was promoted to deputy chief of the Disguise Division and in 1991, she became the Chief of Disguise. She retired from the CIA in 1993 and she was awarded the CIA’s Commendation Medal.
While in the CIA, she lived under cover and served tours in Europe, the Far East, the Africa subcontinent and at CIA headquarters. Her work took her to some of the most difficult operating areas in the world, where she matched wits with the Soviet Union’s KGB, East Germany’s Stasi and Cuba’s DGI.
She once participated in a meeting in the Oval Office with then President George H.W. Bush (a former CIA director) disguised as an African-American women to demonstrate the effectiveness of a hyper-realistic mask. It worked.
Mendez recounts many CIA accomplishments but also details its negative treatment of women during her tenure. After her divorce form Goeser, she married another CIA agent, Tony Mendez, who successfully got six American diplomats out of Iran during the Iran hostage crisis (a story told in the Academy Award-winning movie Argo.) Tony Mendez died of complications from Parkinson’s disease in 1991.
In the closing chapters of her book, Mendez writes about her life after the CIA, including her efforts on behalf of the International Spy Museum in Washington.
“It was a career I loved,” Mendez writes of her time as a professional spook. “I was doing work that mattered, work that made a difference — making history in some small way. It wasn’t a path I’d ever imagined for myself. I was, after all, just a girl from Wichita, Kansas, seeking adventure, never dreaming that would translate into a life that was both covert and trailblazing.”
Contact Ted Ayres at tdamsa76@yahoo.com.
More about Mendez
Jonna Mendez appeared on a 2023 episode of the “Forward Together” podcast hosted by Wichita State President Rick Muma. To watch the episode, visit wichitastate.tv and search for Episode 13 – Former CIA Master of Disguise.
