The real female spies behind PONIES
Sky’s new espionage drama PONIES is set in 1970s Moscow. How do the female spy characters compare to the women who actually served the CIA during the Cold War?
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Women have been key players in espionage for centuries – centuries longer than you probably thought.
Of course, when you think of surveillance, the first era that likely springs to mind is the Cold War. It’s the setting of many acclaimed spy dramas, including the upcoming thriller series PONIES, set to air on Sky. Emilia Clarke and Haley Lu Richardson star as secretaries turned CIA operatives in 1970s Moscow.
While the spy trope might be endemic in popular culture, it often pays only lip service to the real world of espionage. PONIES, on the other hand, takes a much more grounded approach. Sky HISTORY thought we’d take a close look at how authentic the female spy characters of PONIES really are.
What is PONIES about?
Game of Thrones mainstay Emilia Clarke plays Beatrice ‘Bea’ Grant, while Haley Lu Richardson (of The White Lotus fame) takes the role of Twila Hasbeck. The series opens in 1977 Moscow, with Bea and Twila working as secretaries at the American embassy.
However, their relatively humdrum lives are dramatically upended when their respective husbands, CIA agents also based in Russia, die in mysterious circumstances. How did they perish? Bea and Twila are so determined to find out that they offer to become CIA agents themselves.
Though initially reticent about the idea, Dane Walter (Adrian Lester) – the head of the CIA’s spy division in Moscow – soon relents. His rationale for this decision is that the KGB are unlikely to suspect women of being undercover agents for the United States. And so Bea and Twila’s covert adventures begin…
Are the female spy characters of PONIES true to life?
Stories about the CIA’s female employees during the Cold War suggest that they were often underpaid, mansplained to and even sexually harassed. So, was it really a thing (or even a faintly realistic possibility) for female secretaries to become secret agents during this period?
Showrunner David Iserson developed PONIES with writer-director Susanna Fogel. In an interview, Iserson recalled that his idea for the show was borne out of trips he took to former communist cities.
He and Fogel also read extensively about the crippling atmosphere of paranoia that came to characterise the Cold War. ‘One little thing that kept coming up was that running a spy operation in Moscow was next to impossible,’ he reflected.
‘If you were an American and you left the embassy, you were followed. They couldn’t do anything, so they were very willing to get unconventional.’ This included tasking women with covert operations. Nonetheless, the women tended to be first recruited for lowly clerical duties before being promoted to field work.
What did real female spies do out in the field?
It’s fair to say that many TV dramas have put a very glamorous spin on the world of female espionage. Just think of gun-toting action heroines like Homeland’s Carrie Mathison and Agent Carter’s Peggy Carter (played respectively by Claire Danes and Hayley Atwell).
In reality, the everyday lives of female spies during the Cold War were much more sedate – and that was the whole point. In many communist countries, women were perceived as too emotional for spy work and best suited to rudimentary domestic chores like cleaning and shopping.
With enemy nations subjecting the men to much closer scrutiny, it was actually easier for the women to carry out spy work unnoticed. This work could include ‘dead drops’, with confidential documents being purposefully left in pre-selected public places where the intended recipients would surreptitiously collect them.
Some female CIA operatives built and maintained networks of informants overseas. Virginia Hall and Elizabeth Sudmeier are just two CIA employees who did exactly this. Hall was active in Nazi-occupied France during World War II, while Sudmeier bravely stayed at her post in 1950s Baghdad as revolution took hold.
Why is the new Sky drama called PONIES?
Even the title of PONIES is a nod to women’s unjustly perceived ineptitude for Cold War espionage. ‘PONIES’ is an acronym for ‘Persons of No Interest’. However, like many other aspects of the eight-episode series heading to Sky in May, the female spy characters of Bea and Twila are ultimately fictional.
Has reading about the female spy characters of PONIES made you interested in learning more about their real-life counterparts? One good starting point is to sign up for the Sky HISTORY newsletter.
