One aspect of World War II that, up until relatively recently, didn’t garner a lot of attention, was the role that librarians, scholars, and academics played in the Allied efforts to win the war. Dozens of women scholars, librarians, and—yes, beautiful socialites, too!—served as World War II spies. These women helped to inspire characters Bea Sullivan and Selene Delmont in my Zando novel, The Librarians of Lisbon.

In the aftermath of the attacks on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt realized how lacking the United States was in intelligence information about the Axis powers and Germany. Soon, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which would later evolve into the CIA, was formed, and with it, the Interdepartmental Committee for the Acquisition of Foreign Publications. The IDC, as it later came to be known, was charged with gathering as much information from foreign publications as possible, especially printed material that was under threat of being banned, destroyed, or confiscated by the Nazis.
Certain documents and printed materials, such as topigraphical maps, artillery and machinery manuals, uncensored periodicals, and news from underground resistance groups in occupied Europe or behind enemy lines could prove essential information sources for the Allies. These materials could be photographed with microcameras and transferred to the United States on microfilm reels, or the printed materials themselves could be flown or shipped to American on clippers or ships.
In addition to these highly-sought after materials, there were also priceless manuscripts, rare books, diaries and journals facing danger. Hundreds of thousands of books, scrolls, and printed histories were being looted from Europe’s public and personal libraries by the Nazis. Some were destroyed. Others were transported to secret locations in mines and castles, to be taken to Germany later for use by the Reich. One of Hitler’s most insidious plans was to try to prove the inferiority of Jewish people by having German scholars research Jewish literature and precious manuscripts.
The OSS sought out some of the brightest scholars and libriarians it could find in order to thwart Hitler’s heinous plan and preserve as much of this literature as they could.

Adele Kibre was one such scholar. She had a doctoral degree in medieval linguistics, was fluent in several languages, and had spent some years in Italy for post-doctoral work before World War II began. One of her greatest skills was with microfilm. In 1942, she was running the IDC offices in Stockholm, Sweden. There, she and her team worked ceaselessly to gather information on microfilm that might aid the Allies. They procured photographs of air raids in occupied Europe as well as a vital directory of German manufacturers and industries. Unable to develop much of the film in Stockholm, Kibre and her team shipped an astounding 3,000 reels of microfilm back to the United States for development.
Maria Josepha Meyer was another brilliant scholar spy, who operated in occupied France during the war. Prior to the war, she’d worked for the Hachette publishing group. In France, she worked for the Library of Congress to carefully document the Nazi’s raids on bookshops and libraries, reporting her findings back to the White House and President Roosevelt. Her reports helped the American government gain a greater understanding of the atrocities the Nazis were committing. This knowledge spurred the post-war efforts to recover lost libraries and artwork and return them to their rightful owners.
These women’s fierce intelligence and skills with microfilm and information gathering inspired Bea’s photographic memory and her talent for decoding and microfilm in my novel.
Several wonderful non-fiction books shed great light on the efforts of these scholarly spies, including Kathy Peiss’s Information Hunters: When Librarians, Soldiers, and Spies Banded Together in World War II Europe and Elyse Graham’s Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II.
In addition to scholar spies, there were spies who gathered information using their charm and beauty. These spies, with their wit and wiles, served as loose inspiration for Selene Delmont’s character in my novel.
Marie Christine Chilver, known as Agent Fifi, was a British spy who worked for the SOE beginning in 1942 in Beaulieu, England.
She often posed as a beautiful journalist, and, acting undercover, would often befriend SOE trainees in a pub or restaurant as a “test” to see how willing the trainees were to share their personal information with her. The more the trainees told her, the worse it looked for them once they returned to the training camp.
A spy-in-training should never give up personal information, so Chilver’s tactic worked to weed out trainees who were too forthcoming with information.
She was in Paris in 1940 when the Nazis invaded and was interned at the Besançon camp. While she was there, she nursed other prisoners and also helped POWs escape into unoccupied territories.


American spy Aline Griffith was from Pearl River, New York and had a degree in history, literature, and journalism from Mount Saint Vincent. Very beautiful, she was working as a model when she was recruited by the OSS.
She was sent to Madrid, where she worked as a coder and decoder and also gathered information about Nazis’ whereabouts. She also recruited and trained other women to be spies as well.
After the war, she eventually married Spanish nobleman Luis Figueroa y Pérez de Guzmán el Bueno and later became Countess of Romanones.
She wrote a number of novels that were based on her time in the OSS, including The Spy Wore Red.
These women were extraordinary for their bravery and skills, and I hope Bea and Selene convey some of their spirit in The Librarians of Lisbon.