Jonna Mendez

speaker

404 appearances 2 recordings 1 series first heard Apr 2026 last heard yesterday

Jonna Mendez’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 1.

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The Moth · Puppets, Pastors & Secret Agents: The Moth Radio Hour · 22 Sep 2026 podcast

He was startled, and next to him was Bob Gates, who had also been with CIA, and he just smiled.

And on the far end was Brent Scowcroft, who was kind of scowling at me, holding my head up in the air.

There was a White House photographer in the room, and she was going around taking pictures.

It was a moment.

This was something we'd worked on for 10 years, and we were very proud of.

So first one to brief, I was then the first one to leave.

I went out to the outer office where the president's dog, Millie, had just had puppies, and I was actually on the floor playing with the puppies when the photographer came out and said, what did you just do?

Now, I know she took the pictures because I could hear the shutters clicking, and I said, I can't talk about it.

It's classified.

I was...

in CIA's office that resembled Q in the James Bond movies.

We made all the toys for James.

We made all the audio bugs, all the disguises, secret white concealment devices.

We didn't think a lot of James.

He wasn't technical, but we made him whatever toys he thought he needed, and we were more than happy to provide them.

So that in this office of Q, I was one of the very few women that was working my way through it.

I started out in clandestine photography.

I had been a photographer when I joined the CIA, amateur.

And I was now teaching foreign agents around the world in how to use our cameras to collect intelligence for the United States government.

Now you think camera, but you don't know what I'm talking about.

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