Month: May 2020

THE IRON BUTTERFLY

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Eloise Randolph Page

Eloise Randolph Page, a Virginian to the core, began her Central Intelligence Agency career at the CIA’s founding in 1947 and served for 40 years in clandestine operational assignments. Miss Page was secretary during World War II to Army Maj. Gen. William E. Donovan, chief of the Office of Strategic Services, which was the espionage service that preceded the CIA. With the founding of the CIA, she transferred into the organization and made espionage and intelligence her life’s work.

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In 1978, she became the agency’s first female station chief, assigned in Athens, where three years earlier, Marxist terrorists had assassinated CIA station chief Richard Welch. She became one of the CIA’s experts on terrorism, and after her 1987 retirement from the CIA, she was a consultant on terrorism to the Defense Intelligence Agency and a teacher at the National Defense University.

From 1975 until she retired, she had been the CIA’s highest-ranking female officer.

At the CIA’s 50th anniversary observance in 1997, Miss Page was among 50 CIA officers who were honored with Trailblazer Awards for their career service. Her Trailblazer citation called her “a role model and . . . first female Chief of Station, first female super grade, and the first woman to head a major intelligence community committee . . . a champion of using technology to solve operational problems.”

Miss Page, a native of Richmond, was a member of a Virginia family that traced its roots to Col. John Page, a founder of the city of Williamsburg and member of the British Royal Governor’s Council who died in 1692.  Her extended family included the Randolph’s of Virginia and Washington, D.C., the Pages, the Dunnings, the Harrisons and the Mitchells, all of Virginia.   She wore her Virginia heritage like a badge of honor and was often described as comporting herself like the quintessential southern lady. She insisted on being addressed as “Miss Page,” not “Ms. Page.”

She was petite and small-boned, with bright eyes and a slight smile that often appeared ready to break out in a grin. She spoke with a southern drawl, and she loved to talk about the romance and mystique of the Old South and her southern upbringing.

But in the tangled thicket of the defense establishment, she was said to have been tough and determined, and a skilled and effective player in the bureaucratic survival contest. She knew how to get things done. High officials of the Defense Department sometimes called her “the iron butterfly.” She could speak in a sweet and gentle tone, but at the same time be sharp-tongued and merciless in dressing down general officers and deputy assistant secretaries.

Her career included directing the intelligence committee that focused on the most important problems facing the United States in the area of national defense, and she was an advocate of the use of technology to conduct espionage operations.

But to those outside the intelligence community, Miss Page was an unlikely espionage operative. She wore white gloves and conservative dresses. St. John suits and Ferragamo shoes became her trademark. Rarely was she seen in slacks. She was a Sunday school teacher at Christ Episcopal Church in Georgetown, where she had also served on the vestry and directed the Altar Guild and the flower committee. She was in charge of the choreography and decorations at weddings, and, as with everything else she did, she took this responsibility seriously.

As chair of the Altar Guild, she was a perfectionist. Altar linens would be sent back for reironing for the slightest wrinkle. She often brought her personal prayer books — many of which dated back generations in her family — to prayer meetings, and she was a regular reader of the Psalms.

Aside from her church and her career, the major loves in her life were her dogs, golden retrievers that sometimes accompanied her on foreign assignments.

Miss Page was a graduate of Hollins College in Roanoke. She also had a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in political science from George Washington University. She had an honorary Doctor of Laws from the National Defense University.

At her retirement in 1987, she received the Distinguished Intelligence Medal.

She was a member of the Sulgrave Club, the Society of Colonial Dames and the District Garden Club.  She died in 2002 at the age of 82.

A most amazing woman.

SUFFERING & GROWTH

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PERSONAL GROWTH THROUGH SUFFERING

Often turmoil and trauma just seem to be destructive and negative. But in the long term, these may be balanced—or even transcended—by powerful positive effects.

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You have probably experienced the negative effects of turmoil in your own life, or at least been aware of them in people close to you. Many people who have suffered traumatic life-events such as death of a loved one, illness (such as cancer), housefires, combat or becoming a refugee, find that dealing with this trauma is a powerful spur for personal development. It was not just a question of learning to cope with or adjust to negative situations; they actually gained some significant benefits from them.

Many folks gain new inner strength and discover skills and abilities they never knew they possessed. They became more confident and appreciative of life, particularly of the “small things” that they normally take for granted. They become more compassionate for the sufferings of others, and more comfortable with intimacy so that they have deeper and more satisfying relationships. One of the most common changes is that they have a more philosophical or spiritual attitude to life.

Initially, most folks experience a “dark night of the soul,” where their previous values are thrown into question, and life ceases to have any meaning. After this, most go through a phase of spiritual searching, trying to make sense of what has happened to them, and find new values. And finally, once they have found new spiritual principles to live by, they enter a phase of “spiritual integration” by applying these new principles. At this point, they find new meaning and purpose in life, together with a grateful heart for being alive, and even for having been through so much turmoil.  In some ways, it seems, suffering can deepen us.

There are only two choices when facing hardships: rise to the challenge and overcome it, or retreat into despair.  Suffering initiates a search for significance. It is important to make sense of and find meaning and purpose in suffering and grow past limits that create vulnerability. We all need one another and nothing is certain or uncertain, both are illusions. Humans cannot predict exactly what is going to occur so letting go of sureness of an outcome brings vulnerability.

The facts are that suffering SUCKS! I always want to get it over with ASAP. But to really cash in on the strength-building benefits, the idea is not to bypass the process.  Patience is key.   A lot of times that means you have to allow yourself to feel the pain: Vent to a friend about your demanding boss, cry after a breakup, push through the last six miles of the marathon on your bucket list..

When we process the pain, we reap the rewards. Most goals and accomplishments could not be completed without periods of suffering. Suffering builds character by giving us a sense that if we can get through times of suffering, we can accomplish anything.

Not all pain can provide the rewards noted above.  Destructive suffering or “bad pain” comes from repeating old patterns and avoiding the pain it would take to change them. Suffering at the hands of someone else is not valuable at all.

Many times people suffer because of their own character faults. Then other people come alongside them and give them comfort or a spiritual pep talk about how God is with them in this testing. They usually frame the experience as the testing of an innocent person.

The difficulty arises when the suffering is the fruit of the individual’s own character and is of no value unless they see it as a wake-up call. This is bad pain. And bad pain is basically wasted pain. It is the pain we go through to avoid the good pain of growth that comes from pushing through. It is the wasted pain we encounter as we try to avoid grief and the true hurt that needs to be worked through. It is the wasted pain of trying to get a person to love us or approve of us instead of facing the loss of this love and moving on.

In too many support circles, people are supported in ways that do not make them face the growth steps they need to take to keep from repeating their mistakes. They are seen as victims and are then set up for failure all over again.

DO NOT BE A VICTIM! Convert worthless pain into transformative growth.

I hate the cliché, “NO PAIN!  NO GAIN!”  BUT…………………………………!