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CAPE FEAR MEMORIAL BRIDGE CLOSURE: UPDATES, RESOURCES, AND CONTEXT

CoastLine: Marti Peterson, The Widow Spy

Courtesy Martha Peterson
Martha Peterson during her arrest on July 15, 1977 by KGB operatives in Moscow.

It was 1975 when Martha Peterson’s plane landed in Moscow and launched her assignment as an American case officer for the CIA inside Russia.  After training at CIA headquarters in Virginia, she would be one of the first women in U.S. history to embark on such a mission.  Less than two years after her arrival on a cold November day in Moscow, she would be ambushed at a drop site, arrested, and hauled in for questioning by KGB agents. 

Martha Peterson’s story is now part of an exhibit in two museums – including Moscow’s KGB Museum and the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C.  She is part of a new CNN series on U.S. spies and secret operations called Declassified.  And she’s written a book about her journey from being the wife of a paramilitary officer in Laos to taking on her own special operations in Russia -- called The Widow Spy.

This program originally aired June 30, 2016. 

Rachel hosts and produces CoastLine, an award-winning hourlong conversation featuring artists, humanitarians, scholars, and innovators in North Carolina. The show airs Wednesdays at noon and Sundays at 4 pm on 91.3 FM WHQR Public Media. It's also available as a podcast; just search CoastLine WHQR. You can reach her at rachellh@whqr.org.