When a Spy Divorces, Details of the Marriage Often Remain Sealed
The details of spy divorces are often cloaked in sealed court filings.
The numbers are also a mystery, since the CIA does not keep track of how many of its employees divorce, the Washington Post reports. But one retired senior paramilitary officer tells the newspaper he was told in 2005 that the divorce rate was astonishingly high.
High risk jobs “take a toll on relationships,” CIA spokesman Preston Golson acknowledged in a Post interview. Unknowns about a spouse’s work can also damage marriages, divorce lawyers said.
The Post obtained one court file in a spy divorce before it was sealed. The wife had complained that she and her daughter were used to run cover for her husband’s operations, and she never felt safe. The spy husband had refused to answer some of his wife’s discovery questions, citing national security and state secrets privileges.
