Abortion Policy, Law & PoliticsNEWS OR ANALYSIS
Gloria Steinem, the CIA, and the plot to destroy the family
Gloria Steinem, the iconic feminist and abortion-rights activist, worked for the CIA from 1958 to 1962, through the Independent Research Service, largely financed by the agency. She defended the CIA as “liberal, nonviolent and honorable.” But the question is unavoidable: How does her later role as a leader of the sexual revolution and abortion-rights movement fit with the agency’s Cold War mission? John-Henry Westen traces Steinem’s personal and political history, her 1957 abortion, her involvement with the radical feminist group Redstockings, and her eventual emergence as a prominent advocate
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