Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI, Inc. 2009 Interview of Former Special Agent of the FBI Linda Dunn (1973 1976) Interviewed by Susan Wynkoop On Edited for spelling, repetitions, etc. by Sandra Robinette on July 19, 2009. Final edit with Ms. Dunn s corrections made by Sandra Robinette on October 2, 2009. Susan Hi. Today is. This is Susan Wynkoop interviewing Linda Dunn, who is in Fredericksburg, Virginia; of course, we re doing this telephonically. And I, first of all, just want to go ahead and read into the tape the release form that Linda and I have signed, which reads: We, the undersigned, convey the rights to the intellectual content of our interview, on this date,, to the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI. This transfer is in exchange for the Society s efforts to preserve the historical legacy of the FBI and its members. We understand that portions of this interview may be deleted for security purposes. Unless otherwise restricted, we agree that acceptable sections can be published on the Worldwide Web and the recordings transferred to an established repository for preservation and research. Welcome, again, to you, Linda. [I] hope you re doing well and look forward to talking with you and finding out more about your background and your career. So, why don t we start by just having you tell me a little bit about your background, where you re from, and your education, would be great. Linda Okay. At the time, in the early 70s before I became an Agent, I was originally from northern Minnesota and I went to a small college in Minnesota. And I was teaching in a small town in Minnesota. I taught English, Speech, and Drama for four years. And I wanted to try something different. I actually had the papers to join the Peace Corps. And that was an option. I thought well, if I wanted to see the world that would be one way to do it. And a recruiter came from the Minneapolis Office to the high school where I was teaching and he actually was recruiting secretaries and clerical staff at that time.
Page 2 I don t even know if they still do that or not. He mentioned, you know, they were just, this was in 1973, in May of 1973, and he mentioned that they were just starting to allow women to join. And I thought why not. I ll try it and see what happens. And one thing led to another. At that time you had to be 5 7 to join, or to be admitted. And that left out a lot of women, right there, I think. I m sure it did. I ve heard that. Who were probably fully capable. But I think that changed within a couple of years? I m not sure, actually. Okay. I m not sure. And that did not apply to men. Is that correct? I think, I think it applied to men also. Okay. I think so. I should find that out. So you had no problem meeting the height requirement? No. I was probably just 5 7, actually. But no, I had no problem. Good. That is how a lot of the females I ve spoken with became interested. These recruiters coming to high schools for secretarial help. I have heard that. About how many, and this was early on, hiring women, how long did the process take for you to become an Agent? 2
Page 3 Well, very quickly, I think. I think he probably came to the school, I m thinking in March, and I filled out the paperwork. And you had to have a physical, of course. And they did a background check. I think I had my acceptance letter in hand, I want to say, by, maybe, July. Oh, wow. That s great. It was very quick. I was actually the first woman hired out of the Minneapolis Field Office. That s great! That really is. So you went into the Minneapolis Office, did you have your interviews there, I suppose? do interviews at that time? I m sure they did. I guess I did. I did have my interviews there. Right. Okay. I m trying to think. It s been, you know, it s over 30 years ago. It s a little hard to remember all the details. But, yes. That s what I would ve done. And then, I guess, you, because I know this changes also, but were you sworn in in Washington, DC? I was sworn in in Washington. Okay. And then drove sort of over to, or went over to the Training Academy right after the swearing in? I believe so. Okay. So, I m sure that recruiter was happy to have his first female Agent. 3
Page 4 Well, I think so. I ll bet he was. I think so and I think that s why I went through so quickly, actually. I bet. Well, that s great. Now tell me about how you found the training in Quantico. Your overall impressions? What sort of weapon, what type barrel were you given in 73? I know there s been, I forget the delineation, but were you given a two and a half inch barrel or a four inch, if you recall? I believe, I believe I had the shorter. Okay. In 73. The shorter barrel. Okay. The training was very interesting. This really was sort of the time before women were athletic. And while I was certainly in good shape, I was not athletic. The physical training part, the run was, was difficult for me. I, eventually, of course, I made it through the physical training part. The academic part was, I thought, very easy; and the firearms part, I thought, also was quite easy. I really had no experience, or very limited experience in firearms previous to that. But I think I really was one of the best shots in the class. So, that was no problem at all. And that s amazing, too, with that short barrel, that you did so, that it came so nicely to you. And I m not sure if we practiced always with the short barrel. I know with the shotgun, with the rifle, I mean, I was, I was dead on. 4
Page 5 That s, that s always such a nice surprise, isn t it!? Yes, it was a nice surprise. Like Wow! I didn t know I had this in me! It was always nice to be outside, too, shooting. It was. It was very nice. We started out with four women in our class. And my roommate and I, especially, and for the life of me, I can t remember her name. It was Carol somebody. We didn t keep in touch with each other after, for very long afterwards. We just made up our minds that we were going to do whatever we had to do and we were going to work twice as hard. And we did. That s great. That s a good attitude to have. I guess it was Carol Lenninger? I believe that was her name. Okay. So, you two did make it through training? We did. And, and so did Shawnie, I can t remember her last name either. And I ll look here. She would be in the same class. Shannon. Shawnie Shannon.. Okay. And then Sandra Joyce Robinson, who you were with also, resigned during training. So the three of you made it through. Well, that s great. 5
Page 6 We did. Now when you were saying you had troubles with the running and the physical requirements and things, did you see that a number of the male trainees helped out in helping you all attain what it was you needed to. Well, they did. Yes, they did. I think it s like anything else. It was still early, very early for women to be admitted and some of the men, I think, really did not want us there. But some of the men, you know, were very helpful. Were very, very helpful. I don t want to generalize and say that they did not want women there. Some of the, well, I would say most of the men were probably in their 20 s along, along with the women. Maybe a couple that were in their early 30 s. I think those who had been around a little bit more or maybe had a little bit more in-depth understanding of what went on in the real world, actually thought that having women in the Bureau was a good thing. And that s good to hear, as you said, that early on, even. That really is. How did you find, say, the firearms Instructors? Their instructing of, of the women in the class. Oh, I think they were very good. Great. I think they were very fair and, as I mentioned, I didn t have any problem. But Carol and I, we had made up our minds that we were going, we were going to work twice as hard as the men were working. We were the first ones out there and we were cleaning everything in sight. And, we just, we had put an extra effort into it. I think the instruction was very good, that we received. Oh great. And that s a great attitude to have. It s just, no matter what, we re going to be successful here. 6
Page 7 Right. Right. Once you come that far, and I had, you know, I had resigned a teaching career and, so, I, absolutely, I was going to make it through. That s great. Like you said, the running, I guess, was difficult. Just, you had not run all that much before? I had not. And I m not a runner; I m a walker. And the running was difficult for me. I can t say as the other probably, well, I guess, the strength, too. But I, you know I made it through. I practiced. I worked out every single day after, after classes. Worked on those weight machines. So, again, you were going through in the spring of 73? No. In the fall of 73. Okay. Cause you said March through July, to get accepted. And then you didn t actually go down to Quantico until September? August 23, I think, is my starting day. So, at least, you missed most of the hot, hot weather. It was Virginia in the summertime, or in the fall. It was bad. I mean, it was, it was bearable. After training you went right to Salt Lake City. Was that your first office? Yes, it was. Uh-huh. Now, were you surprised to get that office? Well, I think I was. I was the first Agent, woman Agent there, and it was a fairly small office, I think, as offices go. I bet. It really was not a hotbed of crime. 7
Page 8 I mean, there were things that went on, obviously. But, you know, it gave me a good, I think, a good broad experience in different cases. What s good about small offices, is you sort of get exposed to so much. You do everything. Right. And, at that time, were all Trainees sent to small offices? I m trying to think. You know, I honestly don t know. Oh, that s okay. I just was wondering what the policy was at that time. Right. Okay. So you were in Salt Lake for about how long, in that office? Let me think. I was in, must have been a good year and a half, I m thinking. I honestly can t remember. That s okay. I think it was about a year and a half. Uh-huh. And all of your work was criminal work? You know, I pretty much helped, I did a lot of criminal work. But I helped out in lots of different things. And I guess I was a hard worker because I, oh, what do I want to say. You know, if somebody needed somebody to go along, or to go undercover sort of, or whatever, I did that a lot. Uh-huh. But I just didn t know if they had many FCI Agents there. Or, I guess they had, maybe a squad? I m trying to think how many there were. There must have been about twenty to thirty, maybe. 8
Page 9 Well, like you said, for being in that small of an office for that period of time, I m sure you were exposed to just about everything. We did, we did everything. Which is great. I probably was involved in everything that came down the pike, too. I bet. Now that, in that office, is that where you became interested in Language School? Or, how did that occur? Well, I was just, I was pretty much called out of the blue and asked if I wanted to take a language. I think I was given the choice of either, well, Arabic, or Serbo-Croatian, at that time. And I said, Well, you know, Arabic sounds nice. And that s something that they, you know, wanted bad at that time. Well, And that was, you know, that was really, that was long before, I guess, it really became the popular thing. Exactly! So you were in Salt Lake and they just approached you, and you said, I ll go. That was basically how it happened. Uh-huh. Wow. Cause I know Monterey is beautiful. I ve heard. Oh. One other thing I should mention. When, while I was in Salt Lake City, this is kind of an interesting aside. I did go out to California, to the San Francisco area, and I did work on the Patty Hearst case for a few weeks. I can t remember now how many weeks it was, but, I worked on that case. That was, at the time So big. And all of that. 9
Page 10 Were you one of, part of the salt and pepper teams? I ve heard a lot about. Yes, well, that was the original intention. And I think that I was at the beginning, Yes, Yes, now that you re drawing my memory here, yes. I was at the beginning and then she, turned, you know, she turned over and the whole crew left the Berkeley area. So, Yes, there was a lot of undercover work in that. And I m sure just all hours of the day and night. Right. And so that just, how did, how did that end. I mean, how was it determined that you had to go back to Salt Lake? I m trying to think now. When, let me see, did she go with them to Los Angeles, I m trying to think. She went with, I think the whole group left that San Francisco area and went down to Los Angeles, then. And they were, that s when they robbed the bank down there. Uh-huh. So they sent anyone who was, you know, on a Special assignment back to, I just went back to Salt Lake City at that time. I see. Well, that must have been interesting though. I would, you know, I just heard every office in the whole Bureau was working on that case. That, you know, it was just such a massive hunt. It was. It was very interesting. I m sure, at that time. Very interesting. So, you d gotten back there and, as I ve said, just sort of out of the blue, this Language School came along. So tell me about how it was learning Arabic. How that whole school immersed you. 10
Page 11 Well, let me think. The Language School was run by the military, run by the Army. We were actually in class with, I think there was Air Force, and there were Army. And there were actually several classes of Arabic going on. Other languages, also. Because there were other FBI taking other languages and also taking Arabic. How large would the class be? I just wonder what size limitation they had. I m thinking that there must have been maybe twelve or fifteen in our class. I think. Uh-huh. I m guessing now. But I think that s what it was. Actually, languages don t come easily to me so it was, it was difficult. It was difficult taking and studying the language. Well, with the whole, with the alphabet being different, and I just think that would compound things. Right. Yes, that did. That made it that much more difficult. Uh-huh. So are you there about one year? Is that how long your program was? Right. It was, it was a year. Or close to a year. Tell me how they had you learn these languages. Well, I m sure things have vastly improved. We all, we had native, native teachers, native speaker, teachers. And we actually had books! And we just, let me think, you know, we did a lot of conversation; it was very similar, I think, to what you would ve taken, or maybe what you would still take in a college language course. 11
Page 12 I m trying to think if we had labs. We probably had labs. I m sure we must have. Where we listened to tapes. But it was, you know, there was a lot of conversation, and writing, and that sort of thing. And a great deal of work, I m sure, after you got out of class. I can t imagine. It was. It was, it was very intensive. Wow! Very much so. But a beautiful setting. I mean, you can t beat living in Monterey, California. That s what I ve heard. Ohhh! Now, I have been there one time and it is so beautiful. It is. It s just gorgeous. Wow. And when you finished that year up, did you feel you had a good grasp of the language? Or how, how did you feel your ability? Well, like I said, I m really not a, I m not a good language person. But, yes, I think, I think they did a very commendable job teaching. And I probably could have, I probably should have actually been continuously, doing some kind of work in the language. If I was, you know, if I was going to continue in it. But, they did, they did a good job, I think. But you felt like you could ve understood a conversation and, you know, gotten the major parts? Well, possibly. The thing with Arabic is that you, you learn the basic, what do I want to say, educated Arabic. We studied the Egyptian dialect, but every country has, every Arabic country has their own dialect. So that made it harder. But, you know, we did. We worked on it and I think most people felt that they had a somewhat good grasp of the language when they finished. 12
Page 13 That s great. And some people were sent back to New York? I m sure they were just sort of sent everywhere. Well, I think everywhere. And you were sent to Detroit? Is that where you went? I went to Detroit. Okay. From the Language School? Okay. Now, were they going to try to utilize the Arabic there, or, in that office? Well, I was there a short time because I had met my future husband at Language School. So, when I left Monterey I knew that I would be resigning within a few months, which I did. Well, the thing about Detroit is, at that time, it had the largest Arabic population, outside of the Middle-East. Oh, okay. And it may still have. I don t know. So, Yes, I m sure I would have, I did not actually use it in Detroit. I m sure I would have, if I had stayed longer. Probably, I would suppose. Of course. On an FCI Squad, or, you could have utilized it in many, many ways, I m sure. In many ways. So who was your husband with? Was he with the Army? Okay. He was an Army officer. And he was studying Chinese. So you couldn t help each other with homework. No, actually not. No. 13
Page 14 Boy, those are both tough languages! Well, that s something. So, as you said, after that year, you were sent to Detroit. But you didn t really, I guess you were assigned to a squad, but knew your time would not be long there. Right. Right. So is it a hard decision to make, to resign? I mean, you felt fine about it? Well, it was, it was a hard decision. But the thing was I deferred to my future husband. He was going to be sent to, he was going to go to school in Taiwan. So it just really would have been impossible for me to have stayed in. I think if he were, if he had been, if he were going to be stationed someplace in the United States, I would have. You know, I certainly would have tried to stay in longer. But I didn t. I know. It s always a hard one. It was a very hard decision. Because it sounds like you, it was something you really wanted to do. And, how hard you worked to get through training and everything. Right. Yes, that s a tough decision. But then life had more adventures. Did you find, though, that during your career, even though it was short, but it was still just, you did many, many things, did you just find no matter where you were, that you felt you had to work a little harder because you were a woman? Or how did you see the whole Bureau reacting at that early time? 14
Page 15 Well, I think once I got to, when I was in Salt Lake City, of course, I was the only woman. You know, I m not sure how things are set up now, [but] there were lots of secretaries and lots of clerical workers. So there were, of course, other women in the office. But I was, I think I was quite well-received. There was one Agent, one man who had, who would have nothing to do with me. At all! But everybody else I think quickly realized that gosh, we can use her as this; and we can use her as that. Everyone else quickly, you know, I don t know quickly, everyone else became my friend, I would say. Well, that s great. Because, I m sure, you enabled so many cases to have things occur that they weren t able, never able to think of. Yes, I think that was true. Which I think is exciting. I think that was true. And, you know, they realized that, gosh, you know, you can use women in this situation, or that situation. And then, of course, I had my own cases that I did. Exactly. But you never, did you ever try to shoot a Possible? Or, I guess, maybe you were hoping that you would at some point. In that you were such a good firearms shooter. No, I didn t, but I came close I think at the Academy. Really, when you were going through training. Yes, I think so, when I was going through training. After that, no, I probably didn t think about it after that. Because I talked to a couple of women who, one woman shot two possibles during her career. 15
Page 16 Oh, okay. And another one shot one, which I think, you know, it s just such big, it s not easy to do! Right. No. And I just wondered, maybe, since you shot so well that maybe you d shot a possible. No, but, gee I haven t thought about that in years, and years, and years. Anything else you wanted to add to our conversation today that comes to your mind? I can t, offhand, I can t think of anything. Okay. Yes, it was, it was a wonderful experience. I wouldn t trade any of it for the world. And, you know, I hope in some small way, maybe I made it easier for women after me. I think, you know, we all built on who came before. You re exactly right. Now, that s very important. But, to this day, I do not watch any of the shows that have women FBI Agents in them. It s just my little quirk. Because I think, you know, I just, I can t watch it. Well, I m the same way. It s all Hollywood and it s not Right. the way anything happens. Right. Right. So why waste your time. We, we did the real thing. 16
Page 17 Right. No, I know what you mean. Well, great. I sure thank you for your time today, Linda. And I m going to turn this off and then I ll just say a few words. Okay. Okay. Thank you. 17