Hidden in Plain Sight: An OSU alumna's climb to the CIA's highest ranks

Friday, September 13, 2024

Media Contact: Mack Burke | Associate Director of Media Relations | 405-744-5540 | editor@okstate.edu

On a Wednesday morning inside Stillwater’s downtown Aspen Coffee, you can find people of all vocations and backgrounds.

You wouldn’t expect a former intelligence officer to be sitting at a table, drinking an iced vanilla latte, but then again, hiding in plain sight for the Central Intelligence Agency was Meredith Woodruff’s job for 25 years.

A family affair 

That long career in the CIA would never have happened without Oklahoma State University.

America’s brightest shade of orange is in her blood. 

Woodruff’s parents met while they were at OSU in the 1930s. Her mother, Cecelia, studied dietetics, and her father, Curtis Williams, studied history. Her father was quite involved at then Oklahoma A&M College, earning the rank of cadet colonel in the ROTC, being voted a student senator and president of his fraternity. 

After marrying and graduating from OSU, her parents each earned graduate degrees, Curtis in law and Cecelia in dietetics.

But Stillwater soon called them home once again when Curtis began his law and political career as a county attorney. Cecelia became OSU’s lead dietician, running the sole cafeteria on campus and feeding students three meals a day, seven days a week.

With the outbreak of World War II, Curtis’ unique skill set made him a vital asset to the United States. His strong language background, law degree and trustworthy Oklahoma values shaped him into an ideal candidate for the military’s judge advocate staff.

Woodruff was born in Washington, D.C., but her family joined her father in Germany shortly after WWII ended. The youngest of three, she was the only sister of two older brothers. She learned German as her first language and lived abroad until she was 5, when the family moved back to Washington, D.C.

However, when Woodruff was just 13, Curtis passed away. She and the rest of her family then moved back to Stillwater in 1961. 

“Stillwater has always been the place that felt the most like home. Even after all the places I have been, it just feels right,” Woodruff said. 

After graduating from Stillwater High School, Woodruff followed in her family’s footsteps and enrolled at OSU, where her brothers had recently graduated. 

Woodruff was a brilliant student, graduating with two bachelor’s degrees in English literature and descriptive linguistics. She focused on German and learned Hebrew. She was also a member of the Alpha Chi Omega sorority. As an honors senior, Woodruff had the opportunity to teach a freshman literature composition class, which she touts as one of her favorite memories at OSU. 

“My time at OSU prepared me for all the writing I would go on to do in the CIA,” Woodruff said. “Oftentimes people would ask me ‘What Ivy League school did you go to?’ after reading my work, and they would be shocked when I told them I went to OSU. 

“It just shows how great an education I received while studying here.”  

Love, war and unexpected beginnings 

After graduating from OSU, Woodruff wanted to attend law school like her father had. 

She was accepted to Michigan and Harvard’s law schools but opted to defer from Michigan for a year to teach high school. During this time, she fell in love with an old high school friend and Stillwater native, Freddie Woodruff. The two were married in 1972.

Shortly after their marriage, Freddie’s birthday was called in the draft lottery to serve in the Vietnam War. 

“He already had a master’s degree, he had already lived in Canada for a while, and he believed he should go,” Woodruff said.

Freddie went through all the military testing required to fight in the war. Without speaking another language, Freddie scored a perfect score on the language aptitude test, leading the military to take an instant interest in his intelligence. They gave him the option of going to the Defense Language Institute to learn a new language, where he opted to learn Russian. 

“Talk about decisions that impact your whole life,” Woodruff said. 

Freddie graduated No. 1 in his class from the DLI, and he and Woodruff were sent to Germany to continue his work for the Army Security Agency. While they lived in the country where she was born, Woodruff earned a master’s degree in psychology from Wayne State University’s international program in Berlin. 

Because of his Army work, the CIA soon recruited Freddie to join the Clandestine Services division, the agency’s most secret and confidential branch. 

By then, Woodruff and Freddie had welcomed their first daughter into the world. For Woodruff and their first child to travel overseas with Freddie on his tours, she would have to undergo the same training Freddie was taking, and she would have to do it all while pregnant with her and Freddie’s second child. 

“It was such fun; it was a lot of hard work. I did well at it. They had never had a wife who had been able to do it all successfully,” Woodruff said.

Woodruff finished the training and moved to Russia with Freddie to begin his first tour in 1979. The family returned stateside with two children in tow in 1981, where the head of the CIA’s Soviet Division was there to congratulate Freddie on a job well done … or so they thought. 

“Turns out, he was really there to ask what I’d think about coming into the agency,” Woodruff said. 

Furthering a global legacy

A CIA push to hire more women within the government was sweeping across the country. 

Woodruff became the first married woman hired by the agency as an operations officer, as well as the first to have children already. Thanks in part to her training history, working alongside Freddie and having done a tour overseas, she finished top of her class and was ready to embark on her first mission.

The Woodruffs went on a combined four overseas tours during their service in the CIA before Freddie was killed on a mission in 1993.

After Freddie died, Woodruff continued her work in the CIA in many different roles and would go on three more overseas tours. 

Woodruff became a vital asset to the U.S. government, working in Clandestine Services for more than 25 years in Central Eurasia, the Near East, Africa and Europe. Many of these operations are still classified and Woodruff can’t discuss them publicly.

In 1997, while serving in Europe, Woodruff received a phone call from Deputy Director of CIA for Operations Jack Downing, recalling her home to Washington to put together a recruitment center to bring in an unprecedented number of new officers.

Woodruff also began formulating a plan to recruit women specifically to apply for operational positions within the CIA. 

“I said, ‘I want to be on television. I want to be on radio. I want to do magazine ads and be pretty open about this.’ My boss said, ‘You’re nuts.’ I said, ‘Do you want the numbers, or do you not want the numbers?’ He said, ‘OK,’” Woodruff said. 

Woodruff took out an ad in The Economist titled “Do you have what it takes?” to reach potential applicants. The ad ran on Sunday, and by Thursday, they had thousands of applicants.

Woodruff served as a chief of station, division chief and center chief before retiring in 2008 as the agency’s most senior female operations officer after over 25 years. She holds the CIA’s most prestigious awards: the Donovan Award for Operational Excellence and the Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal.  

After retirement, Stillwater called Woodruff home yet again. She purchased 15 acres of land to build what she calls “a cowboy house.” 

It didn’t take her long to get involved in the community she had always held so close to her heart. For years, Woodruff was a part of the OSU Friends of Music organization with the Michael and Anne Greenwood School of Music. 

In 2023, she was initiated into OSU’s chapter of Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society, the country’s oldest and most esteemed honor society. In October, she will be honored as a College of Arts and Sciences distinguished alumna. 

Along with these honors, Woodruff is also an OSU Osher Lifelong Learning Institute instructor for the Stillwater and Tulsa campuses. She has taught international history and aspects of U.S. intelligence classes to aid in OLLI’s mission to help seniors stay active and social. 

She has become a popular public speaker, addressing topics such as international events, the U.S. intelligence community and the life of a real-life spy. 

She recently partnered with two former colleagues, John Sipher and Jerry O’Shea, in Spycraft Entertainment, a global production company focusing on more realistically representing U.S. intelligence. 

Woodruff will tell you, though, that being a member of the OSU Global’s Ambassadors Board is currently her greatest passion.

“What I love about OSU Global is their emphasis on the practical rather than theory,”  Woodruff said. “Everything has action and a purpose with real-world application.” 

Woodruff works closely with OSU Global Dean Randy Kluver. When Dr. Kluver arrived in 2017, they sat down to discuss the idea of the school offering certificates so that students would have an opportunity to further their education in more specific areas in a global landscape. 

“Meredith has been an invaluable resource and ally for OSU Global and the School of Global Studies,” Kluver said. “Her amazing experience, her global perspective and her strategic understanding have helped us to guide our academic programs, to position the university globally, and to develop a clear strategy for the future to help make OSU a truly global university with an international impact.”

Along with advocating for more opportunities for OSU Global students, Woodruff occasionally speaks to Dr. Jami Fullerton’s public diplomacy classes.

Woodruff also works closely with the OSU Foundation, providing the “Meredith Woodruff and Donald Garner Endowed Scholarship” for OSU Global students.

Nowadays, you can find Woodruff around Stillwater attending various social functions of her respective clubs and organizations. She is always looking forward to what is next in her busy schedule but enjoys spending time with her husband, Donald Garner, a 1959 OSU engineering alumnus who played football and basketball for Cliff Speegle and Henry Iba. 

“It’s good to be home. Stillwater is such a great place to live, but OSU is what makes it exceptional,” she said. 

---

Photos:  Provided

Story by: Page Mindedahl | STATE Magazine