The Liberation of Marguerite Harrison
America's First Female Foreign Intelligence Agent
The trek with the Bakhtiari lasted 46 days. Halfway through the trip, Marguerite became severely ill with malaria, forcing the tribe to pause its journey for several days until she could recover well enough to mount her mule. After crossing a river on a goatskin raft and climbing a rugged snow-covered mountain, Marguerite was relieved …
Continue reading "The Americans arrive in mysterious and dangerous Tehran"
The Bakhtiari men ruled harshly over the women, who did most of the work around the camp. While the men gossiped with their neighbors, the women milked the sheep and goats and prepared the meals. Cooper and Schoedsack joined the men, lounging around the tents. Marguerite didn’t work with the women, but she soon found herself busy …
Continue reading "Marguerite tends to ill Bakhtiari, amputating a finger, expelling a leech"
Merican Cooper, Ernest Schoedsack and Marguerite Harrison were thrilled with the prospect of reaching the Bakhtiari, but it was already mid-March, and they hadn’t much time because soon the tribe would be setting out on its journey. A British political officer found the Americans a car to take them to Shushtar, where the Bakhtiari princes were camped. There, they met a young …
Continue reading "Marguerite smokes opium while floating on a barge of goatskins"
British intelligence officers in Bagdad, including Gertrude Bell and Sir Arnold Wilson, advised Marguerite Harrison, Merian Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack to try filming the Bakhtiari, the same tribe Harry Dwight had suggested a year earlier. The Bakhtiari, who lived west of the Zagros Mountains, each spring undertook an arduous journey in search of grass for …
The Liberation of Marguerite Harrison 