Motherhood and Espionage

Loving wife, mother of five… and international spy.  

That’s the anything-but-ordinary life ANN BUTLER reflects on in her recent memoir following an almost thirty-year career in the Central Intelligence Agency. Butler and her husband, JOSEPH POTAK, recently relocated from Virginia to Wilmington. 

“We wanted someplace that was a little bit less hectic, a bit more friendly,” she says. One son also lives here, and she says the coastal rhythm felt right after years of globetrotting. 

In Wife, Mother, Spy, which was published last December, Butler writes about the wild balancing act between family life and espionage. The stage was initially set after she studied abroad in France during her undergraduate studies at the University of Notre Dame.  

“I lived with a French family, took all my classes in French. That was kind of the impetus for wanting to work in the international field,” Butler says.  

After Notre Dame, she pursued graduate work in Belgium – again entirely in French – and returned home imagining an international career. She applied to banks, nonprofits, and the CIA. “I didn’t really know what working for the CIA entailed,” she says. “It was only once I was in that I realized the kind of work that I would be doing and the impact it would have.” 

Butler also didn’t know that she was about to meet the man who would anchor her life. When she met Potak, an engineer, she told him immediately, “I’m not going to be around long. I’ve got this plan to save the world.” But he stayed – steadfast, patient, and ultimately essential, she says. A year and a half into her CIA career, they married, beginning a now 37-year partnership that would carry them across the world, five children in tow.  

In the CIA, Butler served as an operations officer. “Fundamentally, my job was to recruit foreigners who would steal secrets for the United States,” she says. That meant late nights, constant travel, and a schedule that never resembled nine-to-five. “It was 24/7,” she says. “I might be at home at dinner but get a call that I have to come into the office.” 

Butler and her husband moved every two or three years, often between continents. “And every two years I was having a new baby,” she says. The children, Claire, Kyle, Eric, Alexis, and Katrina, learned early to adapt, to talk to adults, to notice the world around them. They also learned how to solve problems, sometimes in ways that surprised even their mother. Once after a recent move overseas, when the kids returned from school to an empty house with no keys, no cell phones, and a mother who couldn’t be reached because of classified work, they simply walked across the street, introduced themselves to unfamiliar neighbors, and asked for a phone to call their father. “They figured out how to get out of that situation,” Butler says. “They’re far more adaptable and flexible than many of their peers.”  

Balancing motherhood and the CIA required relentless energy and an unshakeable partnership, she says. “If you don’t have a supportive spouse or partner, you’re out of luck,” Butler says. Potak never asked where she was going, whom she was talking to, or why she had to leave suddenly. With every move, he changed jobs. “He hustled to find work that was relevant to his background,” she says, adding that their teamwork was the foundation that made the rest possible. 

Looking back, Butler realizes just how demanding those decades were. “Time… I never had enough time,” she says. But because she loved both worlds, she made both work. “I had these great kids, a great family, great husband, and then I had this really great job that was important and fun and exciting.”  

After retiring from the CIA in 2013, Butler spent another decade supporting operations behind the scenes before finally easing into true retirement. That shift gave her space to reflect. She began writing down memories, first for her children, then, encouraged by friends, for a wider audience. “I wanted to write down some of my salient memories,” she says. “And not only the things we did, but I thought a lot about what I emotionally went through working and raising a family. I wanted them to know what was going through my mind throughout my 27-year career, especially after every baby was born… the concerns, worries, and frustrations.”   

The result became her memoir. Its message is simple but powerful: women can pursue career and family. “If you’re passionate about your career and you’re passionate about your family,” she says, “you can absolutely make them both work.” 

To view more of photographer Madeline Gray’s work, go to madelinegrayphoto.com.

Want more WILMA? Click here to sign up for our WILMA newsletters and announcements.