American Bedu: The Story of Carol Fleming an American Spy, is a feature-length (90 min) documentary about a young woman born in Espyville,
Pennsylvania, in 1959, who boasted as a child that she was going to work for
the CIA. An early marriage and motherhood seemed to make that unlikely, but a
chance encounter with a CIA recruiter at a cocktail party in Washington, DC,
put the goal back within reach. Carol began as an office clerk in Langley and
worked her way up through the grueling and competitive Agency ranks to be the
only field officer in CIA history to win a prestigious award for gathering
foreign intelligence two years in a row. Then, when close to retirement and
despite being highly successful in recruiting assets in the home-turf of many
of the 9/11 terrorists, she suddenly left the CIA to marry a dashing Saudi
diplomat. Given the circumstances, their relationship was viewed as a conflict-of-national-interest; and when asked to choose between duty
and love, Carol chose him. Their happily-ever-after was short-lived, however. They
both developed deadly cancers within months of one another in Saudi Arabia in
2008—possibly by tragic coincidence, possibly by environmental factors no one consciously
manipulated. Although proud of her career as a spy, Carol dedicated her energies
during the rest of her life to peacemaking and building bridges of cultural
understanding between Muslims and Christians.