Club member Kay Shaw Nelson, ex-CIA spy, dies at 93

Katherine (Kay) Shaw Nelson, a former CIA spy, world traveler and prolific cook book author who was a 45-year member of the National Press Club, died June 20 at her home of 60 years in Bethesda, Md. She was 93. Her daughter, Rae Nelson, said she died as she had wanted, at home and active to the end.

Nelson was born in Lebanon, N.H., a small town just east of the Connecticut River near White River Junction. She began writing for her local newspaper while in high school, as male reporters went off to World War II, and then for the Manchester Union Leader.

A top student, she won a scholarship to Syracuse University where a professor persuaded her to become a Russian language and history major in one of the first such programs in the country. That led to her recruitment by the newly formed Central Intelligence Agency in 1948.

She met her future husband, Wayne Nelson, at the agency and they began assignments in countries around the Mediterranean and in Germany. Nelson found that taking lessons in and teaching cooking could be a good way to develop intelligence sources. Rae Nelson recalled how anyone reluctant to have their picture taken at a dinner party hosted by her parents was considered a potential person of interest.

Nelson documented her spy career in the last of her 20 books, "Cloak and Dagger Cook: A CIA Memoir," published in 2009 and inspired by her recruitment to draft a dinner menu for a National Press Club Silver/Golden Owl Halloween event with a spook/spy theme. "I have long maintained that good food and drink go hand and glove with the spy business," she wrote. She said she "never met a spy for whom a taste of secrecy and intrigue didn't whet an appetite for culinary entertainment."

She wrote the introduction to "Spies, Black Ties and Mango Pies," a compilation of recipients from past and present CIA personnel, including fellow cook book author and chef Julia Child, a former employee of for the CIA's predecessor agency, the Office of Strategic Services. Nelson swapped stories about their "spy" days during a Child luncheon speech at the Club in 1997.

Nelson started writing articles and books on cooking in the late 1950s featuring regional recipes, cooking with mushrooms, making salads, stews and yogurt. "She was a by-the-book cook, not an innovator," said her daughter. She tested her creations, including avocado ice cream, on family and guests. Nelson wrote hundreds of articles for major publications, including The Washington Post, Gourmet, Woman's Day and Family Circle.

"She loved the (National Press) Club," said Rae. "You could open her wallet and her membership card was right there." She was a long-time member of the Club's former travel committee and had visited some 70 countries.