Elizabeth "Liz" Ann Rapaport

Liz was born on May 31, 1945 in Washington, D.C. to Jack and Myrtle Rice of Accokeek, Maryland. Her brother, Charles H., was born five years later. After graduating high school in the early 1960s, she applied for a job at the Central Intelligence Agency, was interviewed, accepted, and began working at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Soon thereafter, she was selected for sequential assignments in the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Brazil, and Argentina where, in 1969, she met her future husband, Ben, an Army major serving as an advisor to the Argentine Army. They married in 1971.

She and Ben lived in Newport, Rhode Island, while he attended the U. S. Naval War College that year, then to Germany where their son, Darren A. was born. They returned to the United States in 1975, settled in Fairfax, Virginia and, when Ben retired in 1979, she returned to the CIA to assume more challenging assignments as an Officer in the Directorate of Operations. She had one passion, tennis, so she joined the Fairfax Racquet Club, competed often, and coached two women’s tennis teams for several years. She retired from the Agency in 2010, having served a total of 38 years, the recipient of the CIA Career Commendation Medal and citations from its National Clandestine Service and the U.S. Secret Service. She and Ben moved to Colorado Springs in 2010 to be near their son and family.

Liz leaves behind her husband of 51 years, son, daughter-in-law, Georganna, and two teenage grandchildren, Brennan and Hayden—they called her G’Mom—who gave her immense joy. She will be laid to rest at 12:00 p.m. on August 11 in a private graveside ceremony at the Pike’s Peak National Cemetery, Colorado Springs.