Elizabeth Mahan Doyle

Betty Doyle, an Electronics Engineer/Intelligence Analyst was a proponent for women to enter into the engineering field.

She served as a Physicist in the Bureau of Ships, Navy Department from 1944 to 1948, where she became Electronics Engineer. Her assignments included tours of duty in the Direction Finder Design Section, the Infrared and Ultraviolet Passive Detection Systems Design Branch and the Radar Design Branch. In 1956 she transferred to the Central Intelligence Agency, working as an Electronics Analyst in the Headquarters Electronics Intelligence Processing Center where she interpreted signals intercepted by the famous U-2 missions. While there Betty Doyle earned a special award from the National Security Agency for her classified reports on the Soviet Surface-to-Air Missile Radar. This work led to the successful design of electronic countermeasure systems.

In 1963, Betty Doyle moved to the Defense Intelligence Agency where she conducted special studies to identify radar signal collection requirements and to determine how successful the airborne collections missions were in satisfying these requirements for both the Air Force and Navy. In 1971 she was appointed to be the Federal Women’s Coordinator for DIA in addition to her responsibilities as an Electronic Engineer/Intelligence Analyst.

Betty Doyle was a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the Electronic Warfare Association, Trinity College Alumni Association, The Academy of the Holy Cross Alumni Association, The Association of Former Intelligence Officers, The U.S. Naval Institute, and the American Association of University Women. She was a member of the Catholic Church of the Little Flower and Kenwood Country Club.

She was the wife of Bernard Doyle, and is survived by her two sons, Bernie and Dick Doyle, their wives Ev and Jackie, nine grandchildren and fourteen great grandchildren.

Services will be held at the Church of the Little Flower, 5607 Massachusetts Ave., Bethesda, MD., on Tuesday, April 10, 2018 with a viewing beginning at 11:00 a.m., followed by a funeral mass at 12:00 Noon. Friends are invited to Columbia Country Club following the funeral.