Spies: Secrets from the CIA, KGB and Hollywood

Currently on exhibit at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum in Simi Valley, California, Spies: Secrets from the CIA, KGB and Hollywood is the result of an extraordinary collaborative effort between the CIA Museum/Center for the Study of Intelligence, the National Archives and several private collectors, including espionage historian H. Keith Melton, to explore the subject of intelligence as an instrument in the Presidential decision making process.  “This exhibit is a great way for visitors to get a behind-the-scenes perspective of how intelligence is used to assist the government in making informed decisions vital to national security,” said Reagan Library Director, Duke Blackwood.  The exhibit offers an inside look at our nation’s history of intelligence gathering and clandestine operations.

The tools and artifacts of espionage from the Revolutionary War through the Cold War are displayed with artistic drama in the four galleries devoted to the exhibit. 

First Gallery

• The first gallery opens with George Washington’s seminal statement on intelligence: “The necessity of procuring good intelligence is apparent & need not be further urged.” Nearby a hollow bullet concealment device attests to espionage tradecraft dating from the Revolutionary War. 

• Advances in technology enhanced intelligence-gathering methods during the Civil War.  Photography, for example, became a tool of espionage.  The world’s first commercial microdot on film, invented by Jonathan Benjamin Dancer in 1852, is displayed next to the Stirn body-worn camera from 1885. 

• Progress in aerial photography during WWI is illustrated by a spy of a different feather – a pigeon in flight bearing aloft its own body-worn camera. 

• America’s first intelligence agency, the Office of Strategic Services, established during WWII under the direction of William J. Donovan, is exemplified through the tradecraft developed by its Research & Development Branch headed by Stanley Lovell.  Various sabotage devices, and other special weapons are on display from Keith Melton’s superb collection. 

Second Gallery

The secret world of real spies meets the fantasy world of reel spies in the second gallery in the form of three costumed mannequins:

• A Soviet military intelligence officer.

• The fantasy character Carmen Sandiego.

• A CIA operations officer–the ubiquitous "man in gray."  The gray suit belongs to a real CIA operations officer and was worn in the conduct of espionage operations during the Cold War.

Third Gallery

The largest artifact in the exhibit greets the visitor at the beginning of the third gallery. 

• “Fat Man”, the 10,000-pound atomic bomb, loaned from the Navy Museum here in Washington, sits in mute testimony to the most difficult decision ever made by a US President. 

• Beyond the bomb, the story of Cold War espionage unfolds with displays on the Soviet listening device found in the Great Seal installed in the US Ambassador's residence in Moscow in 1952, subminiature document copy cameras, clever concealments and subtle listening devices borrowed from Mr. Melton’s collection of Soviet tradecraft.

• CIA’s Office of Technical Service supported the CIA Museum’s request to loan the library some of the items recently displayed at CIA Headquarters for the OTS 50th Anniversary.  The CIA tradecraft on display publicly for the first time includes early subminiature document copy cameras and dual-purpose subminiature cameras, which are displayed with the motto, “Imagine what is possible, then prepare to be amazed.” 

• The CIA Museum’s collection of U-2 artifacts is presented with the historical information that President Eisenhower personally reviewed and approved every U-2 overflight. 

• The National Imagery & Mapping Agency provided a 1962 light table for a display on photo analysis during the Cuban Missile Crisis which illustrates that the accurate and timely intelligence presented to President Kennedy gave him the ability him to go “eyeball to eyeball” with Khrushchev and prevented a potential nuclear exchange. 

• The tour of this gallery concludes with a tribute to America’s silent heroes exemplified by replica of the Memorial Wall.  The flag that draped the coffin of William F. Buckley during the 1991 trip from Lebanon to Dover is also displayed.

Fourth Gallery

As a contrast with the real story of espionage, examples of Hollywood’s version of secret agent tools are displayed in the fourth gallery in an entertaining look at how Hollywood viewed the world of intelligence during the Cold War.  On loan from the Spy-Fi Archives of Hollywood Screenwriter Danny Biederman, after previously being displayed at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia in 2000, are:

• Maxwell Smart’s shoe phone from Get Smart.

• The pen communicator from the Man From U.N.C.L.E.

• Mrs. Peel’s leather pants from The Avengers.

Lloyd Salvetti, Director of the Center for the Study of Intelligence represented DCI George Tenet at the exhibit opening Saturday, 16 February 2002.  In his keynote speech, Mr. Salvetti said, “…the examples of tradecraft displayed here are only some of the tools of our trade.  What is more important to remember is that the CIA and the rest of the Intelligence Community exist to give accurate, timely and comprehensive intelligence to the President of the United States and to his national security team so that they can deal with threats to our nation’s security and to its values.”  He observed that President Reagan “was a voracious consumer of intelligence. He set aside 30 minutes every day, from 0930 to 1000, for a national security briefing. At the end of each session, the President received a maroon, leather-bound book with the President’s Daily Brief, or PDB, in it.”  For this exhibit, the PDB staff agreed to loan one of the blue leather binders it prepares for President Bush six days a week.  The fact of the existence of the PDB was classified until the early 1990s.  This exhibit provides the visitor with a rare glimpse of this unique item, the contents of which, of course, had to remain in the vault at CIA Headquarters.

The collaboration between the Presidential Libraries and the CIA Museum/Center for the Study of Intelligence is an initiative to share with the American people the pride we in the Central Intelligence Agency have for the role intelligence plays in helping the President achieve his national security objectives, and to impart a better understanding of the craft of intelligence.  The exhibit will be at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum in Simi Valley, California through 14 July 2002.

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