The CIA Museum covers the intelligence agency’s long history — from spying on the Soviets to the Argo mission in Iran — but the latest addition is practically ripped from the headlines: a model of Ayman al-Zawahiri’s compound in Kabul used weeks ago to plan the U.S. drone strike that killed the al-Qaeda leader.
The model is part of the newly renovated exhibition hall located deep inside CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. Like the NSA’s Wall of Spies museum in Bethesda, Md., the CIA Museum isn’t open to the public. But it’s not exactly top secret either, welcoming CIA employees, official guests, foreign partners, potential recruits — and, early on a Saturday morning, a handful of carefully observed journalists, including reporters with old-school notepads and pens (electronics are banned).
There are plenty of fun gadgets to see, like a polygraph machine in a briefcase and a communication device disguised as a tobacco pipe, used in the 1960s. When a user bit down on the pipe, sound traveled through their teeth and jawbone to the ear canal, allowing them to hear messages that no one around them could.
But many of the items displayed — the pigeon camera, the fake dead rat used for “dead drops” — can also be found across the river at the International Spy Museum. more
Allow me to sneak you in the back door.
