Tools of the spy trade: This
show is torture By Jim Dee
Since
launching his "war on terror", US President George
W Bush has touted the need for extraordinary
measures to battle shadowy foes such as al-Qaeda.
However, revelations that such measures include
torture, warrantless wiretapping and the
extrajudicial jailing of alleged terrorists in a
network of secret Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) prisons have unsettled many Americans.
Although such unsavory activities have
tarnished the image of America's covert forces, a
snazzy museum in downtown Washington, DC, is doing
its utmost to remind people just how
vital the spooks corps is to
the very survival of the republic.
Since opening
in July 2002, the International Spy Museum has
seen nearly 3 million visitors pass through its
doors to ogle all manner of spy gadgetry and paraphernalia.
After forking over the US$16 admission
fee, visitors can spend hours glimpsing the
tools of the trade from the espionage world, ranging
from a KGB-designed lipstick-gun to a CIA rectal
tool kit.
The museum's executive
director is Peter Earnest, a former CIA man who
logged 36 years of service - including two decades
as a covert operative, primarily in Europe and the
Middle East. Toward the end of his career, from
1979-81, he was the CIA's chief point man with the
Senate. The museum's advisory board of directors
includes former spy supremos such as retired KGB
general Oleg Kalugin and former CIA director
Stansfield Turner. A bevy of leading
cryptologists, intelligence-gathering
"authorities", and former CIA officers round out
the museum's stable of advisers.
Given the
pedigree of its advisers, the museum not
surprisingly places a heavy emphasis on the
40-year-long Cold War waged primarily between the
Soviet Union and the United States. And, given its
location, it's also not surprising that
Washington's operatives come off best in this
narrative. Missing from the story, however, are
some of the less savory aspects of US covert
operations. These gaps also help the museum give a
particular spin to its post-September 11, 2001,
message of continued vigilance.
First
the fun Despite the clear ideological
"America the Good" subtext that permeates the
museum, a visitor would have to be a complete
killjoy not to relish many of its offerings. This
is infotainment for the masses. At the outset, to
get people into the right spirit, visitors are
asked to choose a false identity and memorize the
details of a cover story for a fictitious spying
mission. Upon completing the roughly two-hour
tour, a computer "border guard" quizzes visitors
about these details and rejects departure requests
for those who can't remember their cover.
Situated in a block of buildings that
includes a former headquarters of the US Communist
Party, the museum's three floors brim with a vast
array of spy technology that seems to have come
straight out of the laboratory of James Bond's
personal weapons-meister, the famous "Q".
Underscoring the point, the museum has a full-size
replica of Bond's car from the movie
Goldfinger, complete with its pop-up bulletproof
shield, reversible license plate, and machine-gun
headlights. But Q would never have inflicted
on Bond a painful-looking CIA rectal
tool kit, complete with a mini-saw, drill
bit, and hatchet.
There are plenty of
other gadgets. One display case holds a World War
II-era coal-camouflaged explosives kit used by
agents dropped behind Nazi lines. A coal-size
shell containing explosives, painted to match the
color of a given locale's coal, was dropped into
coal piles so as to explode when shoveled into a
factory or train furnace.
There is the
CIA's deadly eyeglass frame, which had a cyanide
capsule hidden inside. An explanatory plaque says,
"Choosing death over torture, a captive could
usually chew his eyeglasses' arm without arousing
suspicion ... until it was too late." KGB wares
are represented by a poison-pellet-firing umbrella
gun, used to assassinate dissident Georgi Markov
in London in 1978, and the famous "Kiss of Death"
lipstick pistol that fired a single .45-millimeter
round.
Now the history The
museum also tries to provide a historical
perspective on spying, with several rooms devoted
to tales about famous episodes in the annals of
espionage. Engaging in what the museum dubs the
world's "second-oldest profession", Moses sent
spies to scout ancient Canaan. Ancient Chinese war
strategist Sun Tzu advocated deception as a
military tool, while Julius Caesar, George
Washington and Thomas Jefferson are also listed
among the political and military leaders who
devised elaborate codes to keep their secrets safe
from the enemy. In the 20th century, filmmaker
John Ford, chef Julia Child and actress Marlene
Dietrich all worked in US spy operations.
An entire room is dedicated to
homing-pigeon spies, which were used extensively
during the two world wars. A camera set to
automatic shutter, which was hung around their
necks, helped in the reconnoitering of enemy
positions. A wall plaque states that of the
hundreds of thousands of spy carrier pigeons
deployed, "95% completed their missions". The
Bond-like birds also continued their service
through the 1950s, "earning more medals of honor
than any other animal", according to the museum.
The museum also highlights some
famous Cold War espionage episodes. In 1946,
for instance, Soviet schoolchildren gave the
US ambassador to the Soviet Union a carved
wooden replica of the Great Seal of the United
States. Ambassador Averell Harriman proudly displayed
the gift on the wall of his study. Six years
later, technicians discovered a small bugging
device hidden within the seal that was activated by
an ultra-high-frequency beam from a van parked
near the embassy.
Now the rest of the
history The museum's version of the
history of clandestine shenanigans is fraught with
plenty of omissions as well. Though several
references to Soviet torture techniques are made,
there is no mention of harsh interrogation methods
employed by the United States or its allies during
the Cold War. For example, the museum is silent
about what are often euphemistically termed "deep
interrogation" methods used by the CIA and its
School of the Americas-trained allies. With such
methods, security forces in such places as El
Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras systemically
tortured alleged subversives in an effort to root
out communist agents.
The CIA's failed Bay
of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961, along with many
US efforts to assassinate President Fidel Castro,
are chronicled. But the curators fail to discuss
the decades of attacks that Cuba alleges the CIA
either directly or indirectly mounted in an effort
to topple Castro, which ravaged the island's
economy and left more than 3,400 dead and
thousands injured. These attacks included:
infesting Cuban sugarcane and tobacco with
crop-destroying insects in the 1960s; starting a
swine epidemic in the 1970s that forced the
slaughter of 500,000 pigs; and triggering
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