International Spy Museum

How do you demystify something that’s built on classified information? That’s what I attempted to figure out when visiting DC’s International Spy Museum.

The spy museum is one that I have been most intrigued to visit, yet also dragging my feet on doing so. Intrigued because of my interest in Cold War history; hesitant because of the steep $30 per person ticket price. Nevertheless, my girlfriend and I finally decided to take the plunge.

Our tour of the museum took us across two floors. First we went through the “spying basics” exhibition, which gives examples of espionage throughout history ranging from Tudor England to post-9/11 America. In the same area, visitors learn about (and see) the tools and methods used to gather and apply information for covert actions. Moving one floor down, the second permanent exhibit of “why spy” discusses watershed spy stories and explores modern questions in the field such as cybersecurity, double agents, and contemporary terrorism.

Per the museum’s website, its mission is to “shed light on the shadow world of espionage and intelligence, educating and challenging each of us to engage critically with the complex world around us.” While the museum does generally address the who, what, when, where, why, and how of espionage, its focus stays largely on white men in the US, Western Europe (mainly Great Britain), and Russia. There are some exceptions, including mentions of African Americans doing spy work during the Revolutionary and Civil Wars and a video interviewing women about their unique challenges and benefits in the field, but intelligence work, per the International Spy Museum, seems to lay solidly in the domain of white American men and their country’s allies and enemies. 

As for “critically engaging with the world around us,” the museum makes an attempt but ultimately falls short. One of the sub-exhibits I was most interested in deals with ethical questions of espionage - keeping information classified vs. having a fair trial; personal freedom vs. national security; use of torture for intelligence-gathering. At least on the surface, this section gives equal weight to both sides of the issues. Clips of CIA officials speaking out against waterboarding as antithetical to American values are shown in conversation with their colleagues explaining why “enhanced interrogation techniques” were crucial for rooting out the perpetrators of 9/11. 

However, more controversial examples of the US government’s surveillance of its own people, such as the danger and destruction done by COINTELPRO’s targeting of civil rights leaders and the House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities’ blacklisting of suspected communists, are mentioned only as examples of controversy in the larger debate. Nowhere does the exhibit ask, or prompt visitors to ask, if this exposure of information or the breaches of personal freedom were justified, or how to even determine their justification. It appears that the museum explores questions of ethics only inasmuch as the US government itself has grappled with them. 

Exhibit panel A Long-Running Debate, describing the government surveillance programs exposed by journalists and activists in the 1970s, including a directive to find “all the derogatory information” about Martin Luther King, Jr.

The museum’s strongest moments come when it focuses on human stories. In one room, visitors can watch a video in which former intelligence agents talk about their “James Bond” moments in the context of real life, like the banality of waiting for the metro after meeting with a source. A different section highlights the most damaging double agents and their reasoning behind such actions. In another area, visitors can walk through an immersive Stasi office and surveilled East Berlin hotel room, as well as hear stories of people who tried to escape East Berlin. This effectively brings visitors into the history, prompting empathy and understanding beyond what can be accomplished by just reading an exhibit panel. 

Overall, the International Spy Museum provides an immersive and thought-provoking experience for visitors of all ages. Geared to an English-speaking audience, it explores a fairly equal mixture of well-known and more esoteric spy missions, adding new information for even those armed with a basic knowledge of US-based world history. For all the material the museum does cover, one hardly has time to think about what is not included (and why): current day government surveillance of citizens, long-term effects of US-led coups in South America and Afghanistan, the classified information we can’t even fathom.