It was too soon to start drinking for Cinco de Mayo, the day I celebrate my Mexican Heritage, so instead I had a couple entertaining hours at The International Spy Museum yesterday- it was a spur of the moment thing. The day was lovely, really no-kidding in the mid-eighties, low humidity, blue skies and a pleasure to be alive.

I am not sure what I think of the museum, since the interactive approach to things dumbs down the content, though I concede it makes it a great deal more approachable. Color me skeptical, just as I appear in the picture.

There were two reasons to visit. The first was that I wanted some context for how a modern museum reaches out to the Great American Public, and the other was that the place will not be there much longer and I wanted to see it as it is. The lease on the building on F Street is going to run out in 2017, and they are going to have to relocate.

The Washington Business Journal reported earlier this month that they are looking at a six-floor building at 900 L’Enfant Plaza, which would keep it in the District proper. I had heard they were also looking at a place in Northern Virginia, but there might be too much competition from the real Spook enclaves on the way to Dulles International. The prospective site at L’Enfant has 100,000 square feet of space, the $100 million facility would triple the special event space the Spies currently have, and add a rooftop terrace, open air plaza, and greatly expanded exhibit space.

That would be useful; the current warren of galleries on the third floor is a little bewildering, but great fun. They mix the myth of the business as depicted by Maxwell Smart and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. pretty well as the metaphor for what the espionage business is really like. The framing device the museum uses to prepare you to wander through the landscape of lies and deceit is a snappy film that features some of the really bad people that hurt us badly. They betrayed their offices and oaths and got people killed: John Walker, Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen were the poster children for the craft of treachery.

In retrospect, they all appear to have been in the game for the cash, the basest of motives.

I did not see the allegedly ideological spies: slimeball Jonathon Pollard or the despicable Ana Montez in the montage of spies, but I view them all as more than that. Traitors. But there is a lot of ground to cover in that arena, and appreciate the tyranny of time.

Anyway, the flow of the place was reminiscent of the Holocaust Museum. There, visitors are assigned the name of one of the victims of Nazi atrocities to personalize the experience. At the Spy Museum, you are urged to assume a cover identity for the duration of your visit.

I discovered, to my surprise, that I was actually a 48 year-old ethnic Russian fisherman named Dmitri Ivanov from Kirov, visiting the United States on a five-day family visit to Boston. I tried that on. The last time I visited the Cover office at the Agency was just after the terror attacks. I was preparing for a trip to South Asia to try to persuade two nuclear states not to atomize one another.

I asked the lady behind the counter what identity I should use, and she suggested that I try using mine, which worked. That is the reality of the business, since a real air-tight cover that can withstand scrutiny is a hard bit of work, but not at the Spy Museum.

Upon successfully answering questions about my assumed identity on a flat screen panel, and cleared to “enter the country,” I was assigned a mission to collect a microdot from an attendant at Fenway Park and return with it to Kirov.

The exhibits were entertaining and engaging- like the simulated light table with Digital Globe imagery of the Lingshui airfield on Hainan Island where I was asked to find PRC fighter jets, patrol aircraft and the US Navy EP-3E AIRES II reconnaissance aircraft that was forced down after a collision with a Chinese J-8 (Bort Number 81192), piloted by LCDR Wang Wie. The Chinese pilot did not survive.

That was much closer to what I did than the fake beards and Minox cameras and microphones in shoes. Or dead-drops and bag-swaps and surveillance that make up the tradecraft of espionage conducted in this sprawling capital region. The displays helpfully pointed out that we are infested with more Spooks from more hostile and domestic services than any other city place on earth.

It was all good field-work and preparation to get ready to meet with the other museum later in the week. But that is a thousand miles away, and if I am going to get there, I need to get it in gear today. On the way out of the Spy Museum there was a gallery of exhibits about all the Bond movies. They pointed out that the first of Albert “Cubby” Broccoli’s blockbusters “Dr. No” was released against the backdrop of possible nuclear war with the Soviets.

It all seemed to fit, and the passions of the moment are reflected in all the films. Well, up to now, anyway. We have had to find a suitable villain that isn’t offensive to anyone. I wonder how they are going to do that? The Amish Threat? Homicidal Mormons?

I am sure they will figure something out. They always do.

Copyright 2015 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303