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Marking 75 years, the CIA opens a new museum and launches a podcast

https://ondemand.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/me/2022/09/20220926_me_marking_75_years_the_cia_opens_a_new_museum_and_launches_a_podcast.mp3?orgId=1&topicId=1122&d=306&p=3&story=1125046684&ft=nprml&f=1001

The CIA is marking its 75th anniversary by doing something extremely rare: actively seeking public attention.

The spy agency has just launched a podcast, and over the weekend it gave a small number of journalists a peek inside its newly renovated and greatly expanded museum at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va.

Perhaps the most unusual touch is the ceiling, covered with a variety of white and black spy codes. There's a section in Morse code, another displays dominoes in code, as well as ciphers, and what looks like a crossword puzzle filled with letters in various foreign languages, jumbled together.

The CIA has never opened its museum to the public and isn't about to start. The target audience is the CIA staff and official visitors. But the agency is planning to put the exhibits — and these spy codes — online.

"Every code can be broken. There are actual words and meaning behind everything," said the museum's deputy director, Janelle Neises, who gave the tour. "We're very curious to see how fast and who breaks it."

The exhibit features some of the CIA's best-known operations since its founding in 1947, right up to a high-profile operations carried out less than two months ago.

There's a table-top model of Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan, where the al-Qaida leader was killed by Navy SEALS in 2011. The CIA also built a life-size model as well where the SEAL team trained for the raid.

Also on display is the bread-box size replica of the house in Kabul, Afghanistan, where the CIA tracked bin Laden's successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and killed him in a missile strike in July.

"This model was actually used to brief President Biden on the pattern of life that had been established, why we thought Zawahiri was here with his family, and what our plan was to go and get him," said Neises.

The museum tells stories well-known inside the intelligence community, though much less so outside the CIA's walls.

Like the work of Oleg Penkovsky, a colonel in Soviet military intelligence. He provided the U.S. with critical information that allowed President John F. Kennedy to confront the Soviets over their secret plans to place ballistic missiles in Cuba in 1962.

"Col. Oleg Penkovsky was one of our most important assets during the Cold War," said Neises. "He's known as the 'spy who saved the world' for a reason."

The Soviets withdrew their missiles from Cuba. They also uncovered Penkovsky's spying and executed him the following year.

A separate exhibit features the CIA's own Aldrich Ames, who passed secrets to Moscow for millions in cash until he was arrested in suburban Washington in 1994. He's serving a life sentence.

These tales, and several others, are pointed reminders that spy stories often end badly.

Operations gone wrong

The museum also includes some CIA failures, like the Bay of Pigs, the disastrous 1961 attempt to oust Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

This was just one of many CIA attempts against Castro, who eventually stepped down due to failing health and died six years ago at age 90. But he's memorialized at the CIA museum with a small statue carved with coconuts and known as "Coconut Castro."

The caption offers not hint it had anything to do with the many plots directed at him. It says only that the unnamed owner — presumably a former CIA official — would turn it to face away from the television during Castro's marathon speeches in hopes it would bring them to an end more quickly.

"I honestly don't know who made it and why," said Neises.

Still, it seems to capture the agency's long-running obsession with the Cuban dictator.

"Looking at the 75-year track record of CIA, it has enhanced American security by giving us much better information about the world through science and technology and the serious information-gathering side of the agency," said Tom Blanton, head of the National Security Archive, a private group in Washington that keeps watch on the intelligence community.

But Blanton says the CIA's covert paramilitary operations, like the many attempts aimed at Castro, "have driven up the possibilities of war and confrontation."

While the CIA museum is off-limits to the public, the agency is reaching out in another way, with its first podcast, called The Langley Files, a nod to the agency's location in suburban Washington.

Hosted by Dee and Walter — first names only for these CIA employees — the first guest last week was CIA Director William Burns, who explains the thinking behind the media venture.

"We do usually operate in the shadows, out of sight, out of mind, but I think it's important to explain ourselves the best we can and to demystify a little bit of what we do."

In recent years, former top intelligence officials have been much more willing to speak publicly, from cable television appearances to social media accounts. And a former deputy director at the CIA, Michael Morell, already has his own podcast, Intelligence Matters.

A Harriet Tubman statue outside CIA headquarters

CIA headquarters features a number of statues as well as paintings of former agency directors and others who had distinguished intelligence careers. Almost all were white men.

But just weeks ago, the agency put up a statue, near the headquarters entrance, of Harriet Tubman. While famous for leading enslaved blacks to freedom during the Civil War period, she was at the same time serving as a valuable spy for the Union Army.

"As she's doing her work, she's learning different things about the Confederate Army, and she's able to pass that information on to the Union soldiers," Neises said. "She was running intelligence before (the CIA) existed. We really felt that Harriet Tubman was someone who deserved to be on our compound."

By CIA standards, all these recent events surrounding the agency's 75th anniversary seem like a full-scale publicity blitz.

Yet the CIA had already taken unusually public steps earlier this year in advance of Russia's war in Ukraine. The Biden administration and the U.S. intelligence community declassified some of the information that they said pointed to a Russian invasion.

Despite initial skepticism in both the U.S. and abroad, the U.S. intelligence has proven accurate and has been seen as crucial in building domestic and international support for Ukraine.

Greg Myre is an NPR national security correspondent. Follow him @gregmyre1. Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Transcript :

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

The CIA is marking its 75th anniversary by doing something extremely rare. It's actively seeking public attention. The spy agency just launched a podcast, and it's given a few journalists a peek at its renovated museum, which is closed to the public. Among those who went on the tour is NPR national security correspondent Greg Myre. Hi, Greg.

GREG MYRE, BYLINE: Hi, Leila.

FADEL: So tell us what you saw at this not-for-the-public CIA Museum.

MYRE: Well, the museum is inside CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. And the first thing that struck me was actually the ceiling. It's covered with various black-and-white spy codes. One section is in Morse code, another displays dominoes in code. There are jumbles of letters in various foreign languages. Now, the CIA does plan to put these exhibits online. Here's the museum's deputy director, Janelle Neises, who gave me the tour and begins our story.

JANELLE NEISES: Every code can be broken. There's actual words and meaning behind everything. We're very curious to see how fast and who breaks it.

MYRE: The museum features some of the CIA's best known and most recent work. There's a tabletop model of Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan, where the al-Qaida leader was killed by Navy SEALs in 2011. Then there's the breadbox-sized replica of another house, the one where the CIA tracked down bin Laden's successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and killed him in a missile strike just two months ago.

NEISES: This model was actually used to brief President Biden on pattern of life that had been established, why we thought Zawahiri was here with his family, and what was our plan to go and get him?

MYRE: The museum tells stories well known inside the intelligence community but not so well known outside the CIA's walls, like the work of Oleg Penkovsky, a Soviet military officer. He gave the U.S. critical information that allowed President John F. Kennedy to confront the Soviets over their secret plans to place ballistic missiles in Cuba in 1962.

NEISES: Colonel Oleg Penkovsky was one of our most important assets during the Cold War. He's known as the spy who saved the world for a reason.

MYRE: The Soviets withdrew their missiles from Cuba. They also uncovered Penkovsky's spying and executed him the following year. A separate exhibit features the CIA's own Aldrich Ames, who passed secrets to Moscow for cash until he was arrested in 1994. He's now serving a life sentence. These tales are pointed reminders that spy stories often end badly. The museum includes CIA failures, like the Bay of Pigs, that disastrous 1961 attempt to oust Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: In less than 72 hours, Castro has destroyed the brigade.

MYRE: This was one of many CIA attempts against Castro, who died six years ago at age 90, but he's memorialized at the CIA Museum with a small statue.

NEISES: And this is a sculpture of Castro made out of coconuts.

MYRE: It's called Coconut Castro. And there's no hint it had anything to do with the plots directed against him.

NEISES: I honestly don't know who made it and why.

MYRE: Still, it seems to capture the agency's long-running obsession with the Cuban dictator. Tom Blanton heads the National Security Archive, a private group that monitors the U.S. intelligence community. Over its 75-year history, the CIA greatly improved U.S. national security by collecting valuable secrets, he says. But, he adds...

TOM BLANTON: At the same time, the CIA's agent running and paramilitaries are driving up the possibilities of war and confrontation with their coups.

MYRE: Now, as we noted, the CIA Museum is not open to the public.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

MYRE: But the agency is trying to reach out in another way with its first podcast.

(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "THE LANGLEY FILES: A CIA PODCAST")

WILLIAM BURNS: We do usually operate in the shadows, out of sight and out of mind.

MYRE: The first guest was CIA Director William Burns, who explains the thinking.

(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "THE LANGLEY FILES: A CIA PODCAST")

BURNS: But it's important to try to explain ourselves as best we can and to demystify a little bit of what we do.

MYRE: The CIA also sees this as a way to recruit for the wide range of skills it needs, from doctors and lawyers to linguists and computer scientists. The agency feels that if it doesn't tell its own story to some extent, it will only be in the news when disaster strikes and it gets blamed.

FADEL: Greg Myre is still with us. So, Greg, a podcast, a new museum. By CIA standards, this sounds like a full-scale publicity blitz. Is all this being done just to mark the anniversary?

MYRE: Well, the anniversary is certainly part of it, but it's fair to call this an evolving attempt to speak a bit more publicly about intelligence work in a carefully controlled manner.

FADEL: NPR's Greg Myre, thanks so much.

MYRE: My pleasure. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.