NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE MUSEUM PUSHED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP95B00895R000200010003-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 2, 2008
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: November 4, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2008/09/02 : CIA-RDP95B00895R000200010003-0 sa
National Intelligence Museum .Pushed
By George Lardner Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Walter Pforzheimer kept a wary eye on his priceless
collection as the audience of retired spies, intelligence
buffs and other unidentified characters milled about.
At one spot on the crowded tabletop was a photograph
of Mata Hari and her last application to enter France,
where she was executed in 1917. At another was a short-
hand transcript of the trial of "John the Painter" (James
Aitkin), the only American convicted of sabotage in Eng-
land during the Revolutionary War.
Aitkin set fire to the Rope House at the Royal Dock
Yard in Portsmouth in December, 1776, destroying a
hefty supply of the British Navy's hemp and rope. "Re-
grettably," Pforzheimer concluded, "he was caught, tried
and hanged in March, 1777."
The occasion for the impressive display-ranging from
a 1777 letter from George Washington on "the necessity
of procuring good intelligence" to an 1864 Confederate
bill to create a "special and secret service"-was a Senate
Select Intelligence Committee hearing on plans to estab-
lish a National Historical Intelligence Museum.
Pforzheimer, whose own world-class collection of al-
most 5,000 rare books, manuscripts and other items has
already been bequeathed to Yale University, his alma
mater, said he hoped a place in the nation's capital could
be found for rotating exhibits, possibly including loans
from his own holdings. He warned that much of the ma-
terial that might be displayed-such as the photographic
blow-ups used in the Cuban missile crisis-"is now scat-
tered through the country and most of it, I fear, is per-
manently lost."
Pforzheimer, who served as the CIA's first legislative
counsel, and other museum backers think a wing of the
Smithsonian's National Museum of American History
would be just the spot.
"Think of the impact of such rotating exhibitions,"
Pforzheimer said, "not only on the grown-ups who are
drawn to tales of intelligence and spies, but also on the
kids who are so fond of gadgetry and the kind of exhibits
that could be mounted."
CIA Director William J. Casey, the leadoff witness,
heartily endorsed the idea so long as everyone realizes
"that what the CIA can contribute will almost certainly
he quite limited .... I would not want to mislead any-
one into expecting us to be a major source of exhibits for
this projected historical intelligence museum."
The committee is co-sponsoring a resolution of moral
support for the museum, but has not called for any fed-
eral financial support.
Committee Chairman Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.) said,
"We want to encourage private donors to assist in its con-
struction and displays."
Goldwater, before leaving for Senate floor debate on
the' CIA-funded "secret war" in Nicaragua, added, "In
other words, passage of this resolution will not cost the
U.S. government money."
Martin Cramer, a veteran of the CIA, State Depart-
ment and U.S. Information Agency who now heads an
organization promoting the museum, said its backers are
planning on a fund-raising drive next year to raise $2
million from private sources.
"Although collection of artifacts from existing muse-
ums, private collectors and elsewhere will not be easy,"
Cramer said, "the location of many has been identified."
He suggested that museum visitors would not only be
able to look at the "bugged eagle from our embassy in
Moscow" but also inspect enlarged microdots and learn
how radio direction-finding equipment works.
For museum display, Joseph Persico, author of "Pierc-
ing the Reich," nominated a special radio-transmitter
that Office of Strategic Services agents outside Berlin
used in 1945 to guide allied bombers to their targets. Lt.
Gen. William W. Quinn (U.S. Army-Ret.) urged that
"tactical intelligence" exhibits be included, such as hedge-
row maps and tide tables. Former CIA director William
Colby added that a museum would go a long way toward
showing that intelligence work is "an honorable profes-
sion."
Pforzheimer emphasized, however, that it, would be
very difficult to raise all the millions that would be
needed to put up a new building as well as to fund a cu-
rator and staff. "An existing facility here appears to me
to be the answer," he said.
Approved For Release 2008/09/02 : CIA-RDP95B00895R000200010003-0