DC's Spy Museum

On Sunday, my nephew was visiting us and we decided to go downtown for the day. Tomorrow I'll write more about our day in Chinatown, but for today, I thought I would start with a review of this museum, which I'd been looking forward to visiting for a long time.

Most readers know that I was an Air Force Russian Linguist, stationed in Berlin in the '80's - the Cold War. So, whenever there is an opportunity to take a look at historical documentation about that era, I'm enthusiastic about taking it in, and this was the case with the Spy Museum as well. Not even the entry price of $18 checked my enthusiasm when we got there; after all, it's a for-profit museum, and I've paid $14 to park at the Smithsonian's Air and Space Annex in Dulles.

The museum is a little older than five years now, I guess, and the age of the exhibits is showing. Much of the text still reflects the conditions of the painful years after 9/11, putting a context around the exhibits that doesn't quite ring true.

When Mary and I visited Berlin in 2001, we went to the Check Point Charlie museum. At the time, she was a curator at the National Building Museum, and she noticed the condition and care of the plentiful artifacts there. They were not well cared for, with ink fading, poorly interpreted, etc. - that museum is also a for-profit, and the conditions were very similar to the Spy Museum experience.

Still there were some interesting things to see. There was a small exhibit of some Soviet WW2 medals (some day, I will write a post about my collection, assembled during visits to Kiev and Moscow, and through auctions). As an example of the poor conditions, all of the medal documentation was fading, so no names or citations could be read. Photos shown here include Julia Child - from an exhibit on famous people yoy may not know were spies, a Cold War era map of Berlin, and one of the border signs that were all around Berlin in those days.

This museum hasn't aged well and is due for an update. My Air Force experience defines a part of who I am, and I didn't like seeing some of the history I was around in this condition. There I go, talking like some crusty old veteran, I guess.