Secrets on display: CIA museum adds alQaeda exhibit
The CIA’s inhouse museum has added some new spy exhibits, reports Michael Martina ,of Reuters.
THEY like to call it ‘‘the greatest museum you’ll never see’’. Tucked away in the corridors of its Langley, Virginia, headquarters, the revamped Central Intelligence Agency museum — while still closed to the public — is revealing some newly declassified artefacts from the spy agency’s most storied operations since its founding 75 years ago.
A highlight was a roughly 30cmlong scale model of the compound in Kabul, Afghanistan, that was used to brief President Joe Biden before the drone strike that killed alQaeda leader Ayman alZawahiri just two months ago.
‘‘It’s very unusual for something to get declassified that quickly,’’ museum deputy director Janelle Neises said.
‘‘We use our artefacts to tell our stories. It’s a way to be really honest and transparent about the CIA, which is sometimes hard,’’ said Neises, who joined museum director Robert Byer in leading a recent media tour of renovated exhibits.
The items, some of which can be viewed online, are part of a broader effort to expand public outreach and recruitment by the legendary but secretive agency.
That effort included the recent launch of the CIA’s first public podcast, during which director William Burns said the agency sought to ‘‘demystify’’ its work at a time when ‘‘trust in institutions is in such short supply’’.
The hundreds of museum items were all declassified, and some were occasionally lent to presidential libraries and other nonprofit museums, Neises said.
The AKM assault rifle toted by Osama bin Laden the night US Navy Seals killed him in a raid of his Abbottabad, Pakistan, compound in 2011, and a leather jacket found with former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein when he was captured in 2003, are among the items on view for those cleared to visit.
Other exhibits range from flight suits worn by pilots of Cold Warera spy planes to a woodframed saddle, similar to those used by members of
CIA’s Team Alpha as they navigated Afghanistan’s mountains on horseback shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.