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because the opinion that matters the most is your own. this is what democracy looks like. cspan powered by cable. >> well, joining us now on american history tv is robert bier. he is the director of the museum at the cia. mr. buyer, what's the point of having a museum that isn't open to the public? >> this is a museum for so many different parts of our agency. it's an operational museum, meaning that we learn from the lessons of our past so that we can become better in the future in our operations. it's also to inform our guests, people who come to headquarters , our partners, help them understand our history, what we've done in the past, and also on shows like this, helping the american public understand the role of intelligence in our democracy. >> welcome the cia is about 75

years old right now. this is the point of opening up the newly classified parts of this museum? >> not only is this museum coming online just in time for the 75th anniversary of cia, it is also the 50th anniversary of cia museum. ar on the 25th anniversary of cia, we were asked to create a museum. not that i was around for that, but that's where the museum started, as a way to preserve the agency's history, and so re it's a double anniversary this year. >> so what are we going to see when we go inside? >> so this is, like i said, a brand-new museum. we have changed the whole te structure of the museum to reflect our new mission. instead of it being stovepipe by directorate, we now have five core mission threads that are interwoven throughout the entire museum. in addition to the mission threads, we also have a

chronological history of cia. not just through the artifacts, but as you look on the ceiling, you will see there's a chronological history of codes in our ceiling, starting off with morse code at the beginning , and by the time you get to the digital age, it's in binary code. >> how did you become the director of the cia museum? what's your background? >> so, interestingly enough, i came to the agency as a film m producer. they needed to do a documentaryf series about the history of cia, and there was a wonderful experience. i've been swimming in the history of the agency ever m since. is that there are added difficulties because of the classifications and, and secrets that the cia naturally has. >> there's a security overlay at cia that we all have to pay o attention to in order to make sure our operations are kept closely guarded so that we're

able to be successful in our operations now and in the future. but, at the same time, we look for artifacts that we can show to the public, so everything you will see in this museum hasa been declassified. nothing in our museum that we'll walk c through is still classified, mu but that doesn't mean in our it collections that we don't have quite a few of those as well. >> so how often do you have guests in here? do cia employees come through? >> what's wonderful about our museum is that it is actually in the hallway space of the agency. the motto of cia museum is to instruct, inform, and inspire. by having it in the actual hallway space of cia, it allows our officers, as they're on their way to work, to see their history. to see an artifact, or something that might relate to what they're doing today. >> well, why don't we take a tour? >> great. t?

let's go. >> so, rob byer, we're at the beginning of the museum. it's 1947. what's going on with the cia? does it exist? >> well, before we get to the emergence of cia, we actually have to go back to 1941, pearl harbor. there are dots of intelligence all throughout the u.s. government, but they're not able to be put together in order to warn the president of an incoming attack. because of pearl harbor, the office of te strategic services is created. >> oss. >> the oss. or major general donovan is in charge, and basically, they create the modern intelligence apparatus. all of llthe directorates that are here at cia are created during world war ii, and a lot of the ways that we do our operations today, the lineage g goes all the way back to the oss. one of our great stories is about the gold coins of the oss,

that we now have on display. these are $20 gold coins from the 1800s. go there were thousands of dollars now, debut back then, in world war ii, donovan created or collected almost $2 million worth of these gold coins, with the idea that in denied areas in france and norway, all uy throughout europe, that they needed a way to pay for things for their existence in those countries. and these gold coins or the perfect way in order to buy things that they needed. supplies, guns, food, anything that if you have gold, you have a way of being able to buy what you need. >> how long were they in use? >> they were used all throughout the war, and the oss, what's amazing about it is four of our cia directors come out of the oss. we have our special operations with their lineage back to the oss. and so after 9/11, when we go o.

into afghanistan, the types of operations we're doing behind enemy lines in afghanistan, really no different than what we were doing with the oss in world war ii. >> so what should we know about wild bill donovan? >> wild bill donovan is such an interesting character. he was a metal bonner winner during world war i. he, during the interwar period, becomes a very successful businessman, lawyer, collecting information from all over the world. in fact, he was invited to witness the 1938 invasion of abyssinia by italy. so he would take this information and reported back to a very good friend of his, ab guy named franklin delano roosevelt. and so, because of this, roosevelt knew that he would be a good person to head up an intelligence organization paid >> so, rob byer, it's 1947. harry truman is behind you in a mural on the wall.

was it his idea to incorporate the cia, or was that built donovan's idea? >> donovan had always been pushing for a peacetime intelligence organization. at the end of world war ii, so many wartime organizations just were dissolved because everyone wanted to come home. f but truman realized that he was going to need a peacetime intelligence organization to take on the soviet union. so within a couple of years, all those elements of the oss are brought back together in the central intelligence agency. one of the things that truman nt wanted was a newspaper that would give him information he c couldn't get anywhere else. so starting with the daily summary, which is a collection e of all the different cables from state department and other places coming together for him, that will evolve into the president's daily brief, something that, every morning,

is delivered not only to the president of the united states,e but to our top policymakers to help them inform them on, on information they literally can't get anywhere else. >> the most exclusive reading list of all-time. ow >> one of the most interesting things about cia that people don't realize is that we're truly a newspaper, right? we send our reporters out into the field, known as case officers, they collect that information, bring it back to ve the agency for our analysts to y write and deliver to the smallest circulation of any newspaper in the world to the president of the united states. >> and you have a daily brief here on display. what are we looking at? >> so the one we have on no display is actually the president's intelligence checklist. and this is a special intelligence checklist.i the, the pickle, as it was known, because the acronym for the president's intelligence

checklist is pi cl, we were p actually known as the pickle factory in the 1960s. and this was, you know, all of these types of newspapers, as ed it were. they're especially created for each president. president kennedy wanted something new. he wanted something to put in his pocket, look at during the day, and so they created this s checklist, the comedy, the pickle. and it was something special for president kennedy. so on 22 november 1963, the date that president kennedy is assassinated, the pickle staff o created a very special edition e of the president's intelligence checklist. yes, you see, it's really a poem in honor of president kennedy and his life, and it shows how the president is our first customer, and how important they are to us here at cia. >> now, you have the daily brief

for president biden, or at least the cover, as well, and for president-elect biden. president-elect's get the dailya brief as well. go >> thanks to truman, a policy was implement it that has an continued to this very day. on when truman came into office, he didn't know anything about what was going on. he didn't know about the manhattan project, he didn't know about any war plans. and so he felt that anyone who e was going to become the president of the united states needed to have this informations ahead of time. and so when adlai stevenson and general eisenhowerin were up for election, he gave them access to the daily summary, so that they could no what he was seeing , and help them prepare. and when the candidate becomes a president-elect, they get the full president's daily brief. no different than the president himself. >> so, robert byer, we

continue our tour of the cia museum. the cold war is in fulln swing. a lot of spy gadgets come out of that, don't they? >> there really was an iron curtain over the soviet bloc, and it was incredibly hard to hi get in there, get what we call is our assets, our sources of information, to help us understand what was going on ur behind that soviet iron curtaind and so we needed disguises, we did equipment that would help n our assets get the information we needed. things like the micro.camera, that would basically take a, a picture of a document and shrink it down to the size of a.. these are the types of things that we would give to our assets in order to collect that information. >> and you've got it on display here, a can and a miniature

book. what are we looking at? >> in 1949, the cia is given covert action authority. what that does is it gives cia the role of being the hidden hand of the united states government, athat@%çqml we needed a way to get information to the soviet union as well and one of the ways was taking a nobel prize winning author and his book and shrinking it to a miniature version. so we took the gulag archipelago by solzhenitsyn. we would put in things like a can and seal it in there. those are just examples of how we would get information into the soviet union. and then it would be circulated around the soviet union so people could understand what were the conditions of the gulag what was it like to be in the soviet union. and then it would be circulated around the soviet union, so people could understand, what were the conditions of the gulag? what was it like to be in

siberia? and so authat people in the soviet union would understand better what was actually going on in their own country. >> and when you say can, just an ordinary food can, or is household can, correct? >> the great thing about intelligence work is you try to be ordinary. you try to make everything look like nothing is out of place. so if you're going to smuggle something in, you want to use something like an ordinary can to put your contraband, your books that can't be produced ing that country in that can, and then get it into the country. >> also on display our bags and disguises. how are those used during the wh cold war? >> so one of the hardest thingsw about operating in the soviet union is the constant surveillance. the kgb is everywhere. they know everyone. they're looking

at everything. and so when our officers are going out to meet with our di assets, it is a very dangerous proposition. and so if they're photographed together, that could mean bl disaster for that, that asset. s and so the skies is a great way to make sure that the kgb, at least for a little while, is it able to follow our officers as they're doing their missions. >> now, rob byer, one of the, h one of the goals of the cia is to turn assets, turn soviets into assets, correct? and you've got some photos on display of some of the soviets who were cia agents, but you also have how they communicated. with the u.s. >> our first big asset in the soviet union was a guy named pop of, and he gave us incredible information. but unfortunately, he was caught.

and while he was in his jail cell, he wanted a way to communicate to us that whatever information we were getting from him, we should realize it was suspect, that the kgb had gotten to him. so on toilet paper in his jail cell, he wrote down this note, and had his wife smuggle it out to us so that we would know s what had happened to him, and to make sure that we weren't being fooled by the new information the kgb was trying to plant through him. >> and that's very delicate andu very small print. that, that, was that hard to maintain over the years? >> when you look at this artifact, you realize, a, you w know, the passion and commitment that popov had to doing whatever he could to bring down the soviet regime. and so, eveni there, while he was in his jail cell with only a pen and toilet

paper around him, he made sure to figure out a way to get a message out to us. a and so, luckily, that toilet paper from the soviet union is very sturdy stuff, and we've been able to make sure it's preserved all these years ahead but, as you can see, it's kept in this drawer to keep it, the light levels low on it, and to make sure it's well-preserved for generations to come. t >> is popov considered a cia hero? >> popov and all these assets x on the wall are all considered heroes. caa lot of them gave their lives for this cause. some of them refused to be exfiltrated out of the soviet y. union, because they were so n committed to getting as much information as they could. another one that's on this wall , oleg penn koski, he was a soviet colonel in their gr you, the military intelligence.

many, many times, we asked to o exfiltrate him out, and he said, i'm here till the end. i want to get you as much information as i can print >> so, robert byer, how would you and i identify each other if we were on the streets of moscow and we wanted to know whether or not it was safe to talk? >> one of our legendary case officers, who was both the handler for popov and penn koski, was george keys balter. and kay felder wanted a system so that an asset would know hise handler in public. they might not have ever met before. and so one way he came up with an idea was to have both of them have the identity cufflinks. and so you can see on display over here, those cufflinks that were used in one of these operations so that popov could know that the cia handler was who they said they were. >> now, before we move on, i want to reference the ceiling, and where we are when it comes i

to coded messages. >> right. so if you look at our ceiling, at the very beginning, we start off with morse code. but duringa the cold war, we have a message hidden in cyrillic. eventually, we're going to get all these hidden messages up online, so people can try theira hand at decoding these messages and, you know, let us know what they find out. >> by the way, some of the artifacts that we're seeing today in the museum, are they available for people to see we online? >> we have, on cia.gov, a very robust catalog of many different artifacts that you ct can see here in the museum. so go check out cia.gov. we also have a, a twitter account as well. you can look at many different t artifacts there as well. in the early part of the 1950s, the cia had a real problem. it was extremely hard to get into the soviet union to get

information out. and so the cia decided, well, if you can't go in, what if you go over? and there was this period of time of incredible creativity to tryn and figure out this security issue. it first started off with the bomber gap, the idea that the soviet union had many more nuclear bombers than the u.s. ci did, and that really worried people over here. so president eisenhower came to cia and said, we need to know. i and so, what does the cia do? in 18 months, they go from the drawing board to operational status of the u2 airplane. it flies at 70,000 feet, and it flies so high that neither missiles nor airplanes from thed soviet union can get to it. and on its very first pass over the soviet union, it collects information on their military airbasess , and dispels the

bomber gap. as in fact, we had many, many more bombers than they did. and so, president eisenhower refers to the, the photographs from the u2 as million-dollar photographs, because every photograph that showed one lessn bomber than we thought meant that he didn't have to build another bomber here. so, worth $1 million, at least. because of the u2 program, and how important it was, we recognize that, eventually, the soviet union would figure out a way to to get to an airplane of 70,000 feet. and so, we came up with two different overhead l. reconnaissance platforms. the a first was going to be a follow- on aircraft. it's called the a 12, and it is a technological marvel. in the late 50s, you're talking about a plane that flew at 90,000 feet. that's miles higher than the u2. fluid over mach 3. that's so fast that it could help raise

missiles filed on it. ed and it was made out of a titanium composite material that gave it t stealth capabili in the 1950s. however, the technological leap caused a lot of delays. and so the other overhead -2 reconnaissance platform came online faster than the 812. and that was the corona satellite system. literally months after the u2 -2 was shot down in 1960, the first corona satellite system was put up into orbit. in its first pass over the soviet union, it collected more information than all u2 flights combined. and this was a special satellite. it had two cameras that would point down to the area on f earth, take photos of it, and then that photographs, those, the bucket from the corona satellite would be ejected, it t would flow down, parachute down

to earth, where a plane would e literally snag it out of the on air. and then they'd develop the we film, and our photo interpreters would look at this material on very special equipment. in fact, because there were two cameras pointing to one point on earth, we needed a special reading device . and as you can see here, le there are two laces for the film to go and be looked at under the, under the microscope. basically, this creates stereoscopic vision, which enables the a photo interpreter to glean even more information from that overhead imagery. >> now, that's a pretty technical -- that seems like a top-secret thing you just told us about corona and u2. >> the information from our satellite systems was perhaps some of the most guarded information, some of the most closely held information by the u.s. government. and it still is to this day. luckily for us, the corona ea

system has been declassified at this point. we have other ways of getting information from satellites g other than ejecting them out of space and floating down to earth , so that we can show this information with you today. >> everybody knows the name gary powers. he was a u2 pilot. what happened, and what happened to his plane? >> there's a movie called the bridge of spies. it's a wonderful movie about the u2 program. the one thing i would take issue with the film is that it betrays gary powers as an inexperienced pilot, just going over the soviet union for the first time when he gets shot down. francis gary powers was one of our most experienced u2 pilots. he had been a part of the program for many years. he knew everything about the u2 plane. and so when he was shot down in

1960, it was definitely a shock to us here in the united states . and when he came back to the united states, he testified in front of congress to explain what had gone wrong and why his plane had been shot down, and we have the actual artifacts of that plane that he used to testify in front of congress but >> the model in 1962 when he was testifying. g >> right. we have that model on display here at cia. >> so, robert byer, when people come in, film producers, hollywood, and want to make movies about the cia, how often, in your view, do they e get it right? and do they use this museum as a resource? do they use you as a resource? >> a lot of movies come to cia hoping to learn more about our history, and then show it to the public. and it's great to be able to

show them all the different artifacts here and help them inform them on the movies that they're working on. in my opinion, sometimes they get it right, sometimes they get it wrong. a one thing you always know about hollywood is that they're going to converge stories together. instead of 30 people involved in a, an operation, like, for th instance, the story of argo, it's not just tony mendez. it's a whole crew, whole operational group that make n that story happen. but, of course, you can't follow all those threads in a movie, so you have to follow and focus on just one person. >> well, let's go learn the story of argo. er >> argo is an incredibly fascinating story for cia, or because it utilizes so many different things. it utilizes our partnership with canada in order to get the documents that we need, in order to exfiltrate six state department officers who are hidden in the canadian embassy

at that time. this is a period of time when iranian militants had taken over the u.s. embassy in 1979, and luckily, the six state department officers were out e and about that day, and so when they saw what had happened, they took refuge with the canadians. because of that, we had to figure out a way of, how are we getting them out of the country? and so, tony mendez, who is the one, the architects of this in idea, he said he came up with an the best bad idea they could, they could think of. and this was, what is, sort of, the back story of the people who were there, and why are they, you know, leaving that country? and so, the back story was that they were part of a location scouting crew for a movie, a movie called argo. in the history of argo is that we knew of a, the makeup artist

on, who was brought in to consult on the initial script s for argo. and so he knew tony, and so when tony said, i need a script that would, you know, have a middle east location to it, can you think of a movie? and he said, i got the perfect one for you. it's called argo. didn't go anywhere, so they bought it for a few thousand bucks. over a weekend, they set up a whole production crew, s production studio out in hollywood. they even take plout ads and variety magazine about argo. is they even have a reading of theo script argo, bringing in actors to read it over. and so people are getting interested in this movie, argo. but the real story is, it's f just going to be a back story, so that when tony goes with hisp partner over to, to a ran, and they go through that airport to leave the country, if they're

questioned by anyone, they'll say, well, we're part of a location crew for the movie argo, and they'll be able to tell them all about what they've done and show the back story, ads in variety magazine,o that sort of thing, so that, you know, we make sure to get them out safely. my favorite part of the story is that when tony mendez gets do on the flight to leave a ran, one of the state department officers looks at him and says,s tony, you guys thought of everything. and tony goes, what do you mean? and, well, this was a swiss airp flight, and so they had painted the, the plane to reflect one of the cities in switzerland. and so that was the city of argo that they were getting on that plane. so i think that's a great, you know, and to the story. t they get on the plane, and, and off to freedom. >> and so a lot of the movie ke argo is pretty accurate. sounds like. >> in the movie argo, there's a lot of, of historical accuracy to the movie. in fact, they i

filmed here at headquarters to m make sure they had that historical accuracy, which is something we don't normally do, but they also, you know, by the end of the movie, i think, maybe go a little bit astray. i don't think there was gunfire on the, you know, tarmac as the plane was leaving. but that's hollywood, you know? you got to, you got to juice it up. i the truth is, there was so many different parts to the movie argo, and it's reflected in the movie about how complex it was to carry it out. >> well, you mentioned anthony mendez, and he is, he's passed e away. his s wife is, his widow's stil alive, i believe, johnna a mendez. but they've written books. about their work with the cia. what was his role? >> tony mendez was the chief of disguise here at cia, and he was also part of the exfiltration team. we have a painting here that shows him and his partner, his

partner is still undercover to this day, so you don't know y about his partner. that's also a bit of something here at cia that's very e different is you might learn about one part of the story, but there's a whole part of the story that might take years or e even decades before you find out the whole story. and so, one day, perhaps, this partner will tell his side of the story, and you learn even more about the story of argo. >> is tony mendez's work on display here in the museum? >> if you look through the artifacts of argo, you can see what tony did. in fact, he did the artwork for the variety had . he was a graphics artist. he, after he retired, became a painter. so it's great to have his tradecraft on display here at cia. >> so back to the argo

operation and tehran. im that was a pretty risky operation for the canadians to undertake, and the americans. >> one thing i'm impressed about the story of argo is just how important partnerships are, and our relationship with gh canada, obviously, a longtime relationship with canada. they were so instrumental into making sure this was a successful operation. and it just highlights how risky some of these operations and our work here at cia actually can be. we send people all over the world, into, sometimes, either denied areas or actual war zones. in fact, we have, in the museum, these innovator cases y that highlight individuals hereo at cia. and one of the innovator cases, we focus on barbara robbins. barbara was only 21 years old t when she was over in saigon during the vietnam war. a trucks

carrying explosives from the vietcong exploded in front of her at the u.s. embassy and killed her. she is the youngest person on our memorial wall, and the first female officer to die in the line of duty. president johnson sent her family a telegram, a condolence letter,er and we now have that display, along with a re posthumous medal that was given to her family. they donated it to us just this past year, thanks to her th brother, we were able to get these artifacts and have them on display here at headquarters. so it's something we're very honored to have, and, and we're glad we can show the sacrifice and the heroism of barbara robbins. >> so is the story of barbara robbins been known for a long time? was that a classified istory? are deaths of cia officers declassified over years? >> on our memorial wall, you'll notice that there are many

names that are not actually in the book of honor, and every year, the director of cia looks at those names and decides if any of them can be released. a few years ago, we had two of our officers who were killed in the attacks of benghazi, director pompeo released their names to bthe public. and so every year, as i said, w the director is always looking e to see if those names can be shared. but elbecause of the nature of operations, the nature of equities that we hold, people that we work with, there are definitely times when we need to keep those names undercover. sometimes for decades. >>s well, one of the more recet parts of cia history is the assassination of osama bin laden . why don't we look at some of the artifact you have there? ab seeing that this was relatively

recent history, when was this declassified? is this newly declassified stuff that were about to see? >> the about about raid was 2011, and so pretty shortly thereafter, the artifacts au related to it were declassified. the newest artifact i'll get to in a little bit, are the boots that belonged to one of the members of the assault team officer that are now on display here in the museum. so the story, of course, begins with the attacks of 9/11. we have three artifacts from the n three different attack sites. we've got a safe from the world trade center building, we've goh the gym bag that belonged to the youngest passenger on flight 93. she was headed back to college that day when the plane crashed in shanksville, pennsylvania, and her gym bag was found in the wreckage. and then, finally, we have a

metal and ribbon that belonged to a young naval officer who f was in the pentagon that day, sh and when that plane crashed into the pentagon, the jet fuel washed over his body, burnt 70% of his body with third-degree burns. it took them a couple of years to recover, and president bush a came to pay him a visit at the hospital and said, is there n anything i can do for you? , he said, i want a request. i want to go work at the cia, and i want to be a part of the targeting team that finds osamat bin laden. so he was actually here when am that assault team came in after that raid, and he gave them a coin that only 9/11 survivors give out. from the pentagon, gave it to each member of the assaulting to thank them for the mission they had just accomplished. and that mission that happened in 2011 almost 10 years after 9/11 starts with cia tracking a career to osama bin laden back to a compound in about about.

and that's what you see behind me. it's the actual national geospatial intelligence agency model, their rendering, that this is used to brief the president. and having this type of model really gives people anp understanding of why there was so much suspicion about this compound, who was living there, and if osama bin laden was actually there. >> the president obama saw thist model that we're looking at here. >> so this model sis a replica national geospatial intelligence agency has the ou actual model that was used to brief the president, but that model shop is something we work very closely with, and they made sure to make sure we had one as well. >> now, you talked about your an most recent artifact when it came to the 9/11 bin laden story. >> so this model is used to

brief president obama, and from that, he makes a decision to de carry out a raid. and, luckily, thanks to one of our secret facilities, we build, basically, a full-scale t sized model of the compound, so that the assaulting officers can practice on that, and know everything about where they're going to go. and so, even when that helicopter crashes into the dirt , the officers get out and they're able to make sure they are able to do the mission successfully. i one of those officers on that helicopter, this was his last he operation before he retired. b and so we have his boots in our collection. and we're really honored to have them. y you can actually see that the dirt on the boots is from abbottabad , because this was his last operation. so that's something we're realld

happy to have here in the collection. >> and what is the rifle that's in that display case as well? >> so next to the boots is the rifle that was found right next to the body of osama bin laden. so for all intents and purposes, that was his rifle that we recovered that night. >> robert byer , again, as we go through the museum, the ceiling keeps changing. where o are we when it comes tod the feeling right now? >> so at this juncture in the museum, we are at the end of the chronological history of cia. re and so we get into the digital age, and, as you look up on the ceiling, you'll see that it's now in binary code. so for the digital age, the next frontier of intelligence, we want to make sure we had a bit of the binary code in the digital age in our ceiling as well. >> robert byer, we've talked os about some of the assets that'

the cia was able to turn in moscow, but the u.s. has had trader problems as well, correct? >> i think one of the most damaging traitors we've had in our midst is rick ames. ea basically caused the death of dozens of cia assets in the soviet union, and thanks to the team of jean fair to say and all the people who worked with her hunting down rick ames, we were able to minimize the full extent of his damages. and it just shows, sort of, how important counterintelligence is here at cia to make sure we protect our information, our resources. and so we have this rogues gallery in the museum of some of the most damaging spies, not only at cia, but the entire intelligence community. robert hansen over at fbi, and

anna montes. ou she was a spy for cuba, and work for the defense intelligence agency. so these people, it's so painful when you find out that they've betrayed your trust. and so this gallery shows why d it's so important to make sure we keep our counterintelligence measures strong here at cia. so in a, in this gallery, we r have a lot of different artifacts related to these traitors. fo we have the monitor that ames used at his computer station. we've got a card from robert hansen, as well as the badge for anna montes, who was just nc released from prison after serving 20 years for spying on us for cuba, a double agent , working at the defense intelligence agency.

here at cia, through many different parts of social media, a website, cia.gov, through twitter, through facebook, we have our artifacts on display for the american public to see. they might not be able to come to this museum to see it physically, because we are here at cia headquarters, and that security overlay doesn't allow visitors to come in from off the street, but we hope that ir the american public can see these artifacts through social media and understand the role of cia in our democracy a little better. >> robert byer, the director of the cia museum, and we appreciate your time. >> thank you so much for coming today. >> if you're enjoying american history tv, then sign up for our newsletter using the qr code on the screen to receive

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