8:00

We have the political testament of Cardinal Richelieu from

8:03

1699, very tiny old book. And

8:07

then we have, I think

8:09

our newest things are all pop culture based

8:11

because of course we can't have classified things.

8:14

So it's hard to have new spy stuff because

8:16

it's spying right now and it's very,

8:19

very secret. So a lot of our

8:21

recent artifacts that we can actually have

8:23

out and we're allowed to own are

8:25

pop culture based like from the Daniel

8:27

Craig Bond movies, things like that. We're

8:29

very excited because we just got on loan from the

8:32

Korean embassy, some artifacts from

8:34

2011, which for our collection is very,

8:36

very new. And

8:38

yeah, and it's currently all housed on site.

8:40

We feel very fortunate about that. We

8:42

got a lot of support from the board to

8:44

keep the collection here. There is a concern with

8:46

collections that, you know, it's very real out of

8:49

sight, out of mind. So not

8:51

only are we not making it accessible to

8:53

researchers if we can't access

8:55

it ourselves, but you also obviously we have

8:57

a lot of conservation concerns. And if

9:00

something's just in a box and you don't look at it for many,

9:02

many years, you don't know what it's doing to itself in there. So

9:05

that's been an exciting

9:07

development. Is this what you want to know? We'll

9:10

come on to some more of those questions. I

9:12

was just trying to get a sense of it

9:14

in the most general term. What other collections have

9:16

both of you worked with? So

9:19

just put the spy museum collection

9:21

in the context of other museum

9:23

collections. Sure. Lauren. Well,

9:25

so I've worked kind of in a variety

9:27

of collections for in all

9:30

kinds of different museums. So

9:32

I've worked in a circus

9:34

collection. But actually

9:36

what I was working with specifically

9:38

there at the Ringling Museum down

9:40

in Sarasota was old

9:42

master paintings. So I did

9:44

mostly French, Spanish and Italian old master paintings. So

9:47

I worked in that collection for a long time,

9:49

did a lot of research in that. And

9:52

then for a while I worked for

9:54

the Victorian Albert Museum specifically with the

9:56

Museum of Childhood. So I

9:58

did a big part of. working

10:00

on researching and moving

10:02

the collection there, which was all about British

10:05

childhood. So I learned a lot

10:07

about British childhood, not being a

10:09

British person myself. I learned a

10:11

lot about things I've

10:13

never even heard of and very

10:15

strange things as a part of

10:18

British childhood. Mr. Blobby was my

10:20

big kind of foray

10:23

into English and British

10:25

childhood. I had never seen

10:28

anything like him before. We had a lot

10:30

of kind of masks

10:32

and toys of his in

10:34

our collection. And I can't

10:36

even really describe him. He

10:38

looks like a McDonald's character who maybe

10:41

had some kind of disease. He

10:44

was in this big, massive costume and he would

10:46

be on kind of children's television and he was

10:49

specifically on a specific

10:51

show that he would come on and he

10:54

would fall down the stairs and fall

10:57

over, but he was a terrified. And

10:59

I remember thinking this can't be a real person.

11:01

So I worked in that collection for a long

11:03

time and I got to

11:06

kind of see all different, from dolls,

11:08

from children's clothing,

11:11

textiles, toys. So

11:13

I really got kind of a real look

11:15

at all kinds of things in a collection

11:18

from all types of medias, which is

11:20

quite a departure from working with just

11:22

paintings and doing research. And

11:25

then I worked at the Wimbledon

11:27

Long Tennis Museum where I worked

11:29

specifically in tennis history and

11:31

social history within tennis and specifically

11:33

obviously at Wimbledon. So a lot

11:36

of those artifacts were, or

11:38

pretty much all of them were tennis related. So

11:40

I learned a lot about tennis. So

11:43

I feel like with the collections I've worked in, I

11:45

have a very large range of

11:47

what I've been able to see over the

11:49

years. What about

11:51

you, Laura? What other collections have you

11:53

worked with? Yeah, so I actually, my

11:55

first internship, my first like, oh my

11:57

gosh, you can work in museums. there

16:00

and I guess museum studies is, you

16:03

know, it's like the difference between

16:05

say a photographer. I'm a photographer. I

16:07

could go to, I could photograph children,

16:09

I could photograph James

16:12

Bond cars or I specialize

16:14

in landscape photography or something. Tell me

16:16

a lot about more about that decision

16:19

of which way do I go. That

16:22

decision was kind of made for me, I think. I

16:25

think that with the museum

16:27

field in general, for

16:30

me, at least personally, like my journey

16:32

there was a lot of me stumbling

16:34

onto these different jobs. It was a

16:36

lot of me kind of inserting myself

16:38

into these kind of situations where I

16:40

just, all I wanted was to

16:42

get experience and I wanted to work in a museum

16:44

and I knew that. So a lot

16:46

of it was just trying a lot of different

16:48

things and what people would give to me. So

16:51

a lot of that was, you know, I kind

16:54

of did all of these different jobs. I

16:56

did researching. I was

16:58

doing decanting. I was doing

17:00

database work. I was moving

17:03

collections. I was designing

17:05

exhibitions. So I got to do kind

17:07

of this array of

17:09

things and then I realized what I really

17:11

wanted to do, which is now kind of

17:13

more of what I do is work in

17:15

exhibitions and kind of creating them and kind

17:18

of seeing them through and project managing them. But from

17:22

the first part of my career, and I bet

17:24

Laura will probably say the same thing, it's kind

17:26

of, you know, what can I do? How can

17:28

I get into this field? So you

17:31

kind of take the jobs that you can.

17:33

I also felt like, you

17:35

know, there is that kind of fork in

17:37

the road. Am I going to do academia

17:39

or am I going to kind of just

17:41

get this like real world experience? And

17:44

I did also think about going back into

17:46

academia and maybe I will in the future,

17:48

but I think for me, I've

17:50

just absolutely loved kind of having the hands

17:52

on like working in museums and I've kind

17:54

of decided that that's

17:56

what I really enjoy doing. So

26:01

like the newest, like the most

26:03

recent in our history, it's

26:06

probably some of our pop culture stuff.

26:08

So obviously we can't

26:10

have anything classified. We

26:13

are not the CIA museum. So it's

26:15

hard for us to have like, oh, cutting

26:17

edge. This is being used by spies right

26:19

now because for understandable reasons, they don't want

26:21

us to have that. And

26:23

so yeah, I would say it's probably, we have

26:25

some props from the latest Daniel

26:27

Craig movie, No Time to Die. We

26:30

have a little artifact from

26:32

one of the Marvel movies representing one of

26:34

their spy masters. So usually our

26:36

really newest stuff is pop culture because that's

26:38

what everyone's allowed to talk about. Yeah. Yeah,

26:41

it might be the watch and the eyeball. Yeah. We

26:44

do have some things I would say, we

26:46

got some loans from the Korean embassy a

26:48

year ago. So that's one of

26:50

the most recent things that we've taken and so tell us

26:52

more about that. Yeah, so

26:55

the Korean embassy actually reached out to

26:57

us. Some of their employees

26:59

had visited the spy museum and got very excited.

27:01

And so they reached out to us and

27:04

we created this relationship. And

27:06

ultimately they loaned probably

27:08

six or seven artifacts to us that are actually

27:10

hopefully gonna go on display in

27:12

the next few weeks. So they always include some

27:14

things from 2011, which

27:16

for us is really recent. That

27:19

was very exciting. And that's kind of one of

27:21

the ways that we get artifacts

27:24

is through these loans with different institutions, we

27:26

have relationships with the CIA museum, we have

27:28

a flight suit on loan from them, we

27:31

have a great relationship with the FBI museum,

27:33

we have things on loan from them, various

27:36

universities, and then we also have things from

27:38

individuals. So frequently a lot of our

27:40

newest stuff will be on loan from when

27:43

the CIA says it's okay for us to. Some

27:45

of those artifacts are really cool. I don't know

27:47

the code books, the poison lipstick. Cool

27:50

and creepy. Yes. Yeah,

27:53

we spend a lot of time being like, ooh, oh, like

27:56

yeah. That's the collection in general, I think

27:58

sometimes. So you're like, oh, wow. Oh, oh

28:00

no. We had that old

28:03

camera that was very old-timey looking, and you're

28:05

like, this is cool, what is this? And

28:07

then it's like, it's Beria's camera that was

28:09

in his interrogation office. And you're like, okay,

28:11

that's cool. Yeah, you learn about it, and

28:14

you're like, I'll put that back down. Bad

28:16

vibes. And Beria was

28:18

Stalin's by master, and ultimately

28:20

was taken out by Stalin,

28:22

but was probably oversaw the

28:24

deaths of... Death and

28:26

torture of a lot of people. Yeah, a lot of people.

28:29

Thousands and thousands and thousands of people.

28:31

So you have this camera, and you're

28:33

like, oh God, what has this been

28:36

in the room for? What

28:38

did someone see through the lens? Yeah. Wow.

28:41

And a lot of our collection has that. So

28:44

in that respect, actually some of the Korean

28:46

embassy artifacts that we have, one is a

28:48

pen with a poison needle that was taken

28:50

off of a would-be assassin. So it wasn't

28:52

actually used. It was the

28:54

South Korean intelligence agencies

28:56

intercepted. And so,

28:58

yeah, we have things that are like, oh, close call. And

29:01

what are the largest and smallest artifacts?

29:04

Largest, it's

29:06

probably a fight between the Berlin Wall

29:09

pieces and the Berlin Tunnel.

29:11

Although of course, now that we've got

29:13

a submarine and bonded motion, that's probably...

29:15

The biggest. Yeah, up there. And the

29:17

Berlin Tunnel, this is an operation by

29:19

the British and the Americans to dig

29:21

a tunnel underneath the Soviet embassy and

29:24

try to tap into their communications, but

29:26

it's freaking huge. It's

29:28

huge. I mean, it's very big. Because guys are sitting in

29:30

this with their equipment set up. It's

29:33

not like a tunnel, like, ooh, you're crawling out.

29:35

It's like a tunnel, like you're camping out. Yeah,

29:37

it's not like the Shawshank Redemption Tunnel. No, no.

29:39

This is like, get cozy, we're in a tunnel.

29:43

So yeah, no, massive. And

29:46

actually so big, we don't have both pieces.

29:48

There were two pieces. And so one of

29:50

ours is actually, we loaned to

29:52

the CIA Museum because we just didn't have

29:54

room. Those are definitely some

29:57

of the biggest and heaviest, which is of

29:59

course. also a thing that has to be

30:01

taken into consideration. Our structural engineers are very

30:03

responsive, fortunately. Yes, we had asked them quite

30:06

a lot. I email them a lot. Very

30:09

nice. And smallest is

30:11

probably our microdots, which makes

30:13

sense. I mean, that's... Just

30:16

for people that don't know, tell them what

30:18

a microdot is. A microdot is, I mean,

30:20

it's an image. So it can be a

30:22

photo, it can be a document, but it's

30:24

just, it's shrunk down through magical

30:27

science into like a tiny,

30:29

tiny, you know, like looks like a

30:31

flake of salt, essentially, that can be

30:33

smuggled, can be hidden in a

30:35

number of ways. And then you have your special

30:38

viewers that can, you can read it or you

30:40

can blow it up, but it's

30:42

a fantastic way to

30:44

hide secret documents. Because I can say as

30:47

somebody who's had to catalog them and keep

30:49

track of them, it is extremely stressful.

30:52

I was just gonna say, I think

30:54

microdots are so stressful. I would absolutely

30:56

lose the one that was given

30:58

to me almost immediately. And

31:00

what are some of the weirdest artifacts that have

31:03

strange, weird, unusual things that

31:05

people wouldn't think about? I

31:08

mean, I've got a couple of examples that come to the top of

31:10

my head, but the scrotal concealment,

31:12

for example. That is a gross one.

31:14

Yeah, those types of things. But tell

31:16

us like some of the other things

31:19

that we have. There's the box that

31:21

Mikaela and I are both ignoring that

31:23

says caution dog hormones. Yeah, that one

31:25

is terrifying. Dog hormones? Yeah, I think

31:28

I used to like

31:30

track people's scent or, I

31:32

don't know, like we'll get there. But that's

31:34

the way every time we get to the shelf with that box

31:36

on it, I'm like, no, not today and move it to a

31:38

new one. Yeah. That one

31:40

gets pushed down for good reason. We'll

31:44

get there. So certainly, you know,

31:46

some of the, we have Bob Hanson's couch

31:48

from his living room. Yeah. So

31:51

that's- Robert Hansson, a Taurus FBI spy.

31:55

For the KGB. Yeah. So we

31:57

have his couch. It's massive. It is

31:59

massive. But

32:01

so that's an unexpected one. There's a lot of poison.

32:03

I think that's something that we have to be of.

32:05

Or a lot of things that used to have poison,

32:08

that we just don't ever like. We

32:10

don't wanna touch. Yeah, you know. Anything

32:13

spiky from the KGB. You're like,

32:15

no. I don't need

32:17

to touch that. And honestly, it kind

32:19

of feels like that with most things in

32:21

the collection. Obviously we always use gloves, unless

32:24

it's paper. But I'm just like,

32:27

there's probably poison on here. It's for our protection.

32:30

As much as they are at the facts.

32:32

So let's discuss some of the big headline

32:34

artifacts that we have. So the Trots get

32:36

ice axe. Tell us a little bit more

32:38

about that. Yeah, it is Keith's

32:40

white whale. We

32:43

chased it for years and years. Years and

32:46

years. And we have all of the provenance

32:48

information that talks about how he got this

32:51

and who got it from and where and

32:53

everything that, yeah, this is the axe.

32:56

But the incredible thing is, as part of this

32:59

record of how

33:01

he came to find it and get the actual

33:04

axe, we have all of these anecdotes from his

33:06

trips to Mexico and his research of what

33:09

it takes to track down something. That

33:12

rare and unusual. And yeah, so it's

33:14

just funny because you go through the

33:16

object file for that one. And it's

33:18

a lot of postcards from Mexico and

33:20

mergers for hotels. And it's like, oh, you

33:23

were just down there trying to find it. It

33:26

was pretty incredible how he came across it. That's

33:28

a story for another. That's a different story.

33:30

Tell us about the Washington Light Arches. This

33:32

one's incredible, right? 1777,

33:35

yeah. So

33:37

this is, and I will let

33:39

Lauren talk about our George Washington exhibit that

33:41

just opened because that is her literal baby.

33:44

Yeah. Yeah,

33:46

so this is actually one of the

33:48

first artifacts that the spy museum had.

33:50

It was purchased by our founder. And

33:53

I think really kind of jump started like

33:55

some of the energy behind the museum of,

33:58

we can get these extraordinary. and so we

34:00

have the 1777 letter where George Washington, you

34:05

know, says I'm gonna pay for

34:07

a civilian spy force. It's

34:09

been conserved, I think multiple

34:12

times. And so we actually, that

34:14

is one of the few things that we don't have

34:16

onsite at the moment. It is

34:18

offsite, but, I mean, it is

34:20

only put on display. This

34:23

most recent time, because we're still dealing with our light

34:25

levels in the new exhibit, it was only on display

34:27

for four weeks. We're hoping to bump that up a

34:30

little bit in the future. Revolutionary

34:33

era ink is

34:35

like not great under

34:38

any circumstances, let alone like

34:40

having exposed to light in a museum.

34:43

So we have to be very, very cautious with

34:45

it. So, you know, basically 10 months

34:48

out of the year, usually it's a replica,

34:50

but yeah, that's one of our little

34:52

treasures. Tell

34:55

us more about the exhibit, Lauren, because this

34:57

has recently been reimagined,

35:00

a new exhibit, tell us a little

35:02

bit more about the Washington exhibit. And

35:04

just for our listeners, this letter is

35:06

like a foundational document on American intelligence.

35:09

This is George Washington writing a letter

35:12

telling someone called Nathaniel Sacket to

35:14

set up America's first civilian

35:16

spy ring, the cult

35:18

perspiring. So tell us more about the

35:20

exhibition. Laura has pointed out that, you

35:22

know, and Andrew as well, that this letter is

35:24

kind of, of the utmost importance,

35:27

and especially, you know, for our museum,

35:29

and it's a big kind of historical

35:31

object for us to have. And

35:33

we really wanted to highlight it because we

35:35

don't actually have a lot of this kind of

35:38

era of artifacts. It might be one of

35:40

the only ones we have. So

35:44

we really wanted to highlight the story,

35:46

and Andrew mentioned the cult perspiring, and

35:49

we really wanted to highlight what that

35:51

looked like and what that movement looked

35:54

like, and how kind of amazing it

35:56

was for things to

35:58

travel by horse. And. by

36:00

rowboat and all of these different methods and

36:03

how spying kind of looked in that

36:06

time period and so we've made

36:08

with the help of our VP

36:10

of exhibits, Catherine Kane, who

36:12

helped us reimagine this, basically

36:15

make an immersive exhibition on bringing

36:18

the letter to life and showing how

36:20

the Culper Spiring moved and what that

36:22

movement looked like and kind

36:25

of bringing to life like what the

36:27

letter meant. It's narrated by Chris Jackson,

36:29

so any Hamilton fans out there. He

36:32

played the original George Washington in

36:34

Hamilton. So it's been a

36:36

really like incredible experience to try to

36:38

put this together and it's

36:41

been really nice to be able to highlight the letter as

36:43

well. You know, it's been on

36:45

display this as Laura said not

36:47

the real one all the time, but the replica or the

36:50

real one has been on display for quite a while now.

36:52

But we really wanted to just make sure that

36:54

it kind of got the flowers that it deserved

36:56

and we really wanted to make sure that it

36:58

was the centerpiece for, you

37:00

know, why we spy and that's what

37:03

the fourth floor of our museum is

37:05

about is why, why do we spy?

37:08

So everyone should come see the immersive

37:10

exhibition. We worked very hard on it.

37:12

I stayed very late hours to finish

37:15

it. So I think everyone should come

37:17

see it, please. It's very cool. We've

37:28

been talking a lot in this episode

37:31

about the importance of taking care of

37:33

the artifacts and the spy museum's collection.

37:36

We assume most of our listeners have

37:38

never taken a historic preservation class. So

37:40

here is a short crash course. Take

37:43

a piece of paper, for example. Let's

37:46

say the letter George Washington wrote in

37:49

1777 to Nathaniel Sackett asking

37:51

him to set up what would become

37:54

the call perspiring. Artifact

37:56

preservation is a careful and

37:58

delicate process. A number

38:01

of different factors contribute to the

38:03

deterioration of artifacts. Think

38:06

humidity, light, air pollution, human

38:08

interaction and household pests like

38:10

moths and termites. That's

38:13

right, bookworms really do exist

38:15

and they can eat away

38:17

fast at paper artifacts. Let's

38:20

stick with this example and we'll spare

38:22

you the detailed explanation of the different

38:24

types of paper and the different techniques

38:26

you use in each one. If

38:29

you want to keep your average piece of paper

38:31

in tip-top shape for as long as you possibly

38:33

can, you'd want to keep that piece of paper

38:35

below 72 degrees Fahrenheit

38:38

and between 30 to 40% humidity. You'd

38:42

want to store it completely flat and

38:44

away from any form of light, natural

38:47

or unnatural. You'd want

38:49

to keep that piece of paper in acid-free

38:51

folders and boxes, ensuring no

38:53

infestation of pests and

38:56

keeping the box high on the shelf

38:58

in order to avoid potential water damage.

39:01

Of course, you'd use gloves not to

39:03

transfer any oils from your skin onto

39:05

the document and you'd employ

39:07

a capable mind of a

39:09

collection technician like our very own

39:11

Michaela Ferrara to keep constant records

39:13

of where these artifacts are in

39:15

the shells and what conditions they

39:18

are in. Got it

39:20

all? Great. You're ready to preserve

39:22

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That's aka.ms.fedsiber. And

40:42

let's go on to a key question. What's

40:44

your favorite artifact? Oh,

40:47

that's hard. I never know with this

40:49

one because I feel like each one... Even

40:51

if it changes, like, for me it

40:54

sort of changes month by month. What's

40:56

your current favorite? It's like a song.

41:00

So I'm always going to love Sleeping Beauty, which

41:02

is the one-man submersible canoe

41:05

that was developed by the British during World War

41:07

II. It's just fun. It is

41:09

really fun. Yeah, it's cute. I love the

41:11

way we display it. I love our videos

41:13

of the frogmen in their little

41:16

underwater canoe. So

41:18

my favorite classification

41:20

of artifacts that we have, and I

41:23

just made a bunch of jokes about concealment devices, but

41:25

I love our concealed

41:28

listening devices. I mean, love is the wrong

41:30

word, but I

41:32

think the severity

41:35

and danger and risk of what

41:37

we cover that the people in

41:39

our museum went through and

41:41

the people not in our museum that we don't even know about,

41:43

I mean, that they're intentionally

41:46

boring. They're ashtrays. They're lamps. They're these

41:48

things that you're not supposed to notice

41:50

in the room and that could ruin

41:52

your life. It could cost you your

41:54

life. And I think that, for me,

41:56

like the levity is just there of

41:58

like this thing that is so... So

42:00

unremarkable can be so important. So

42:03

I do, again, love them as I

42:05

just think they really hammer home what

42:07

we do in our museum. And

42:09

they really have in the past, right? Like I can

42:11

see all the face. It's cost people

42:14

their marriage, their job, and

42:16

ultimately sometimes their life. Yeah, yeah.

42:19

So I think, yeah, I think that

42:21

really represents like that this is, it's

42:24

everywhere. Spying is everywhere. Yeah. I

42:27

go back to Tani Minna's disguise

42:29

kit. I love that one.

42:31

I think you love that one too. I

42:33

love disguise. I think it's so

42:35

interesting. I think how it's developed

42:37

has been really interesting. Obviously I've

42:40

told you that I'm interested in

42:42

film and you look at like

42:44

the history of disguise and you look at kind

42:46

of how like film and

42:48

disguise have kind of gone hand in

42:50

hand. Sometimes people in

42:53

film have used different techniques from

42:56

disguise that we've like used kind of like

42:58

in the CIA and FBI and vice versa.

43:00

There's been a lot of like disguise techniques

43:02

that we've seen kind of go hand in

43:05

hand together. And I

43:07

just, yeah, I find disguise in general like

43:09

really, really interesting. That's also like a weird

43:11

thing that we come across in the collection

43:13

is a false nose or. Yeah,

43:17

so that one is definitely to go back

43:19

to your question, Andrew, is always a weird

43:21

one when you come across just

43:24

a nose and you're not really

43:26

prepared for it. So

43:28

I kind of love that. And I love

43:30

his kit that you can see in his

43:32

drawings. I think it's really, really interesting.

43:35

So we're always on the lookout for

43:37

cool new espionage or intelligence related artifacts.

43:39

If any of our listeners out there,

43:41

and I know that many of them

43:44

are current or former intelligence

43:46

community or they're very interested in this

43:48

topic or maybe they have a family

43:50

member with a spooky past. If

43:52

any of them have something really cool

43:55

that they are considering denating or

43:57

giving to the International Spy Museum.

44:01

what would the steps be that they would take? How

44:03

did they get in touch with us or with you

44:05

guys? Sure. We have

44:07

a forum on our website that

44:09

you can go. It's an object

44:11

inquiry form. You

44:13

can plug in some basic

44:16

details about your artifact or your

44:18

group of artifacts and I'll email

44:21

you, and then ask a lot of very

44:23

intense questions. Like, are you

44:25

allowed to have this? Where

44:27

did this come from? Should

44:30

the CIA know about this? But no, and then

44:33

also, kind of more fun

44:35

questions like, send us photos, what

44:37

are the anecdotes involved in it? We

44:41

don't always have a lot of details about

44:43

the objects that are offered to us just

44:45

because of the nature of them. I

44:49

think we felt very lucky. There have been

44:51

a couple of recent donations,

44:54

one photos from a gentleman who

44:56

was in the OSS X2 counterintelligence

44:58

as well as some artifacts from

45:02

someone who was at the Potsdam Conference.

45:05

We have the oral histories

45:07

and people wrote down

45:09

when they asked their parents or

45:11

grandparents questions, and they pass

45:13

those along and that's really extraordinary for

45:16

us to get that. We love the

45:18

quirky anecdotes. I

45:22

mean, it's great to have the full historical

45:24

background, but I love whenever

45:26

somebody is like, yeah, Winston Churchill was

45:28

mean or something like that. You want

45:31

that background. So yeah,

45:33

you can fill out an object

45:35

inquiry form and it'll have the

45:37

basics, but then I'll email you

45:39

and be like, tell me the secret

45:41

stuff. Just for our listeners

45:43

that don't, museums not

45:45

their world, help

45:48

them understand the value in donating things

45:50

to museums. So, you know, posterity,

45:53

the ways in which you

45:55

look after it, humidity, temperature,

45:57

wear and tear, light, just...

46:00

Give them the overview, like why do this?

46:02

Yeah. So I would

46:04

say the primary reason to do this is

46:07

because things will be lost. I mean, we're talking

46:09

about a letter from 1777 that's

46:13

hugely important that people are seeing today that

46:16

people will see 100 years from now because

46:20

it's not just been properly cared

46:22

for, but it's been entrusted to

46:25

the public. We're a nonprofit museum,

46:27

so our permanent collection exists for

46:30

the public to see forever. And

46:33

so when we accept things into our permanent

46:35

collection, you guys know we

46:37

have a collections committee, we have discussions

46:40

about not just

46:42

can we take this, but can we

46:44

care for it forever? Because we're very

46:47

serious that this is our job is

46:49

to not just pop it in the

46:51

museum tomorrow, but to know that future

46:53

generations will have access to this. And

46:55

then that's where all of it comes into making

46:59

sure it's in the proper boxes

47:01

and stored with the appropriate materials,

47:04

even just photographing and scanning things is

47:07

such a huge part of the preservation process

47:10

because it means we can share something more widely without

47:12

having to physically take it out all the time and

47:14

put that wear and tear on the artifact and

47:17

have conservators come in and make sure

47:19

things are looking okay. I

47:22

have my little pest traps and my humidifiers

47:25

and my temperature readers, and yeah. That's

47:28

from my perspective, that's why you donate

47:30

to a museum is because you see

47:32

something is bigger than you and

47:35

it will impact humanity.

47:38

And so that we create an accessibility

47:40

for everybody. I mean, the Trotsky X

47:43

was under someone's bed for years and

47:45

years and now everybody can see it.

47:47

And it's a really important historical object.

47:49

And we find that with a lot

47:52

of the things that are donated to

47:54

us, they were in someone's attic or

47:56

they've been in a suitcase for years.

47:58

So it's kind of that ability. to

48:01

give accessibility to our audiences so that

48:03

they can see like parts of history.

48:06

So it's not only to preserve it, but it's so

48:08

that people can see it as well. And

48:11

a lot of people don't always know what they

48:13

have. So that's why we always encourage people to,

48:15

at least ask us if

48:17

they think something could be potentially donated

48:19

because like I said, you're

48:22

cleaning out your attic sometimes and you come

48:24

across something and it could be of a

48:27

large historical significance. And

48:30

you find that a lot in museum collections. So,

48:32

and you know, that's what we wanna provide, a

48:34

place for people to see kind of the unseen.

48:38

It's kind of beautiful in a way. It's

48:40

a way for something to live on forever.

48:42

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, wow. And I don't know

48:44

if it's worth mentioning. We don't do appraisals.

48:46

We're not the anti-trojos. We don't do appraisals.

48:48

If you want to know how valuable it

48:50

is, don't come to us. We cannot dedicate.

48:53

And that's not, you know, that's just, that's

48:56

not our role. That's like

48:58

a really specific job. But

49:01

you know, we

49:03

admit this. We feel very lucky that we have

49:06

content experts on our board. We

49:08

have, you know, it's hard to accept

49:10

that Andrew does not contain all of

49:12

human knowledge, but

49:14

you know, you have. I really don't. Colleagues

49:17

at other museums. And we've done this in the

49:19

past too. People have reached out to us and

49:21

said, you know, do you want this? And we've,

49:23

you know, we've had colleagues reach out to people

49:25

at the Wenda Museum in Germany and then, you

49:28

know, trying to figure out what things are and

49:30

if they apply to us. And

49:32

yeah, we don't, we don't really

49:34

authenticate because that's, that's not a skill

49:36

we necessarily have. And we don't appraise

49:38

because for us, it's, you know, it

49:41

is invaluable. If we're, if we're bringing it into the

49:43

museum, it's not, it's not

49:45

what it's worth financially. It's what

49:47

it's worth to human history. Yeah.

49:50

Yeah. That's a service that you. Yeah.

49:53

Yeah. Yeah. If

49:55

you want an appraisal, that's it. You

49:57

can Google an appraiser. Yeah. I think that's what. I

49:59

think that that's one of the things that a lot

50:01

of people maybe overlook with

50:03

our museum because if you

50:06

think about most other museums, nobody's trying

50:09

to hide castle paintings.

50:13

Maybe Greek vases from the 5th century

50:15

BC are hidden, but it's not because

50:17

anyone's intentionally squirreling the way

50:19

or probably not by large. Most

50:23

other history museums in the country, the material,

50:25

if there's something that's involved in the government,

50:27

the files are opened up after a period

50:29

of time, no one's listening to

50:32

sleep over it. But with this stuff,

50:34

the stuff that's classified from the JFK

50:36

assassination, there's like you

50:38

say, some of the stuff we're not meant

50:40

to know about. I mean, Enigma didn't come

50:42

out until the 1970s, the

50:44

Culper Spiring didn't come out until

50:47

much, much later. So

50:49

there's a lot that we will never know. So I

50:51

think that in some ways we are almost,

50:54

just for a history museum, I

50:56

can't think of any subject matter

50:58

that's more challenging or more slippery

51:00

or difficult to deal with

51:02

in this subject matter. Yeah, because it's

51:04

ever changing as well. If

51:07

we even look at kind of what's

51:10

recently been happening and even contemporary news,

51:12

that's also hard. So all

51:14

of it has been, and you'll find

51:16

a lot of things like the classified

51:18

documents will be out, but the actual

51:20

artifact won't be, it will still be

51:22

classified. We've had a couple of those

51:25

where we can't tell the full story

51:27

because not everything has been released and

51:29

we don't feel like we can because we don't have

51:31

all of that. Or we don't know. Or we don't

51:33

know. So it is a little bit

51:36

of kind of having to put puzzle pieces together.

51:38

And we are a museum, so we are a

51:40

place where you want to tell a story that

51:42

you kind of know all of

51:45

the answers to, and sometimes we don't.

51:47

And that's really difficult when we're a

51:49

place that people go to to find

51:51

all the answers usually because we don't

51:53

always have them. We'll just forward

51:55

them to the CIA. Yeah. I think one thing that's

51:57

interesting about it is that we have a lot of

51:59

questions about our content is because

52:02

of the slipperiness

52:04

and because of the fact that

52:06

the totality of it is essentially

52:08

unknown. Whenever

52:11

people come through the museum

52:13

and because we are also dealing with

52:15

more recent content matter, like

52:18

there's no one at the Greek

52:20

part of the Metropolitan Museum in

52:22

New York, there's no

52:25

curator or collections manager there

52:27

that's worried about someone

52:29

two and a half thousand years old

52:31

walking past and saying, well, actually we

52:33

didn't use Greek facets like that. You've

52:35

got your interpretation wrong. But

52:38

for us, there could literally be

52:40

people that were involved in the

52:42

operations and then know something that

52:44

we don't. But then the one

52:47

of the difficulties as we're like, well, please

52:49

help us like fill out the

52:51

part of the story that we don't know. And they

52:53

say, well, we can't

52:55

because we've signed paperwork

52:57

that says that we will get charged if

52:59

we do. I don't know. There's something interesting

53:02

going on there. The fact that the people

53:04

could come here and have been involved

53:06

in the operations and

53:08

may know stuff that we don't, but they can't

53:10

share it with us. I find that quite interesting

53:12

as well. And let's be honest, we have 18

53:15

intelligence agencies as our neighbors.

53:18

So we know that they come here. Right. Yeah.

53:21

I mean, we certainly, even the things

53:23

that we've got, we've got things in

53:25

our collection that we know we are

53:28

allowed to have. The CIA

53:30

knows we're allowed to have it, all those

53:32

things. But the person that donated it is

53:34

like never show the part with my name

53:36

on it. So yeah, we have a lot

53:38

of things flagged and they're very well identified,

53:40

but understandably so because it's kind of like,

53:43

even if your mission is totally

53:45

out there and everybody knows everything, you

53:48

still might not necessarily want your name

53:50

attached. So we always have this kind of,

53:53

you know, just this little veil between us

53:56

and what we're doing. I will say though,

53:58

you know, I am sure there's or somebody complaining

54:00

to the Met about the Greek statues.

54:02

Yes. I

54:04

think you do always run like difficulty

54:06

in having a social history museum or

54:09

history museum where people are still alive.

54:12

And I think, you know, you find that with kind

54:14

of any, like any museum that

54:16

you work at, the museum of childhood was, you know,

54:19

a lot of people who donated these things are still

54:21

alive. So I did get a lot of inquiries about

54:23

that's wrong. But with, like

54:26

you said, Andrew, it's even trickier if

54:28

you also, they can't tell you that

54:30

it's wrong or you don't have all

54:32

the information. So I think

54:34

you already are, we're already starting off

54:36

at a hard enough base where, you

54:38

know, people are still very much alive

54:40

and can tell us no, but then,

54:42

but not what, but not what, right.

54:45

So final question. So

54:47

imagine overnight, humanity's wiped

54:49

out. I don't know. Like

54:51

we're all gone. Cool. A hundred

54:54

years time an alien spaceship comes,

54:56

they come to Washington DC. We heard

54:58

this was the capital city of this

55:01

really important and powerful country. They're

55:04

like, wow, what's this museum down by the

55:06

river? They come and they look at

55:08

the spy museum with collection. What

55:11

does that tell them about humanity? Oh,

55:14

I don't know if that'd be good. Yeah. They'd

55:17

be like, well, there's a lot of poison. It doesn't have to

55:19

be good. What would they say to them?

55:21

They love spying on each other is what, yeah. Honestly,

55:24

creativity. I think, yeah, I

55:27

think they would be shocked by the amount of things that

55:29

can be a concealment device. I think they

55:31

would see a lot of creativity. I

55:33

mean, you know, especially you just, you read,

55:35

you read these things and you see these

55:38

inventions and you're just like, oh my God,

55:40

like literally anything goes in spying. And

55:43

yeah, so I think that's the number one thing they

55:45

would take away is like, wow, these people tinkered. Yeah,

55:49

you didn't leave anything alone. No,

55:51

honestly, I think that's a very

55:53

beautiful answer because my first thought

55:55

was, wow, these people are paranoid

55:57

and they have gone to the

55:59

utmost length. And again, I

56:01

guess that harkens back to your creativity comment

56:03

is that these people have gone to such

56:06

lengths to figure out

56:08

information on each other that they have

56:10

come up with some of the most

56:12

creative solutions that we have seen and

56:14

also done some horrible things. So

56:17

I think that would probably

56:19

be my main takeaways. Wow. I imagine them being in

56:22

the part of the romantic comedy where you're like, can

56:24

you people just talk to each other? I'm sure they'd

56:26

be looking at this and be like, did they not

56:28

just talk? Did they not

56:30

have a therapist or someone they

56:33

could really, like a couple's therapist that they

56:35

could have just sat down with and sorted

56:37

it out? Yeah. I

56:39

guess I'll stick with creative as opposed

56:41

to just like, oh, maniacal. Yeah,

56:43

I'll stick with paranoia. I

56:47

think that's a nice way to bring us to

56:49

our purpose. Well, thanks so much for joining me.

56:51

It's been a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks

56:53

for having us. Yeah. Thanks

57:06

for listening to this episode

57:08

of Spycast. Please

57:15

follow us on Apple, Spotify, or

57:17

wherever you get your podcasts. If

57:20

you enjoy the show, please tell your

57:22

friends and loved ones. Please also consider

57:24

leaving us a five-star review. Coming

57:27

up next week on Spycast. I

57:30

adore driving classic cars because of that, because

57:32

you're much more involved in the process. It

57:34

is not something you can do absent-mindedly. I

57:36

think I've driven three or four different DB5s.

57:39

It's given me a newfound respect for the work

57:41

that Stunt Drivers did when they were shooting those

57:43

films and those sequences. If

57:46

you have feedback, you can reach us

57:48

by email at spycastatspymuseum.org or

57:51

on exatintlspycast. If

57:54

you go to our page at

57:56

thecyberwire.com/podcast slash spycast, you can find

57:58

links to further resources. and full

58:00

transcripts. I'm

58:02

your host Andrew Hammond and

58:04

my podcast content partner is

58:07

Aaron Dietrich. The rest of

58:09

the team involved in the show is Mike Mincey,

58:11

Memphis Bond III, Emily Colletta, Emily

58:13

Renz, Afu and Aqua, Ariel Samuel,

58:16

Elliot Peltzman, Trey Hester and

58:19

Jen Ivan. This show

58:21

is brought to you from the home

58:23

of the world's preeminent collection of intelligence

58:25

and espionage related artefacts, the

58:27

International Spy Museum.