International Spy Museum

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International Spy Museum

Established	July 2002
Location	800 F Street Northwest Washington, DC United States
Type	History
Director	Peter Earnest^[1]
Public transit access	Gallery Place–Chinatown station (Metrorail)
Website	www.spymuseum.org

The International Spy Museum is a privately owned museum dedicated to the field of espionage located in the Penn Quarter neighborhood of Washington, D.C., and one block west of the Gallery Place-Chinatown Metro station.

The museum was built by The Malrite Company at a cost of US$40 million. Despite being one of the few museums in Washington that charges admission fees^[2], it has been immensely popular since its opening in July 2002.

The over 600 artifacts in over 20,000 square feet (1900 m²) of exhibition space^[3] relate the entire history of espionage and spies in real-world practice and in popular culture. The museum has extensive exhibits on espionage methods and materials dating from the Greek and Roman empires, the British empire, the American Revolutionary War, the American Civil War, the World Wars, and the post-WWII Cold War years.

Most of the exhibit areas bring visitors into the era's espionage environment. Numerous visitor-interactive stations are located throughout the exhibit areas. At the terminus of the exhibit area an 8-minute feature film updates and describes how modern technology has changed the face of warfare and terrorism.

A unique feature of the museum is its controlled entry, where visitors are given 5 minutes to memorize details of one of 16 spy profiles they are to assume (fictitious name, age, place of birth, destination, and so forth) before they are allowed to proceed into the exhibit area. Later while touring the museum visitors may test themselves at an interactive display on how well they remember the details of their selected spy identity. They may also be stopped occasionally by museum guides acting as "police" and "questioned" about their assumed identity.

The museum has also another interactive exhibition, where people can feel and act like a spy. They get a passport, change indentity and gather information to stop a bomb. This exhibition got moving elevators, movable security cameras and audio and video effects. The exhibition is called "operation spy".

Critics have noted that several of the museum's board members are former Central Intelligence Agency agents, that it glosses over criticism of the CIA, and generally romanticizes intelligence work.^[4] Nevertheless, the collaboration with various members of the intelligence community has imparted authenticity to the exhibits.

The museum complex includes an extensive gift shop featuring espionage books, DVDs, clothing, and other "memorabilia"; the "Spy City Cafe" snack shop; and an adjacent upscale restaurant, the "Zola".