From: Otis Willie
Newsgroups: alt.politics.org.fbi
Subject: Declassified: A Spy Museum Opens in Washington, by PHIL PATTON
Organization: The American War Library
NNTP-Posting-Host: 206.170.209.189
NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 18:36:07 EDT
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 22:36:07 GMT
Declassified: A Spy Museum Opens in Washington, by PHIL PATTON
(EXCERPT) WASHINGTON — "We were Q," said Jonna Mendez, a former chief
of disguise for the Central Intelligence Agency, referring to the
British technical expert who came up with whiz-bang weaponry for Agent
007. Mrs. Mendez and her husband, Antonio J. Mendez, are alumni of the
C.I.A. Office of Technical Affairs. At what they sometimes call "the
Magic Kingdom," they devised spy gadgets, bogus documents and
disguises.
But unlike Q, who simply handed the gadgets over to James Bond, "we
weren't just going to let James break some million-dollar device,"
Mrs. Mendez said. "We went along with James to be sure he knew how to
use it."
Lately the Mendezes have been playing a new role: they helped design
the $40 million International Spy Museum in Washington, to open on
Friday, at 800 F Street NW, a few blocks from the Federal Bureau of
Investigation headquarters.
The museum, a for-profit venture developed by some of the founders of
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, contains
artifacts, many drawn from the collection of the military historian H.
Keith Melton, along with interactive installations and multimedia
exhibits. The devices include an overcoat with a camera lens in one of
its buttons, tripped with a pocket shutter. "If...
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http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/17/arts/design/17SPY.html?pagewanted=print&position=top
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