Transcripts For CSPAN2 CIA 20240706

Museum at the cia. Mr. Byer, whats the point of having a museum that isnt open to the public . This is the museum for so many different parts of our agency. Its 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 and its also to inform our guests, people who come to headquarters, our partners, help them understand our history, what weve done in the past and also, on shows like this, helping the American Public understand the role of intelligence in our democracy. Well, the cia is about 75 years old right now. Is this 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. On the 25th anniversary of cia, we were asked to create a museum. Not that i was around for that, but thats where the museum started as a way to preserve the agencys history and so, its 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 structure of the museum to reflect our new mission. Instead of it being stove piped by directate, we have five core mission threads woven through the entire museum. In addition to the threads, we have chronological history of cia not just through the artifacts, but as you look on the ceiling, you will see theres a chronological history of codes on our ceiling, starting off with morris code from the beginning and by the time its in the digital age, its in binary code. How can you become the director of the cia museum . Whats your background . So, interestingly enough, i came to the agency as a film producer. They needed to do a documentary series about the history of cia and it was a wonderful experience. Ive been swimming in the history of the agency ever since. My guess is that there are added difficulties because of the classifications and secrets that the cia naturally have and creating a museum. Theres a security overlay at cia that we all have to Pay Attention to in order to make sure our operations are kept closely guarded, so that were 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 has been declassified. Nothing in our museums that well walk through is still classified, but that doesnt mean in our collection that we dont have quite a few of those as well. So how often do you have guests here, do cia employees come through . Whats wonderful about our museum is that its actually in the hallway space of the agency. The motto of cia museum is to instruct, inform and inspire by having it in the all hallway space of the cia, allows our officers on the way to work to see their history, to see an artifact or something that might relate to what theyre doing today. Well, why dont we take a tour . Great, lets go. So, rob byer, were at the beginning of the museum, its 1947. Whats 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 theyre not able to be put together in order to warn the president of an incoming attack. Because of pearl harbor, the office of Strategic Services is created. Oss. Oss. Major General Donovan is in charge and basically they create the modern intelligence apparatus. All of the directates here at cia are created during world war ii and a lot of the ways that we do our operations today, the lineage 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. Theyre worth thousands of dollars now, but 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, norway, all throughout europe that they needed a way to pay for things for their existence in those countries and these gold coins were the perfect way in order to buy things that they needed, supplies, guns, food, anything. 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, whats 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 into afghanistan, the types of operations were doing behind enemy lines in afghanistan really no different than what 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 medal of honor winner during world war i. During the inner war period becomes a very successful businessman, lawyer, collecting information from all over the world. In fact, he was invited to witness the 1938 invasion by italy. So he would take this information and report it back to a very good friend of his, a guy named Franklin Delano roosevelt so because of this, roosevelt knew that he would be a good person to head up an Intelligence Organization. So, rob byer, 1947, harry truman is on a mural behind you on the wall. Was it his idea to incorporate the cia or was that bill donovans idea . Donovan had always been pushing for a peace time Intelligence Organization. At the end of world war ii, so many war time organizations just were dissolved bus everyone wanted to come home, but truman realized that he was going to need a peace time 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 wanted was a newspaper that would give him information that he couldnt get anywhere else, so, starting with the daily summary, which is a collection 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 every morning delivered not only to the president of the United States, but to our top policy makers to help them, inform them, on information they literally cant get anywhere else. The most exclusive reading list of all time . One of the most interesting things about cia that people dont realize is that were truly a newspaper, right . We send our reporters out into the field, known as case officers. They collect that information. Bring it back to the agency for our analysts to 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 display is actually the president s intelligence checklist. And this is a special intelligence checklist. The pickle, as it was known, because the acronym for the president s intelligence checklist is picl. Were known as the pickle factory in the 1960s. And all of these types of newspapers, as it were, theyre especially created for each president. President kennedy wanted something new, he wanted something to put in his pocket, look at during the day, so they created the checklist, the picl, and it was Something Special for president kennedy. So on 22 november, 1963, the date that president kennedy is assassinated, the picl staff created a very special edition of the president s intelligence checklist. As you see, its 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. The president elect gets a daily brief as well. Thanks to truman, that policy has continued to this day. When truman came into office he didnt know what was going on. He didnt know about the manhattan project, didnt know about any war plans and felt that anyone who was going to become the president of the United States, needed to have this information ahead of time. And so, when Adlai Stevenson and general eisenhower were up for election, he gave them access to the daily summary so that they could know what he was seeing and help them prepare. And when the candidate becomes the 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 full swing. A lot of spy gadgets come out of that, dont they . There really was an iron curtain over the soviet block and it was incredibly hard to get in there, get what we call, as our assets, our sources of information, to help us understand what was going on behind that soviet iron curtain. And so, we needed disguises. We needed equipment that would help our assets get the information we needed, things like the microdot camera that would basically take a picture of a document and shrink it down to the size of a dot. These are the types of things that we would give to our assets in order to collect that information. And youve got 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, that gray area between direct military action and diplomacy. And so, with this iron curtain spread out over the soviet area, we needed a way to get information into the soviet union as well. And one of the ways was taking a Nobel Prize Winning author and his book and shrink it go down to a miniature version, so we took the gulag archipelago, and put it in a can and seal it in there. Those are 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 siberia so that 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 household can, correct . The great thing about intelligence work if you try to be ordinary. You try to make everything look like nothing is out of place. So, if youre going to smuggle something in, you want to use Something Like an ordinary can to put your contraband, your books that cant be produced in that country, in that can and then get it into the country. Also on display are bags and disguises. How were those used during the cold war . So, one of the hardest things about operating in the soviet union is the constant surveillance. The kgb is everywhere, they know everyone, theyre looking at everything. So when our officers are going out to meet with our assets, it is a very dangerous proposition, so if theyre photographed together, that could mean disaster for that asset. And so, disguise is a great way to make sure that the kgb at least for a little while isnt able to follow our officers as theyre doing their mission. Now, rob byer, one of the goal of the cia is to turn assets, turn soviets into assets and youve got photos of some of the soviets who were cia agents and also how they communicated with the u. S. Our first big asset in the soviet union was a guy named popov and he gave us information and unfortunately he was caught. While in jail cell he wanted to communicate 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, wrote down this note and had his wife smuggle it out to us so that we would know what had happened to him and to make sure that we werent being fooled by the new information the kgb was trying to plant through him. And thats very delicate and very small print, that was that hard to maintain over the years . When you look at this artifact, you realize, a, you know, the passion and commitment that popov had to doing whatever he could do to bring down the soviet regime and even 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. And so, luckily, that toilet paper, from the soviet union, is very sturdy stuff and weve been able to make sure its preserved all of these years. As you can see, its kept in this drawer to keep the light levels low on it and to make sure its wellpreserved for generations to come. Is popov considered a cia hero . Popov and all of these assets on the wall are all considered heroes. A lot of them gave their lives for this cause. Some of them refused to be exfiltrated out ever the soviet union because they were so committed to getting as much information as they could. Another one thats on this wall, oleg penkoskie, he was the colonel in the intelligence. Many, many times we asked to exfiltrate him out and he said im here until the end. I want to get you as much information as i can. Rob byer, how would we identify each other if we were on streets of moscow and we wanted to know whether or not it was safe to talk . One of our legendary case officers the handler for them was Charles Keith walter and he wanted a system so that an asset would know his handler in public. They might not have ever met before. So one way he came up with an idea was to have both of them have the identical cuff links. So you can see on display over here, those cuff links that were used in one of these operations, so that popov could know that the cia handler was who they said they were. Before we move on, i want to reference the ceiling and where we are when it comes to coded messages. Right. So if you look at our ceiling, at the very beginning with start off with morris cold. During the cold war, we have a message hidden in cyrillic. Eventually were going to get all of these hidden messages up online so people can try their hand at decoding these messages and you know, let us know what they find out. By the way, some of the artifacts that were seeing today in the museum, are they available for people to see online . We have on cia. Gov a very robust catalog of many different artifacts you can see in the museum. Check out cia. Gov. We have a twitter account as well and you can look at many different 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 cant go in, what if you go over . And there was this period of time of incredible creativity to try 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. Did. And that really worried people over here. So president eisenhower came to cia and said, we need to know, and so, what did the cia do . If 18 months 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 more airplanes from the soviet union can get to it. And on its very first pass over the soviet union it collects information on their military air bases and dispells the bomber gap. In fact, we had many, many more bombers than they did. And so, president eisenhower refers to the photograph from the u2, its a Million Dollar photograph because every photograph that showed one less bomber than we thought meant that he didnt have to build another bomber here. So, worth a Million Dollars at least. Because of the u2 program and how important it was, we recognized that eventually the soviet union would figure out a way to get to an airplane at 70,000 feet. And so, we came up with two different overhead reconnaissance platforms. The first was going to be a follow on aircraft. Its called the a12 and its a technological marvel. In the late 50s, youre talking about a plane that flew at 90,000 feet, thats miles higher than the u2. Flew it over mach3, thats so fast, it could outrace missiles fired at it and made out of titanium material that gave it stealth capabilities in the 1950s. However, the technological leap cause add lot of delays so the over overhead reconnaissance platform came online faster than the a12 and that was the corona satellite system. Literally months after the u2 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 earth, take photos of it. And then, that photograph, those bucket from the corona satellite would be ejected and float down and parachute down where a plane would snag it out of the air and developed the 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, there are two places for the film to go and be looked at under the microscope. Basically this creates stereoscopic vision that enables the interpreters to glean more from that overhead imagery. Now, thats a pretty technical and that seems like a top secret thing you 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 system has been declassified at this point. We have other ways of getting information from satellites, 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 . Theres a movie called the bridge of spies, a wonderful movie about the u2 program. And the one thing i would take issue, portrays 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 artifact of that p that he used to testify in front of congress. The model in 1962 when he was testifying. Right, we have that model on display here at cia. So when people come in, film producers and hollywood wants to come in and make movies about the cia, how often in your view do they get it right . 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 its great to be able to show them all the different artifacts here and help them, inform them on the movies that theyre working on. In my opinion, sometimes they get it right, sometimes they get it wrong. One thing you always know about hollywood is that theyre going to converge stories together instead of 30 people involved in an operation, like for instance, the story of argo, its not just tony mendez, its a whole crew, a whole operational crew that make sha story happen, but of course, you cant follow all of those threads in a movie so you have to follow and focus on just one person. Well, lets go learn the story of argo. Argo is an incredibly fascinating story for the cia 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 and about that day, so when they saw what had happened, they took refuge with the canadians. Because of that, we had to figure out a way, how are we getting them out of the country . And so, tony mendez, who is the one, the architect of this idea, he said, he came up with the best bad idea they could think of. And this was what is sort of the back story of the people who are there and why are they, now, 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. And the history of argo is that we knew of the Makeup Artist on who was brought in to consult on the initial script for argo. So he knew tony and so when tony said, i need a script that would have a middle east location to it, can you think of a movie . And he said ive got the perfect one for you. Called argo. Didnt do anywhere, bought it for a few thousand bucks. Over the weekend set out a production crew, a production studio out in hollywood and they even take out ads in variety magazine about argo and even have a reading of the script argo, bringing in actors to read it over. So people are getting interested in this movie argo. But the real story, its just going to be a back story, so that when tony goes his partner over to iran and they go through that airport to leave the country, if theyre questioned by anyone, thisll say were part of the location crew for the movie argo and tell them all about what theyve done and show the back story, ads in variety magazine, that sort of thing, so that, you know, we make sure to get them out safely. My favorite part of the story is when tony mendez gets on the flight to leave iran, one of the state Department Officers looks at him and says, tony, you guys thought of everything and tony goes, what do you mean . And well, this was a swift air flight so they had painted the plane to reflect one of the cities in switzerland and so that was the city of argau they were getting on the plane and i think thats a great end to the story. They get on the plane and off to freedom. So, a lot of the movie argo is pretty accurate sounds like . In the movie argo, theres a lot of historical accuracy to the movie in fact they filmed here at headquarters to make sure they had to historical accuracy which is something we dont normally do, but they also, you know, by the end of the movie, i think maybe go a little bit astray. I dont think there was gunfire on the, you know, tarmac as the plane was leaving, but thats hollywood, you know . Youve got to juice it up. The truth is, there are so many different parts to the movie argo and its reflected in the movie about how complex it was to carry it out. Well, you mentioned Anthony Mendez and hes passed away. His wife is widow is still alive, i believe,jana mendez, but theyve written books about their work with the cia. What was his role . Tony mendez was the chief of disguise here at cia and 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 dont know about his partner and thats also a bit of something here at cia thats very different. You might learn about one part of the story, but theres a whole part of the story that might take years or even decades before you find out the whole story. And so, one day, perhaps this partner will tell his side of the story and youll learn even more about the story of argo. Is tony mendezs 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 ad. He was a graphics artist. After he retired, he became a painter, so, its great to have his trade craft on display here at cia. So back to the argo operation, in tehran. That was a pretty risky operation for the canadians to undertake and the americans . One thing ill impress about the story much argo, how important partnerships are and our relationship with canada, obviously, a long time 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 that highlight individuals here at cia and someone of the innovator cases, we focus on Barbara Robbins. Barbara was only 21 years old when she was over in saigon during the vietnam war, a truck carrying explosives from the viet cong 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, condolence letter and we now have that on display along with a posthumus medal given to their family. They donated it to us just this past year, thanks to her brother, we were able to get these artifacts and have them on display here at headquarters. So, its something were very honored to have and were 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, a classified story . Are deaths of cia officers declassified over years . On our Memorial Wall, youll 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 at benghazi, director pompeo released their names to the public, and so, every year, as i said, the director is always looking to see if those names can be shared. But because 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. Well, one of the more recent parts of cia history is the assassination of Osama Bin Laden, look at some of the artifacts there. Seeing this is relatively recent history, when was this declassified, is this newly declassified stuff . The abadabad raid was the declassified, and the newest were the boots of one member 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 three different attack sites. Weve got a safe from the World Trade Center buildings, weve got 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 finally a medal and ribbon that belonged to the young naval officer on that day. When the plane crashed, jet fuel washed over his body and 70 of his body was burned. And took him years to recover, and president bush came to the hospital, is there anything i can do something for you. One request, i want to work for the cia and be part of the targeting team for Osama Bin Laden. And he got a coin to each member of the assault team for the mission that they accomplished and that mission that happens in 2011, almost 10 years after 9 11, starts with cia tracking a courier to Osama Bin Laden back to a compound in abadabad. And thats what you see behind me, the National Intelligence agency model, theyre rendering that is used to brief the president and having this type of model really gives people an understanding of why there was so much suspension about this compound, who was living there, and if Osama Bin Laden was actually there. So president obama saw this model that were looking at here . So this model is a replica. National geospatial Intelligence Agency has the 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 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 the decision to carry out a raid. And luckily, thanks to one of our secret facilities, we build basically a full scale sized model of the compound of abadabad. And so the assault Team Officers can practice on that, and know everything about where theyre going to go. Even when that helicopter crashes into the dirt at abadabad, the officers get out and able to make sure that they are able to do the mission successfully. One of those officers on that helicopter, this was his last operation before he retired, and so we have his boots in our collection and were really honored to have them. You can actually see that the dirt on the boots is from abadabad because this was his last operation. So, thats something were really happy to have here in the collection. And what is the rifle thats 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 are we when it comes to the ceiling right now . At this juncture, were at the end of the chronological history of cia so we get into the digital age and as you look up on the ceiling, youll see that its now in binary code. So for the digital age where the next frontier of intelligence, we wanted to make sure we had a bit of the binary code and the digital age in our ceiling as well. Robert byer, weve talked about some of the assets that the cia was able to turn in moscow, but the u. S. Has had traitor problems as well, correct . I think one of the most damaging traitors weve had in our midst is rick ames, basically caused the death of dozens of cia assets in the soviet union and thanks to the team of jean and other people working with her hunting down rick ames, we were able to minimize full extent of his damages and shows how important Counter Intelligence 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 Hanson over at fbi, and anna montez, she was a spy for cuba and worked for the defense Intelligence Agency. So these people, its so painful when you find out that theyve betrayed your trust and so this gallery shows why its so important to make sure we keep our Counter Intelligence measures strong here at cia. So in this gallery, we have a lot of different artifacts related to these traitors. We have the monitor that ames used at his computer station. Weve got a car from Robert Hanson, as well as the badge for anna montez, who was just 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, 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 were here at cia headquarters and that security overlay doesnt allow visitors to come in from off the street, but we hope that the American Public can see these artifacts through social media and understand the role of cia in our democracy a little better. Robert byer, we appreciate your time. Thank you for coming in today. Cspan now, is a free mobile app featuring your unfiltered view of what happens in washington. Live and on demand. 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