Significant memorials in it. Every visitor to the agency comes through this entrance. Every new Agency Officer takes their oath of office here in this lobby. 107 of our fallen officers, commemorated on the wall of honor. They have walked across the to takeeal that morning their place in the lobby, and the father of Central Intelligence is watching over their shoulders. Close to ading sculpture of wild bill donovan, the father of Central Intelligence. Donovan was tasked by president roosevelt in 1942 to head the office of Strategic Services. That organization had grown out of an earlier one called coordinator of information, our first nondepartmental intelligence agency, established by president roosevelt to coordinate information the warence, with growing overseas. The single star behind us commemorates the loss of 116 who served during world war ii. The cia seal is a piece that everyone sees as a first come into the lobby. Some people do not like to walk across it. Some people walk around it. But you have seen movies filmed here in the lobby of people crossing the seal. The seal is an interesting piece, designed by the same army group echo heraldic that designed the tomb of the unknown soldier. It has the symbol of vigilance, the eagle. Everyone here works for the president of the United States, an executive agency. We carry on our badge is the great seal of the United States. You see a different eagle, with its wings spread, an eagle rampant. In its right talent, it holds the olive branch of peace. In the other, the arrows of war for the original 13 colonies. During world war ii, our country displayed a war eagle, which looked to the west. After the war, president truman decided we would no longer project a bellicose image, and had the eagle flipped. Our eagle looks to the right, it in an advancing position, with the olive branch of peace. Thee is a Defense Branch on seal. Intelligence is our first line of defense. You will see a 16 point compass rose that symbolizes information coming from all points of the globe to a central point. Our Mission Statement states that we are the nations first line of defense. We accomplish what others cannot accomplish, and go where others cannot go. We collect intelligence that matters. Provide strategic intelligence analysis. We conduct covert actions at the behest of the u. S. President , in support of u. S. Policy objectives. And we provide world class support services for all those functions. Our job is to transmit intelligence, via products like the president s daily reefing, to the policy makers, so they can make an informed decision about our National Security. Its970 two, cia celebrates 25th. I think that is the beginning of that look back over a history. The request to commemorate comes them, and the request to have a modest Little Museum starts them as well. The executive director at the time is william colby, and he says, let us look into the possibility of having a modest museum. er, walter,her oss to create a collection. Walter had been asked by allen dulles to create a special collection in the library just on intelligence. Over 25,000bers volumes on intelligence. Maybe a quarter of those are in english. The oldest is a codebook which goes back in 1606. It is not walters job to identify items of historical significance, to build a tangible collection of historical items. The collection grew by bits and pieces. Sometimes, people would simply draw drop objects on walters desk. Not a lot of documentation in the early days. One of our largest donors is found in collection. Today, we have best practices in place. The objects we take into the collection today are welldocumented. It is our job to collect the agencys tangible heritage, and to preserve and document that tangible heritage, which is now over 18,000 objects, and to put those objects in educational exhibits, to help give our visitors, and by extension the american people, through our traveling exhibit, other institutions, and website, a better understanding of the role that intelligence plays in our country. We are in our legacy gallery. This gallery is dedicated to the derringdo of the 14,000 men and women who served with cias process are, the office of Strategic Services. That organization was our countrys first nondepartmental intelligence agency. It would not have existed but for two men president roosevelt and general wild bill donovan. It is 1940. The war winds are blowing. Present roosevelt asks that those entities in our country to collect foreign intelligence coordinate it better. Back then, that would have been diplomats posted abroad. Defense attaches posted abroad. The fbi receives a brief to collect foreign intelligence in the western hemisphere. We know from our history books the coordination was not great enough. Frustration, president roosevelt dispatches a world war i hero to britain, to meet with British Intelligence. Donovan had been meeting in the United States with sir william stephenson, Canadian National signed to British Intelligence. Stephenson was running a covert Action Campaign to get the u. S. Involved in the war. We do not hold that against him. We consider him to be an architect of Central Intelligence, along with donovan. When stephenson finds out that donovan is going to britain to meet with reddish intelligence, he cables ahead and asks British Intelligence to open their doors to donovan. He knows donovan has the ear of the u. S. President. Both men had gone to colombia together. They were not close, but they knew each other. Donovan travels, before roosevelt goes in 19401941, each time writing detailed intelligence reports and giving the president his recommendations after he travels. Roosevelt decides he is going to create a new bureaucracy in 1941. He is going to call it the coordinator of information, attach it to himself at the white house, and have donovan head it. This is established on july 11, 1941. Pearl harbor hits that december. Coi is reorganized. The overt operations are put under the office of war, and the covert operations are put in an are put under military command, and that office is named covert Strategic Services. June 13, 1942. In building his organization, donovan is reaching out to people like you. He wants the best and the brightest in our country. He reaches into the military. He reaches into academic and private industry. If he has an operation that requires a document specialist, a forger or lock pick, you will reach into prison if you need that kind of talent. This picture you are about to see is the first cinematic study of the preparation, arrival, and establishment of permanent cover for secret agents. Over the course of its 3. 5 year history, maybe 25,000 men and women have passed through its ranks. At its peak, 13,000 men and women served. One of the gentlemen donovan brought on board to help train was william fairburn, a British SpecialOperations Executive major, who had been training the militia in shanghai. He taught handtohand combat, and one of the people he caught was richard helms. Richard helms, before the war, was a newspaper correspondent. He served in the navy as Lieutenant Commander. He had just returned from three weeks of temporary sea duty. He got a letter from a friend at oss saying, you might be interested in applying. He sends back a telegram. Received your letter. Am intrigued. Will be in touch. Helms signs up will stop one of signs up. He trains with fairburn. One of the things he is taught is handed him her using a knife. Hand to hand combat and using a knife. The trainer even wrote a book called get tough. The first thing he tells you to do is bring a gun to a knife fight. You do not want to be in a knife fight. If anybody pulls a gun on you, run like the dickens. We will meet richard harms helms again. He does not know he is going to become director of Central Intelligence in 1966 and serve until 1973. One of the more remarkable women who served with oss was Virginia Hall, a baltimore native who served as a clerk in the state department in the 1930s, with various postings. Warsaw, visit venice, turkey. While in turkey, she had a hunting accident. The trigger of her weapon caught and discharged the weapon into her left foot. Gangrene eventually set in and the doctor was forced to take her leg below the knee. She also had a wooden leg. She had been with state for about five years and was eager to join the diplomatic corps, but back then, there was a regulation that states would not post officers abroad who were missing major limbs. In frustration, she resigned and decided to travel in europe anyway, and got caught in france when world war ii broke out. She had studied in france and was fluent. So she stayed. She drove an ambulance for a while. Then British SpecialOperations Executive, the same organization fairburn worked for, recruited Virginia Hall to be the Radio Operator for an agent network. While in lyon, allied pilots who she had studied in france and had been shot down past through her hands to safety. Eventually, she was betrayed by one of her own agents, and had to escape. The gestapo put a warrant out, describing her as one of the most dangerous allied agents in france at the time. They called her the limping lady in french. She had nicknamed the leg cuthbert. Virginia, cuthbert, and her radio escaped over the pyrenees into spain. She was chased by klaus barbie, the butcher of lyon. She was captured by the spanish for about sixed months. When she got out, she radioed to london that she was safe, and mentioned in her message that cuthbert was giving her problems. She had never informed london of the nickname for the leg. She got back the message, if cuthbert is giving you problems, have him eliminated. She was eager to get back into france to continue fighting the war. In march of 1944, the office of Strategic Services inserted Virginia Hall back into occupied france two months in advance of dday. While there, she would take cheese that she had made into the local village as part of her cover for counting german troop movements and drop zones for the engagement. For the invasion. Early in the morning and other times late at night, from a different barn each time, as the painting we have in her collection shows, she sent 37 intelligence messages back to london. At the end of the war, president truman invites her to the white house to receive the only distinguished Service Cross presented to a female during the war. A female civilian during the war. This is one of our highest awards for valor. She is still in france and does not want the attention, so she declines the offer to go to the white house. Instead, General Donovan, with her mother at his side, in front of his desk, which we will see in a minute General Donovan presented the award to her three days before oss was resolved. Was dissolved. She remained in the field of intelligence and became one of cias first female case officers, retiring in 1966, and passed away in 1982. If you had been a spy during the civil war and needed a piece of espionage equipment, maybe you would have gone down to the local cobbler, and he would have made a special pair of boots with a secret compartment. So you could carry secret messages. But during world war ii, we are fighting a Global Intelligence war. Rather than having espionage equipment crafted for the individual, we need thousands of pieces. This necessitates a contract with private industry. The world war ii liberator pistol is a good example of that. There was a contract with the guideline division of General Motors to make an inexpensive weapon that could be airdropped into the resistance. For about 1. 72 each, about a million of them were made. That was in a threemonth time span. About 500,000 went to britain. 300,000 went to china. About 15,000 went to the philippines. It is a single shot 45. You used it to liberate a better weapon from your enemy. Called a liberator, or a woolworth gun, because of its inexpensive price. In the world of espionage there , is no such thing as technology too old for operations. In the mid1960s, cia looked back to what its world war ii predecessor had done to arm a native insurgency, and created what we called a denied area weapon. It is called a dear pistol. The standard ammunition was nine millimeter. Large stocks had been put aside for bay of pigs in 1961. This Program Comes along in the mid1960s, which specifically makes a nine millimeter weapon to use up the stocks. Airdropped in with a styrofoam case, cartoon instructions, no english required. The bullets turned upside down date from bay of pigs stock. No expensive deployment of this weapon. Following the pike and Church Committee hearings in 1975, and the agency was investigated by congress for alleged assassinations and rogue activities, and these stocks were ordered destroyed. It is very rare to even see one. I know of maybe four agencywide. This is the only one we have that is complete. The final gallery is dedicated to donovans office. In the photo above the desk, donovan is actually seated at his desk. This was his desk when he was director. Oss headquarters was down at 2430 e street. Donovans office was in the east building. Donovan was the most highly decorated officer of world war i, and the only american to receive our nations highest for ur medals the medal of honor, distinguished Service Cross, distinguished service medal, and National Security metal. Donovan was in france since 1918. He is there with the fighting 69th out of new york. They received in order to pull back. Instead, donovan stands up in front of his men, with his rank showing a lieutenant colonel. , he says, look at me. They cannot hit me, they cannot hit you. He led his men to take the german position. They are under attack on three sides. He is wounded in the leg, but refuses to be evacuated from the battlefield until his man and his men and the position are secure. In about five days of action, his battalion had 600 casualties, dead and wounded. It had been 1000 strong. He never forgot the sacrifice, and when he became director of the oss, he insisted his telephone extension be 600. On his desk, you see a sears and roebuck style catalog called the oss weapons catalog, a piece that stanley lowells Group Generated in 1942 that went out to various bases and stations around the world. Depending on your operation, you could pick so many grenades or so many liberator pistols, or so many acetone cellulose delay devices, or so many 22 caliber guns. Whatever you needed for your operational case, you could find it in this catalog. As the war was drawing to an end in 1945, General Donovan was very passionate about there being some sort of a postwar centralized intelligence agency, and he wrote memo after memo to both president roosevelt and truman, advocating for a postwar intelligence agency. But he lost the battle when it seemed one of those memos was released to the press. September 20, 1945, donovan received a letter from the white house that said, basically, we loved what you did for us during the war but do not need you anymore. Love and kisses, harry. Donovan was given just 10 days to dissolve his organization. By october 1, 1945, oss was history. It is not until 1947, with the National Security act, that we have the position of secretary of defense, the National Security council, the u. S. Air force, and cia. Donovan served on the nuremberg trials for a while. Eventually, president eisenhower names him as ambassador to thailand, but by then, donovan is already starting to show the ravages of arterial sclerosis of the brain, which eventually claims him on february 9, 1959. He is laid to rest in arlington cemetery, up on the hill with some of the Major Military leaders from our countrys history. And you would go there expecting to see a monumental headstone to General Donovan, the father of Central Intelligence, the military hero, this highly decorated american officer of world war i. But instead, you will see the ordinary soldiers headstone. But it will say medal of honor on it. You remember young Lieutenant Commander richard helms. We met him earlier in the gallery. At the end of the war, it seems he may have been one of the First AmericanIntelligence Officers to get into hitlers bunker in bavaria, where he very well could have picked up this piece of hitlers letterhead. The historical record does not indicate exactly where he may have picked it up. But on victory in europe day, he writes this note to his threeyearold son. Dear dennis, the man some might who might have written on this card once controlled europe three short years ago. When you are born today, he is dead. His memory despised, his country in ruins. He had a thirst for power and a low opinion of man as an individual. And a fear of intellectual honesty. He was a force for evil in the world. His passing, his defeat, a boon for mankind. But thousands died that it might be so. The price is always high. Helms was a newspaperman before the war. He knew how to write. I marvel that this young father had the sense of history to create an artifact for his son. 66 years later, dennis directs this piece to our collection. We received it the very day that we, as well as you, heard that bin laden was dead. The price for ridding society of bad is always high. So when the agency was created in 1947, it occupied the headquarters of its world war ii predecessor, the office of Strategic Services. Those headquarters were down at 2430 e street. Theyre on navy hill. Today, by the state department. Between the Kennedy Center and the state department. This is the original headquarters sign. It has an interesting story behind it. It seems that eisenhower and his brother milton were on their way home from church one fine sunday, and ike turned to his brother and says, i need you to see allen dulles at cia headquarters. Our understanding is that the white house driver that day cannot find the compound. I imagine the phone call the next day went Something Like this. Look, you people are not fooling the city of washington. Your cia down there in those buildings, your white house drivers cannot find it. Put a sign up. This would be the sign. My job as cia museum director, as you can imagine, is the best job in the world. You are asking me to define the best job in the world. It is a job that puts me next to the men and women of this agency, who on a day to day basis make history through what they do. Through the operations that they run in remote parts of the world, the intelligence they gather from agents they have recruited, who share our belief in freedom and risk their own lives to help keep our country safe, to our analysts, some of the most brilliant people in our country work for this agency, people who could make a lot more money working in private industry, but are here because they believe in service to nation, and excellence. They recognize the courage of many of their colleagues, and the sacrifices that they make to collect that intelligence. All of us are stewards of that history, whether it is classified or unclassified. It is up to us to protect it. Every day, we touch on agency equities, forces, and methods in the museum. It is part of our job to protect those as well, and not do anything by telling a story that might give away too much of the secrecy behind that operation. So this is a very delicate balance that we play in the museum, is how to tell a complete story, a good story. How to make it inspirational and educational and still keep it unclassified. This is definitely one of our challenges. Our officers, every day, i have asked them what keeps them coming to work every day. And i think any one of them would tell you that it is knowing every day that what you do makes a difference, that by doing what you do in your job, you can move the ball forward. You can help keep our country safe. It is an incredible mission, and it is truly an honor to be a part of it. In part two of our tour of the cia museum, we will meet spies from the animal kingdom, ca model of the artist see a model of the above about pakistan compound where Osama Bin Laden was killed, and learn about the president s daily briefing. For more information about the cia museum, visit their website, cia. Gov. You can watch american artifacts programs online anytime. Go to cspan. Org history. This is American History tv. All weekend, every weekend, on cspan3. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] this year, cspan is touring cities, exploring American History. Up next, a look at our recent visit to des moines, iowa. All weekend, every weekend, American History on cspan 3. Americans have tried to bypass iowa, either because they do not think the party is a good fit for what their message might be. Sometimes they are worried they cannot campaign here because they are against certain issues that are important in iowa. As problem is that as long the media continues to Pay Attention to the iowa