Saturday, January 26, 2008

Spy Museum

So I got stir-crazy today and decided to do a museum in DC. Let's see - National Gallery of Art, Air and Space, or.... the Spy Museum!

The International Spy Museum won... and it was an interesting experience. Perhaps best visited on a weekday, when crowds are a little less, this is not a "free form" wander-about type museum. You are funneled through rooms that are crammed with exhibits from the origins of spying in ancient times to the spy technology of the 21st century. Although, interestingly, that exhibit was really, really small. I guess they just don't want us to know what going on now!

Did you know that there are more spies operating in Washington DC today than any other city in the world? I find this a bit of a stretch, since cities like Hong Kong, Beijing, Moscow, London and Paris have far larger populations and are much easier to access (with the exception of Beijing, I suppose). But, whatever, it does get you to think.

Overall, it's a great experience and well worth the $18 price of admission. I think that I liked the Imperial War Museum better (probably because I could wander around at will), but I would recommend this to any visitor to DC.

However, be warned that at the end of the tour, there is a propaganda film called Truth on the Ground which is kind of an eye-roller. They try to make the point that our current world is more dangerous than ever and that technology hasn't helped make the results of spying less consequential. Truly, the government has more ways to effectively spy now than ever before - and the gap between the ordinary citizen's ability to detect this spying and the government's ability to do it is widening every minute. That's the "Truth on the Ground" for real, today.

1 comment:

Rhea said...

I went to the Spy Museum when it first opened. I was really impressed. I'd never had a museum experience quite like it.