I Spy

The 2012 Bollywood spy-action-thriller, Ek Tha Tiger, directed by Kabir Khan, recently became the first Hindi film to be featured at the International Spy Museum’s Hall of Fame. While spy thrillers may be all the rage on OTT platforms right now, people have been spying ever since the world began — whether with the help of silk maps, pigeon cameras or lipstick pistols. This museum in Washington DC takes the experience to the next level, offering an immersive look into the world of espionage, from historical intelligence operations to modern-day spycraft.

The International Spy Museum documents the tradecraft and history as well as the crucial role that intelligence and espionage have played in shaping the world. With over 10,000 spy artefacts, including spy gadgets, weapons, cameras and vehicles, the museum holds a Guinness Book of World Records for the collection of largest number of espionage artefacts in the world. The museum connects the capital city’s history as a hub for intelligence agencies with first-person accounts from top intelligence officers and experts as well as numerous fascinating stories from across the globe.

“When most people think of spying, they think of human spies and gadgets. So, here we tell a variety of stories of spies from various places and times that have had different attributes,” explained Amanda Ohlke, adult education director at the museum, who showed me around the museum in detail. Engaging for all ages, interactive games at the museum also get visitors to test their spy skills, and experience the excitement first hand.

During the museum tour, I learnt some amazing stories, including many about Indian spies. For instance, the story of Ravindra Kaushik, who recruited by Indian intelligence, trained for two years to pass as a Pakistani Muslim — learning Urdu and even getting circumcised. In 1978, Kaushik slipped into Pakistan, enlisted in the army and rose to major, all the while passing a lot of information to India. In 1983, Pakistan arrested and tortured him, where he died in a jail in 2001.

Over the decades, some of the most unsuspecting objects have been used for spycraft. In the 1960s, an American diplomat in an East European country put his shoes to be shined outside his hotel room door. The local counterintelligence service there secretly outfitted the heel of his shoes with a hidden microphone and transmitter. During the Cold War, the CIA used the belly of dead rats as places to hide messages, money and film to be passed onto agents. The rats would be doused with pepper sauce to deter scavenging cats. Further, glasses, wigs, disguise dentures and fake pregnant bellies have all been used as concealment devices. For women agents, jewellery and makeup concealments have often been designed to be worn, carried in a purse or left discreetly on bedroom dressers.

Not many people probably know that when World War II erupted, Academy award-winning filmmaker John Ford was a Naval Reserve officer. Ford’s wartime work for the Office of Strategic Services earned him the Legion of Merit and Medal of Freedom for service to the nation. Similarly, before becoming a well-known celebrity chef, Julia Child worked directly for the OSS as part of America’s wartime spy agency. Child was one of only a few female OSS employees deployed to Sri Lanka and China, where she tracked highly classified documents as chief of the OSS Registry. She went onto receive an Emblem of Meritorious Civilian Service.

The museum documents other little-known stories, particularly of women spies, over the years. Virginia Hall, or the “Limping Lady”, an incredible trailblazing woman of her time, challenged to fight many conventions to work in the foreign service. Soon after she lost a leg in a hunting expedition accident, World War II broke out. Armed with a prosthetic leg, Hall went to France as a journalist, where she volunteered as an ambulance driver and eventually began working for the British. The British eventually awarded her the coveted MBE order, and she went onto become an early woman employee of the CIA.

World War I spy Mata Hari’s flamboyance, theatrical career and methods of seduction probably make her the most famous female spy in history. In 1916, Mata Hari drew the attention of British, French and German intelligence. Interestingly, she also performed in her home in France with Indian Sufi musician Inayat Khan, in his band.

Another intriguing story is that of Noor Inayat Khan, who was trained as a radio operator with Britain’s Women Auxiliary Air Force.

In 1943, recruited by the Special Operations Executive, she became the first female wireless operator sent to occupied France. To evade capture, she changed her appearance regularly and always radioed from different locations. In 1946, France awarded her the Croix de Guerre with Gold Star. Three years later, Britain awarded her the George Cross, its second-highest honour. London unveiled a bust of Noor Khan in 2012, and in 2014 the Royal Mail issued a set of stamps in their Remarkable Lives series featuring this unlikely hero.

Needless to say, given the vast nature of information, there are several challenges related to curation, research and credibility in putting together a museum of this scale. “We had to once CT scan a pen, because we knew if we opened it and found something, we would ruin the whole mechanism,” Aliza Bran, director of media relations at the museum, cited an example. The museum is a highly dynamic institution, which regularly adds new material and updates their stories based on trends, research and technology in the field from across the world.

A relatively recent exhibit is on the Ukraine war, which began in 2014 and escalated into a full-scale Russian invasion in 2022. The exhibition provides a snapshot into the multifaceted war, featuring a selection of artefacts acquired from the conflict and shared with the museum. “We cover at least 44 countries in the museum, and we’re constantly looking for new stories to tell and new ways to tell them,” Bran concluded.