Real spies, not James Bond, take spotlight at new spy museum

Posted May 7, 2019 9:25 am.

This article is more than 5 years old.

WASHINGTON — James Bond’s shiny silver sports car greets visitors as they step into the new and improved International Spy Museum that opens Sunday in Washington.

After that, it’s as if the fictional life of Hollywood’s most famous private eye vanishes into invisible ink.

The stories of real-life and modern-day espionage take centre stage at the new $162 million museum.

The old, cramped museum focused exclusively on human collection of intelligence. The new one also offers a window into covert operations, counterterrorism, intelligence analysis, cyber espionage, intelligence failures and even highly debated legal and ethical issues, such as waterboarding.

There are about 1,000 artifacts of spycraft on display, including code-breaking equipment, hidden cameras — even the ice-climbing axe used in the bloody assassination of Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky.

Deb Riechmann, The Associated Press

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