On this day after church, the A, B, C kids decided it was time to go to the Spy Museum, so we did!
Since our last visit, the Spy Museum moved from the North side of the National Mall to the South side at L’Enfant Plaza.
CHURCH’S FRIED CHICKEN FOR LUNCH
That was a double win for us because it meant that for the first time since moving to Virginia in 2009, we enjoyed Church’s Fried Chicken!
Mr. B (my son) and Miss C (my daughter) thrilled to introduce Mr. A (my daughter’s fiancé) to this eating establishment, and he was not disappointed!
Personally, I am much impressed that they kept the flavors true to Texas!
It tasted like home.
ASSUMING SPY IDENTITIES
Inside the International Spy Museum, we assumed spy identities for our first assignment.
Receiving a special code that we wore on a lanyard, we used that throughout the museum as we received our missions.
VENETIAN SECRET SERVICE
My kids and I studied a lot about Venice when we studied the Southern Renaissance.
Venice was very important economically (silk, glass, and ships) so it was important to protect trade secrets so they created the Venetian Secret Service.
They encouraged the citizens to speak up, or to actually put accusations in the mouth of the lion.
This lion reminds me of Roman Holiday with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck, when he puts his hand into the lion’s mouth and screams to teasingly psych her out.
When Peck suggested the idea to the director, he highly agreed but didn’t tell Hepburn, so the scene we see in the movie is the only take of her raw reaction…and took well!
JAMES ARMISTEAD LAFAYETTE
Our first stop was one of my favorite spy stories of the American Revolution: James Armistead Lafayette.
The slave, James Armistead, was assigned to Gen. Lafayette who didn’t approve of slavery.
Instead, Lafayette strategically used him as a spy against the British.
Posing as a runaway slave, Armistead worked as a double agent while spying on Gen. Cornwallis.
Meanwhile Gen. Lafayette (in Virginia) kept in correspondence with Washington (in New York) regarding the situation of the British in Virginia.
These letters dated July 31, 1781, contain significant details on the British that led to their ultimate defeat at Yorktown, which effectively ended the American Revolution.
After the war, Gen. Lafayette wrote a letter to the Virginia General Assembly to confirm James’ service to the Continental Army and requested his freedom.
Once freed, James Armistead took the name Lafayette as his new surname.
HOLLYWOOD’S HEDY LAMARR
Hollywood star Hedy Lamarr helped develop technology called “frequency hopping” which was used in WWII.
This technology allowed radio-controlled torpedoes to reach their targets without fear of being intercepted.
Today we use this technology in the form of wifi and bluetooth.
COLD WAR
One of the exhibits was to walk through the streets of Berlin where they had displayed portions of the now fallen wall.
At the end of the day when I plugged in my code from my lanyard, I found a surveillance video of my cautiously walking through Berlin. 😉
Cool! Wish I could have kept that, but spies don’t do that type of thing, unless you’re James Bond, whose every move was recorded in the movies.
JAMES BOND
On my next trip to the museum, perhaps I’ll wear 1960s attire and do lots of photo shoots, especially near his car seen in the header photo. =)
INTELLIGENCE OFFICER SIMULATION ROOM
While I sat at the desk at the right, someone else sat at the desk on the left to assume the job of intelligence officers.
We were presented with a real scenario from the recent past with actual pieces of intelligence.
Which ones were dead ends, and which were significant enough to move us forward in the mission?
Given choices galore on our computerized tables, we touched and swiped options on the tabletop to make our choices that were relayed to the screen in front.
As we each chose the options we thought best, the messaging on the front screen described if we had a hit or a miss.
Points were tallied and we had a time limit to correct mistakes, so speed and precision was essential to the mission, as in real life.
I did quite well.
This, too, was documented, with a lot of other information in my coded card on my spy lanyard as was all of the other missions in which I participated.
How cool to have documentation of my spymaster work at the end of the day.
