We know that a new Steven Spielberg/Tom Hanks feature film relating to the Cold War will open on Oct. 16. It's called Bridge of Spies, and it's about an aspect of the shootdown of Francis Gary Powers's U2 spy plane. The focus is on the secret negotiations to exchange Powers for Rudolph Abel, a convicted Soviet spy then serving time in a US prison. We know about this in part because one of co-founders of our museum is Francis Gary Powers, Jr., the son of the pilot, and he is a technical advisor on the film.
That leads to a question. Our main mission is to educate about the Cold War. We have some quite unusual artifacts that aid in telling about aspects of the Cold War, including film from an SR-71 reconnaissance plane (even Udvar-Hazy doesn't have that) which our visitors can view, film from a Corona satellite that has been in outer space, a variety of purpose-built surveillance receivers from various Cold War time periods, a Soviet SA-2 missile (currently on loan to COSI, the large sci-tech center in Columbus), a fragment of the U2 shot down over Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis, a large (8' wingspan) model of a U2, etc. We're also located on a former top-secret Army signals intelligence base in the DC suburbs that was effectively America's Bletchley Park during WWII. There's more information at our site (coldwar.org)
The question is: since we are a small museum, we can only show a small fraction of our collections. We'd like to educate about the Cold War at other museums that might want to supplement an exhibit of their own with some of our artifacts, which is what's happening right now at COSI. We've got two of our artifacts (a STASI interrogation room door and one of Aldrich Ames's drop boxes) on long-term loan at the Spy Museum, and we've done short-term loans to the American Museum of Science and Energy, the Truman Museum and Library, and COSI, but we're not sure how to locate other potential partners going forward, especially since we think that the new movie noted above will create quite a burst of interest in U2s and the Cold War generally. So--does anyone have some suggestions for us?
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Jason Hall
Executive Director
The Cold War Museum
Vint Hill VA
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