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Peter Earnest | James Gomez | David Kahn | Oleg Danilovich Kalugin
David G. Major | Milton Maltz | H. Keith Melton | Antonio Joseph Mendez
Jonna Hiestand Mendez | Dame Stella Rimington | Congressman Louis Stokes
Judge William H. Webster | R. James Woolsey

The International Spy Museum is the only public museum in the world to explore the tradecraft, history, and contemporary role of espionage. Its collection of spy-related artifacts, the largest international collection on public display, brings to life the stories of the men and women who used these objects and provides a global perspective on this profession. Open since July 2002 and in development since 1996, the Museum has worked with its Advisory Board of Directors to ensure the authenticity and accuracy of the Museum's depiction of the history and tradecraft of espionage.

The Advisory Board, comprised ofleading intelligence experts, scholars, and practitioners, help the Museum plan all facets of the institution, from collections-building to program development.

Advisory Board of Directors

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Peter Earnest, Ex Officio, (Executive Director). Executive Director of the International Spy Museum, Mr. Earnest's thirty-six year CIA career included over twenty years in the Agency's Clandestine Service. A member of the CIA's Senior Intelligence Service, he was awarded the Agency's Intelligence Medal of Merit for "superior performance" throughout his career. Mr. Earnest also served as the Agency's principal spokesman in his final posting, developing and implementing a strategy of greater openness with the media and the public.

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James Gomez, President of the Malrite Company. Before joining The Malrite Company in April 2000, Mr. Gomez spent more than six years in the public and private accounting industries including serving as a Senior Consultant and Auditor for Ernst & Young, LLP, where he worked in the Assurance and Advisory Business Services Groups. He is a Certified Public Accountant and has a bachelor’s degree in business and accounting from Cleveland State University.

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David Kahn is the world's leading expert in the history of cryptology, the essential code-making and code-breaking aspect of intelligence gathering. A historian and journalist, he holds a PhD in Modern History from Oxford University, England, and was visiting historian with the National Security Agency. Mr. Kahn taught modern political and military intelligence at Yale and Columbia Universities, and recently retired as an editor for Newsday. His books on cryptology and intelligence gathering are required reading for those interested in the field. They include: The Codebreakers (1968), Hitler's Spies: German Military Intelligence in World War II (1978); and Seizing Enigma: The Race to Break the German U-boat Codes, 1939-1943 (1991). His book Kahn on Codes is a collection of his essays and articles. Mr. Kahn also serves as an expert commentator to electronic media and a valuable source to print media, speaking as an authority on codes and ciphers.

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Oleg Danilovich Kalugin, is a retired Major General in the Soviet KGB. Born in Leningrad in 1934, his father was an officer in Stalin's NKVD. He attended Leningrad State University and was recruited by the KGB for foreign intelligence work, serving in the First Chief Directorate, where he became the youngest general in the history of the KGB. Under cover as a journalist, he attended Columbia University in New York and then worked as a Radio Moscow correspondent at the United Nations, conducting espionage and influence operations. He served as deputy resident and acting chief of the Residency at the Soviet Embassy in Washington and played a major role in handling the case surrounding the John Walker spy ring. General Kalugin's autobiography, The First Directorate: My 32 Years in Intelligence and Espionage Against the West was published in September 1994.

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David G. Major has served in top leadership roles at the FBI in counterintelligence before his retirement in 1994. During his career he served as Special Agent, Supervisory Special Agent, Inspector, and was the first FBI official to be appointed to the National Security Council where he served as the Director of Counterintelligence, Intelligence and Security Programs. Mr. Major is a nationally recognized counterintelligence and security/countermeasures technical expert, strategic planner and spokesman for national counterintelligence and security countermeasures programs. He handled many joint Department of Defense and FBI double agent operations in support of DoD Special Planning Activities. His responsibilities included the handling and management of defectors and the recruitment of foreign intelligence officers and agents. He has been directly or indirectly involved in most of the 100 public espionage cases in the last 25 years. Mr. Major served in the U.S. Army as a Captain in the Chemical Corps and Armor Branch. He currently serves as Owner and Professor of The Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies, located in Alexandria, Virginia where the CI Centre provides advance counterintelligence and counter-terrorism training for the US Intelligence Community.

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Milton Maltz, Chairman of the Board, founder of The Malrite Company, is the driving force behind the International Spy Museum. He founded Malrite Communications Group, Inc. in 1956 and served as its Chairman and CEO until the company was sold in 1998. Under his direction, Malrite became one of the most successful operators of radio and television properties in the country with stations in major markets like New York and Los Angeles. In 1985, he was the recipient of the prestigious Dively Award for Entrepreneurship, receiving a Chair from the Harvard School of Business. Mr. Maltz served as Director of Key Bank, and in 1996, was inducted into the Cleveland Business Hall of Fame. Two outstanding achievements of his civic endeavors have been the creation of the Family Foundation and his involvement in the founding and development of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, where he played a major role in obtaining the project for the City of Cleveland. Active in numerous philanthropic and civic organizations, Mr. Maltz and his family work to support various charities both nationally and internationally. Mr. Maltz earned a BS degree in Journalism from the University of Illinois. A veteran of the United States Navy, Mr. Maltz developed an interest in intelligence and national security issues when he worked for the National Security Agency in Washington, DC

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H. Keith Melton is a renowned author, technical advisor to US Intelligence services, and collector of one of the world's most extensive collection of espionage devices, weapons and equipment - a portion of which is currently on temporary display in the Cold War Exhibit within the headquarters of the CIA. Mr. Melton is a US Naval Academy graduate, an accomplished businessman and the producer of a number of television programs on varied espionage topics. He has published five books, including The Ultimate Spy Book. His current project in progress, The Secret History of KGB Spy Cameras, is being written with the unprecedented cooperation of the clandestine photography section of the KGB. Mr. Melton continues to serve the intelligence community as an advisor on historical matters and is a lecturer at the Defense Intelligence College inside the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Counter-Intelligence College within the CIA.

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Antonio Joseph Mendez, the Central Intelligence Agency's former Chief of Disguise, was recruited by the CIA at the age of twenty-five through an advertisement to work as an espionage artist for the Technical Service Division. His career spanned twenty-five years as he worked undercover in the most important theaters of the Cold War. As the Chief of Disguise and later as the Chief of the Graphics and Authentication Division, he and his staff were responsible for changing the identity and appearance of thousands of clandestine operatives. In 1980, Mr. Mendez was awarded the Intelligence Star for Valor for single-handedly engineering and overseeing the rescue of six US diplomats from Iran during the hostage crisis. By the time Mendez retired, he had also earned the CIA's Intelligence Medal of Merit, the Intelligence Star and two Certificates of Distinction. In September of 1997, in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the CIA, he was one of only fifty officers chosen to receive the Trailblazer Medallion.

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Jonna Hiestand Mendez is a retired CIA intelligence officer who lived undercover for 27 years in such places as Germany, Thailand, and India. While an officer with the Office of Technical Services, she specialized in clandestine photography. Her duties included instructing the CIA's most highly placed foreign assets in the use of spy cameras and the processing of intelligence gathered by them. Her impressive record afforded her the opportunity to work in Southeast Asia as a generalist in Disguise, Identity Transformation and Clandestine Imaging. Mrs. Mendez has worked in the most hostile operating areas in the world where she matched wits with the KGB, the Stasi and the DGI. In 1988, she was promoted first to Deputy Chief of Disguise and then, Chief of Disguise. She retired from the government in 1993, earning the CIA's Intelligence Commendation Medal. Jonna Mendez continues to act as a consultant to the US intelligence community and together with her husband Antonio, has participated in two Discovery Channel programs about the CIA.

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Dame Stella Rimington.  As Director General of the British Security Service (MI5), Dame Stella was the first woman to hold the post and the first Director General to be publicly named on appointment.  During her time as Director General she pursued a policy of greater openness for MI5, giving the 1994 Dimbleby lecture on BBC TV.  She is currently an executive coach, mentor, and author and serves as a trustee of the charity ‘Refuge.’

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Congressman Louis Stokes was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1968, the first African American elected to Congress from the State of Ohio. During his 30 years as a Member of Congress, his many distinguished accomplishments include: an appointment as the first black to sit on the Appropriations Committee; election in 1972 as Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus; a seat on both the House Select Committee on Assassinations and the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct; as well as appointment as Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee in 1987. After his retirement from Congress in 1999, Congressman Stokes joined the law firm of Squire, Sanders and Dempsey as Senior Counsel. He also serves as a member of the faculty at Case Western Reserve University and as a political analyst for WEWS-TV in Cleveland.

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Judge William H. Webster, a US Navy Veteran of World War II and the Korean War, is the only former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency to have also served as the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. During Judge Webster's distinguished career he has also served as a Judge of the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit; a US District Court Judge and as a federal prosecutor in Missouri. He has received numerous awards for his service including the Freedoms Foundation National Service Medal, Presidential Medal of Freedom and the National Security Medal. Judge Webster is currently a senior partner with the Washington law firm of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP.

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R. James Woolsey, former Director of Central Intelligence holds a distinguished career in the U.S. Government where he served on five different occasions. Mr. Woolsey held Presidential appointments in two Republican and two Democratic administrations. He was also previously a partner at the law firm of Shea & Gardner in Washington, DC, where he practiced for 22 years in the fields of litigation and alternative dispute resolution. Mr. Woolsey is currently a Vice President and officer at Booz Allen Hamilton where he concentrates on the firms Energy Practice.

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“…I had spent two years as an officer of military intelligence, which as the saying goes, has as much to do with intelligence as military music has to do with music. ” – John le Carre, The New Yorker, 2002
July04th2008
International Spy Museum, 800 F St. NW, Washington DC 20004 Toll Free 866-779-6873, Local 202-393-7798