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Cloak and Dagger Coming Out of Shadows Tomorrow in Washington

Aired July 18, 2002 - 11:39   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Cloak and dagger is coming out of shadows tomorrow in Washington. The International Spy Museum opens its doors, and reveals a few trade secrets.

Our national security correspondent David Ensor just happens to be the perfect guy to send to such a place for a preview, and he joins us now live -- David.

DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Leon, thank you.

People think of Washington as the nation's capitol, but it's also the world's capitol of espionage. Experts say there are more spies in this town than anywhere on Earth because there are more secrets here than anyone would like to know about.

I am standing here in the museum in the area of a display that has to do with the Cold War, and this is a mockup of a submarine. And with me is Dennis Barrie, who's the president of the company that has built this museum.

Dennis, why don't you take us through this exhibit? What is this about?

DENNIS BARRIE, PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL SPY MUSEUM: I would be happy to. During the Cold War, spying took place all over the globe, including under the sea, because of the nuclear threat. And what we have done here is given you a sense of how our spies under sea, and the Russian spies under sea dealt with such things as nuclear threat to each other's country, listening on sonar in their various submarines.

I think the interesting thing about this exhibit is you can listen to sonar sounds and recognize that they really had to be very discerning about what they would hear, and what they thought might be submarine could actually be a whale. The sounds are very different between a whale and submarine.

And tracking a whale rather than a submarine could mean the difference between successfully thwarting an attack, or perhaps allowing one to happen over the globe.

ENSOR: Across from us is another interesting exhibit, and this is the Great Seal of the United States, but this one has a story to it, too. Tell us that. BARRIE: It's a great story. Because in 1948, our ambassador to the Soviet Union was Averell Harriman. Soviet schoolchildren presented him with this seal for his office, the great seal of the United States. What he didn't know, as he put it up in his office for four years, it was bugged. And every conversation he had, every secret conversation was going right to soviet spies.

The interesting thing is that it was not own an electronic bug; there was a resonator in the back, kind of like a tuning fork, and across the street that resonator would be resonating their conversations on a little pitch fork, tuning fork that soviet spies would be picking up the conversations.

ENSOR: What made you decide to go with this particular project? You were involved in the rock 'n' roll hall of fame. You are kind of a museum maven. You're an expert on museums. Why espionage?

BARRIE: This is a great topic for a museum. First of all, it's never really been done in a museum format, and it's a topic that people love, and really don't know that much about. When you think about it, most people know spies through James Bond or maybe they know Matahari and a few other names like that. But they're fascinated about this world, and this allows them go deep into a subject they only kind of get a cursory way in the newspaper.

ENSOR: Well, it's very interesting to be here. And we'll be, as the day progresses, we will be showing our viewers some of the other parts of this very interesting $40 million project in the middle of Washington D.C.

Back to you, Leon.

HARRIS: David, what's impressed you the most so far? This stuff is right down your alley.

ENSOR: Well, I'm not going to be permitted to drive the Aston Martin, because it's part of an exhibit now. That of course is what I would most like to do, but just the very -- the intrigue, the clever ways that spies in different countries around the world have found to bug people, to follow people, to kill people, what's intriguing is how many and different are the ideas that human beings come up with for these kinds of things. It is not over. It is still very active in this town, among other places.

HARRIS: No doubt, especially in that town.

David Ensor in Washington, thanks much. We will be seeing you throughout the day here.

All right, have fun up there.

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