Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Today

International Spy Museum Opening in Washington D.C.

Aired July 18, 2002 - 12:44   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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: If you're a fan of 007 or even Austin Powers, there's a new place that turns fiction into reality now. The International Spy Museum is opening in Washington. Let's check out some of those cool spy gadgets.

Our David Ensor joins us live from the museum.

What can you show us, David?

DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, I have some very cool gadgets and a man with me who knows more about them than perhaps anyone else on Earth, Keith Melton.

Let's look first, Keith, if we may at this shoe. Why is the shoe in pieces? And what is it.

KEITH MELTON: David, in the late '60s, the deputy chief of mission, an embassy official in Czechoslovakia, sent his shoes out to be repaired. While they were out being repaired, the Czechoslovakian Intelligence Service, lifted the heel and put inside a hidden transmitter, a microphone and a power source, with a little tiny pin. And when the pin was removed, the diplomat literally walked into a meeting and bugged himself. It is one of the classic examples of how you can steal information during the Cold War.

ENSOR: And how about concealing information? Let's go to the next exhibit here.

MELTON: It wasn't good enough just to steal it. You had to find some way to hide it. And there so many clever concealments. One I've always liked are these hollow nails. They are intricately machined, so it appears to be a standard house construction nail. But the top unscrewed, and inside you can put what we call "soft film," very thin fill that could have a wealth of information, and you could you hide it until it was time to pass it or communicate it.

ENSOR: Would anyone ever find it.

MELTON: Well, unless they looked invasively, literally to tear a house apart. Think how many thousands of nails could be a house. And literally, spies are so good at hiding things, variety of ways you con seal them is almost unlimited. It's only limited by your imagination.

ENSOR: Now there is one other thing in here I want to make sure and ask you about, because it's intriguing. Over here on the wall, these pictures you have, now this is about secret writing. And we all know we can write in lemon juice and then put heat under it. Kids do that. What's this about? What's this woman with writing on her back?

MELTON: Well, the third element. We talked about stealing secrets, hiding them, but somehow you have to communicate it. And for hundreds of years, people have understood that secret writing is an effective way to do it. But what folks don't know until they perhaps come to the museum is you can actually put secret writing on human skin.

And in World War I, German counterintelligence agents, had a suspicious woman crossing the lines. They had female matrons come in. They stripped her, they searched her. They couldn't find anything. They were still suspicious. Someone said let's paint her body with a reagent to see if there is a secret message. And in the middle of the back, what they recovered was secret writing, and this was the message that she was carrying across the lines.

ENSOR: Thank you, Keith. That's incredible. There is a lot more here. This is a $40 million project, a new museum, restaurant and other facilities, likely to become a rather popular tourist attraction here in the nation's capitol, Washington D.C., which is also, by the way, the experts tell me, the international capitol of espionage. There is more of that going on in this city, Kyra, than anywhere else on Earth.

PHILLIPS: Fascinating.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com