Events

We love sorting out fact and fiction in spy movies at the Spy Museum. But how about when Hollywood stars are the spies? Join us tonight for some unusual celebrity gossip at this virtual happy hour! We’ll tell you some of our favorite stories about operatives who loved the limelight more than the shadows—your mission: shake up the perfect cocktail or mocktail.

What do intelligence professionals do when they stop being intelligence professionals? Some ride off into a well-deserved retirement, sipping fruity drinks while lounging on a tropical beach. Others move into the private sector and help corporate America negotiate the global marketplace.

Who needs a cloak of invisibility when you have a wizard of disguise by your side? When spies need to go undercover, evade enemy surveillance, or slip by without anyone noticing, they depend on the expertise of a Tech Ops officer who specializes in the art of disguise. Join Jonna Mendez former CIA Chief of Disguise, in conversation with the Museum’s educators as she reveals some of her techniques and spine-tingling missions.

Perhaps no one in the world is more familiar with the crossover between science fiction and spycraft than the final panelist, Jonna Mendez, the former CIA chief of disguise, who described how she and her husband (whose work freeing hostages in Iran was dramatized in the Ben Affleck film Argo) studied the mask-making techniques from some of Hollywood’s top monster makers.

Here are 6 CIA-tested espionage techniques you can use the next time you need to conduct or escape surveillance — hypothetically speaking, of course.