Cold War Museum

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The Cold War Museum is a history museum in the United States focused on Cold War history.

Founded in 1996 by Francis Gary Powers Jr., son of pilot Francis Gary Powers, and John C. Welch to preserve Cold War history and honor Cold War veterans, the Cold War Museum signed a lease on December 1, 2009, with the Vint Hill Economic Development Authority for the use of a two-story building and secure storage facility at Vint Hill Farms Station, Virginia, in Fauquier County, 30 miles (48 km) from Washington Dulles International Airport. Vint Hill Farms is a 695-acre former Army communications base.^[1] The museum opened on November 11, 2011. ^[2]^[3]

The Cold War Museum is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charitable organization. As a result, it has pledges of support for loans of artifacts from the Air and Space Museum, the National Museum of American History, the National Portrait Gallery, and the National Postal Museum. The Museum is also working with the privately owned International Spy Museum in Washington, Diefenbunker, Canada's Cold War Museum in Ottawa, and the Atombunker Harnekop near Berlin to temporarily display some of its artifacts.

The Cold War Museum has a chapter in the American Midwest based in Waukesha, Wisconsin^[4] and a chapter in Berlin.^[5]

Collection and holdings

The museum has over $3 million worth of international Cold War artifacts in its collection. Museum holdings include items from the 1948-1949 Berlin Airlift, 1960 U-2 incident (including the helmet used by Francis Gary Powers and the suitcase carried by Powers across Glienicke Bridge when he was exchanged for Rudolf Abel), a 5,000-square-foot (460 m²) display on the Cuban Missile Crisis that includes a Soviet SA-2 missile and four America Nike missiles, and material from the USS Liberty incident, USS Pueblo incident, Corona spy satellites, and Space Race. The museum also has the largest collection of civil defense items in America, mainly acquired from the former Civil Defense headquarters in Washington; a yellow East German Trabant automobile; and Soviet and East German flags and banners.^[6] The museum also has acquired the mailbox used by Aldrich Ames to contact his Soviet handlers.^[7]

Educational Activities and Publications

The museum has developed various educational programs and activities to help educate future generation about the Cold War. Museum speakers have visited numerous grade schools, high schools, colleges, and universities in order to teach students about the Cold War. The Museum also assists with educational programming for the History Channel, the Discovery Channel, A&E Television Networks, the Learning Channel, C-SPAN, and numerous public access stations.

The mobile exhibit on the U-2 Incident, the “Spies of Washington Tour,” and the Cold War Conversations lecture series continue to generate interest and support.

The mobile exhibit on the U-2 Incident of May 1, 1960, helps promote the need for a permanent Cold War Museum. The exhibit has been displayed at many museums across the United States and internationally.^[8] The traveling exhibit helps to promote The Cold War Museum.

In collaboration with Carol S. Bessette, Certified Master Tour Guide, the Cold War Museum offers the original Spy Tour of Washington.^[9] Since its earliest days, Washington, D.C. has been the scene of international intrigue, espionage, and intelligence activity, as the U.S. government has tried to learn the plans of other countries while keeping its own plans secret. Key players in this non-ending drama include personalities as diverse as Rose Greenhow, Herbert Yardley, Major General “Wild Bill” Donovan, Aldrich Ames, and Robert Hanssen. This educational bus tour will introduce you to many of the locations in and around Washington that have been associated with intelligence and counter intelligence activities for the past two hundred years. Some walking is required. Optional stop at International Spy Museum not included in price.

On October 14, 2006, the museum hosted an international conference to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian and Polish Crises.^[10] Dr. Sergei Khrushchev, the son of Nikita Khrushchev, and David Eisenhower, grandson of President Eisenhower participated with VIPs from Hungary and Poland and well renowned scholars. The Hungarian and Polish Embassies, American Hungarian Federation, Fairfax County Economic Development Authority, the Hungarian Technology Center, as well as the Cold War Museum and the South County Secondary School were hosts for the program. Sponsors that included EnviroSolutions, Inc., K. Hovnanian Homes, Marriott Fairfax at Fair Oaks, Northern Virginia Community College, Verizon, and Vulcan Materials Company.

On October 2, 2007, Cold War Conversations-II took place to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the 1957 launch of Sputnik. Dr. Sergei Khrushchev, the son of Nikita Khrushchev and author of Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev 1953–1964 and Paul Dickson, author of Sputnik—Shock of the Century discussed this important Cold War historical event. Dialog between the two and Q&A from the audience followed their presentations. Washington Dulles Airport Hotel, Northern Virginia Community College – Loudoun Campus, NASA, and the Cold War Museum were event sponsors.

The Museum worked with the Embassy of the Czech Republic to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Prague Spring and with the British Berlin Airlift Association to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Berlin Airlift.

Periodically, The Cold War Museum hosts book signing lectures for authors who have written on the Cold War. The Cold War Times is a quarterly online publication produced for the Cold War Museum and Cold War Veterans.

In 1997, Congressman Tom Davis, with the assistance of the Cold War Museum, drafted legislation for the creation of a “Cold War Memorial” that will honor all the men and women who were part of Cold War events and activities.

References

↑ "The Cold War Museum to locate at Vint Hill," Cold War Museum.
↑ Cold War Museum Physical Location - Vint Hill Farm Station
↑ Andrew DeMillo, "Atop Old Missile Hold, Cold War Site May Rise; Son of U-2 Pilot Francis Gary Powers Envisions a Museum at Lorton." The Washington Post March 2, 2002.
↑ Midwest Chapter
↑ Berlin Chapter
↑ Cold War Museum Collection, Cold War Museum.
↑ "Museum Updates." Cold War Times (Vol. 2, Issue 3), May 2002.
↑ The Cold War Museum Background page
↑ Spy Tour of Washington
↑ 1956 Event Description

External links

Cold War Museum website
The Cold War Times - Cold War Museum's quarterly newsletter

v t e Cold War

Participants and notable figures ANZUS NATO Non-Aligned Movement SEATO Warsaw Pact

1940s	Yalta Conference Operation Unthinkable Potsdam Conference Gouzenko Affair Operation Masterdom Operation Beleaguer Operation Blacklist Forty Iran crisis of 1946 Greek Civil War Corfu Channel incident Turkish Straits crisis Restatement of Policy on Germany First Indochina War Truman Doctrine Asian Relations Conference Marshall Plan 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état Tito–Stalin split Berlin Blockade Western betrayal Iron Curtain Eastern Bloc Western Bloc Chinese Civil War (Second round)

1950s	Bamboo Curtain Korean War 1953 Iranian coup d'état Uprising of 1953 in East Germany 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état Partition of Vietnam First Taiwan Strait Crisis Geneva Summit (1955) Poznań 1956 protests Hungarian Revolution of 1956 Suez Crisis Sputnik crisis Second Taiwan Strait Crisis Cuban Revolution Kitchen Debate Bandung Conference Bricker Amendment McCarthyism Operation Gladio Iraqi July Revolution Hallstein Doctrine

1960s	Congo Crisis Sino-Soviet split 1960 U-2 incident Bay of Pigs Invasion Berlin Wall Portuguese Colonial War (Angolan War of Independence Guinea-Bissau War of Independence Mozambican War of Independence) Cuban missile crisis Iraqi Ramadan Revolution 1963 Syrian coup d'état November 1963 Iraqi coup d'état^{[citation needed]} Vietnam War 1964 Brazilian coup d'état United States occupation of the Dominican Republic (1965–66) South African Border War Transition to the New Order Domino theory ASEAN Declaration Laotian Civil War 1966 Syrian coup d'état Argentine Revolution Korean DMZ Conflict Greek military junta of 1967–74 USS Pueblo incident Six-Day War War of Attrition Cultural Revolution Sino-Indian War Prague Spring Invasion of Czechoslovakia Iraqi Ba'athist Revolution Goulash Communism Sino-Soviet border conflict Communist insurgency in the Philippines Corrective Move

1970s	Détente Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Black September in Jordan 1970 Syrian Corrective Revolution Cambodian Civil War Realpolitik Ping-pong diplomacy Corrective Revolution (Egypt) Four Power Agreement on Berlin 1972 Nixon visit to China 1973 Chilean coup d'état Yom Kippur War Carnation Revolution Strategic Arms Limitation Talks Rhodesian Bush War Angolan Civil War Mozambican Civil War Ogaden War Ethiopian Civil War Lebanese Civil War Sino-Albanian split Cambodian–Vietnamese War Sino-Vietnamese War Iranian Revolution Operation Condor Dirty War Bangladesh Liberation War Korean Air Lines Flight 902

1980s	Soviet war in Afghanistan 1980 and 1984 Summer Olympics boycotts Solidarity Soviet reaction Contras Central American crisis RYAN Korean Air Lines Flight 007 Able Archer 83 Star Wars Invasion of Grenada People Power Revolution Nagorno-Karabakh War Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall Revolutions of 1989 Glasnost Perestroika

1990s	Democratic Revolution in Mongolia Breakup of Yugoslavia Dissolution of the Soviet Union Dissolution of Czechoslovakia

Frozen conflicts	Abkhazia China Korea Nagorno-Karabakh South Ossetia Transnistria

Foreign policy	Truman Doctrine Marshall Plan Containment Eisenhower Doctrine Domino theory Kennedy Doctrine Peaceful coexistence Ostpolitik Johnson Doctrine Brezhnev Doctrine Nixon Doctrine Ulbricht Doctrine Carter Doctrine Reagan Doctrine Rollback

Ideologies	Capitalism Chicago school Keynesianism Monetarism Neoclassical economics Reaganomics Supply-side economics Thatcherism Communism Marxism–Leninism Castroism Eurocommunism Guevarism Hoxhaism Juche Maoism Stalinism Titoism Liberal democracy Social democracy

Organizations	ASEAN CIA Comecon EEC KGB Safari Club MI6 Stasi

Propaganda	Active measures Izvestia Pravda Crusade for Freedom Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Red Scare TASS Voice of America Voice of Russia

Races	Arms race Nuclear arms race Space Race

See also	Brinkmanship NATO–Russia relations Soviet and Russian espionage in U.S. Soviet Union–United States relations US–Soviet summits

Category Portal Timeline List of conflicts

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Cold War Museum

Collection and holdings

Educational Activities and Publications

See also

References

External links