Free 100 Places You Will Never Visit by Daniel Smith Page A

of the Bureau of Investigations (forerunner of the FBI). In 1941, with the US poised to join the Second World War, President Roosevelt appointed a Coordinator of Information, William J. Dawson. Within a year, Dawson was heading up a new Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Though disbanded after the war, the OSS provided the blueprint for the CIA, which was founded under President Truman in 1947.
    Today, the CIA has four major divisions: the National Clandestine Service, overseeing the work of a web of spies; the Directorate of Science and Technology, which scans the media, satellite photography and the like to glean intelligence; the Directorate of Intelligence, which assesses the findings of the first two groups; and the Directorate of Support, which handles everything from personnel matters to administration.
    The George Bush Center—situated to the west of the national capital—covers an area in excess of 100 hectares (250 acres), encompassing the Original Headquarters Building (OHB) and the New Headquarters Building (NHB). Though the Center’s postal address is Langley (it was to here that President Madison and his wife fled during the 1812 Siege of Washington), Langley itself is now a neighborhood of McLean, a large conurbation founded in 1910.
    The OHB, designed by the Harrison & Abramovitz partnership, was built between 1959 and 1961. The NHB, meanwhile, was constructed between 1984 and 1991, in accordance with plans drawn up by Smith, Hinchman and Grylls Associates. It is set into a hillside behind the OHB and the two buildings almost melt into one another. The NHB consists of two connected six-story office blocks and includes a vast, four-story-high glass atrium. A Cornerstone Ceremony was held during the building’s construction phase in 1985, during which a box of Agency-related paraphernalia was sealed into the cornerstone to be opened at a later date. The box contained, among other items, a copy of the CIA Credo, an iconic CIA medallion and a miniature spy camera and cryptography microchip.
    INTELLIGENCE HUB Above: the New Headquarters Building, designed by Smith, Hinchman and Grylls Associates, opened for business in 1991.
    Some have noted the name of the complex with a wry smile—the most recent President George Bush was not always known for his intellectual pronouncements (though that is perhaps to “misunderestimate” him). In fact, the CIA complex is named for George W.’s father, George H.W., who became the first director of the CIA to hold the highest office in the land when he took the presidency in 1988. He had been head of Central Intelligence from 1976–7, and the building was renamed in his honor in 1999.
    Everything associated with the CIA is covert, even down to the size of its staff and annual budget. Some have suggested that its budget is effectively unlimited, though officials deny this. The last figures in the public domain, which date to the late 1990s, revealed a healthy annual figure in excess of US$26 billion set aside for intelligence spending. It is likely that the CIA’s funding only increased following the September 11 terrorist attacks of 2001 (after which the CIA came in for heavy criticism because of alleged intelligence failings).
    Security provisions at the George Bush Center are highly classified, and access to the Center is for authorized personnel only. The organization’s website explains that no members of the public are allowed “for logistical and security reasons.” It is fair to assume that anyone found intruding at the site can expect punishment beyond a simple stern talking-to.
    The CIA inspires many mixed emotions. For some people, its work is the foundation upon which US national security rests. For others, its reputation is dogged by failure, from the OSS’s lack of foreknowledge of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, to lapses highlighted by the assaults of September 11. For yet others, there are difficult questions as to just who is guarding the guards,