CIA #Museum Artifact of the Week: Digital X-Ray Detector Panel
Technologies developed by CIA have impacted the world in positive ways. This glass panel was used for digital mammography applications and demonstrated enormous dynamic-range and readout-speed improvements over the charge-coupled-device (CCD) technology it replaced.
Today we held our annual Memorial Ceremony to remember, honor, and celebrate our colleagues who died serving their country.
This year, there are four new, historic stars on the Memorial Wall, each commemorating a distinguished officer. Two of those stars honor officers whose names and contributions remain classified even after their deaths.
The other two stars honor Lieutenant John W. Creech and Daniel C. Dennett, Jr., who were on a mission to Addis Ababa when their plane cra...shed in bad weather. John and Daniel worked for the Central Intelligence Group (CIG)—the immediate predecessor to CIA.
In her remarks to those assembled before the Memorial Wall, Director Haspel said, “We honor the men and women of this Agency who perished in the line of duty. The cause to which they devoted their lives—the freedom and safety of Americans—endures.”
During the ceremony, Director Haspel presented the families of the four fallen officers with a marble replica of their loved one's star.
CIA’s Memorial Ceremony began in 1987 and is attended each year by hundreds of employees, retirees, and family members of the officers who died serving the CIA. In 1974, CIA dedicated the Memorial Wall with 31 stars to honor those who had fallen since the Agency’s founding in 1947. There are now 133 stars on the wall.
CIA #Museum Artifact of the Week: President Eisenhower Trowel
The CIA celebrated the construction of its new Headquarters building at Langley, Virginia, with a cornerstone-laying ceremony on November 3, 1959. President Dwight D. Eisenhower used this trowel to lay the cornerstone. Construction of the 1.3-million-square-foot facility was completed in late 1961.
Select documents and other materials of historic interest are sealed within the cornerstone. Items include:
...- A 1944 memorandum from William J. Donovan to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The memo discussed the need to establish a permanent centralized intelligence service.
- President Harry S. Truman's 1946 Executive Letter that established the National Intelligence Authority and the Central Intelligence Group.
- An aerial photograph of the CIA building site.