International Spy Museum: Counter-example concerning elected official involvement in historiography

Given that the most important college course I ever took was about Latin America--I say the course started me on the path of learning to think for myself, as it challenged my basic "good American" beliefs in military intervention, multinationals, and the inherent "goodness" of US foreign policy; one of my jokes about the National Museum of American History is that it could be restaged around the interpretation of the history of American Imperialism.

But I don't think that would go over that well with Congress and the Executive Office of the President.

The previous entry, "National Archives photo "retouching" is another example of the tension between National Ideology and Memory and Inquiry in the funding of national museums, archives," discusses the recent incident with accurate interpretation of history and events at the National Archives.

The word "Trump" was blurred out in this retouched image used as part of an exhibit at the National Archives. Original image by Mario Tama, Getty Images.

But I was primed to write about that incident because early last week I came across a different and surprisingly article about the International Spy Museum, and criticism of its exhibits on the CIA and torture ("Spy Museum will revamp torture exhibit after Congressional backlash," Washington Business Journal, as originally reported on by BuzzFeed News, "The Spy Museum Is Now Planning To Overhaul Its Controversial Torture Exhibit").

The Spy Museum is a private museum--originally it was a for profit venture but now it's a nonprofit.  It recently relocated to a site at L'Enfant Plaza ("Will Tourists Follow the International Spy Museum to L'Enfant Plaza," Washington City Paper), and it is one of the only admissions-based museums in DC that seems to be able to compete with the free museums ("D.C.'s paid museums retool to boost attendance," WBJ).

But in this case, (Democratic) members of the Senate Intelligence Committee:

... in December wrote that the the exhibit “misrepresents the CIA’s torture program, sanitizing depictions of how techniques were applied and suggesting that torture is effective in terrorist attacks,” the senators wrote on Dec. 18, according to a letter published by BuzzFeed. The letter went on to point out that the 6,700-page Senate Intelligence Committee investigation on the program showed that it was not effective.

It's a rare instance of an action by Congressmembers calling for a more accurate representation of  history, events, and evidence-based research, rather than to sanitize it.