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![]() Normal Hours of Operation are listed below. Monday-Friday Group tours should be scheduled in advance. |
National Cryptologic Museum Originally designed to house artifacts from the Agency and to give employees a place to reflect on past successes and failures, the Museum quickly developed into a priceless collection of the Nation's cryptologic history. The Museum opened to the public in December 1993 and quickly became a highlight of the area. Being the first and only public museum in the Intelligence Community, the Museum hosts approximately 50,000 visitors annually from all over the country and all over the world, allowing them a peek into the secret world of codemaking and codebreaking. The Museum is also an invaluable educational tool, benefiting thousands of students and teachers every year. Tours are provided allowing students of all ages the chance to learn about cryptology's impact on history and the possibility of exciting jobs in an area they may not have thought possible. The Museum has been featured in a plethora of international TV, print, and radio media and has hosted visitors and dignitaries from around the world. Museum Library The Museum Library maintains a collection of unclassified and declassified books and documents relating to every aspect of cryptology. The books and records complement the museum exhibits and artifacts, but also offer unique and in-depth sources of information for researchers. The library has a very large collection of commercial codebooks. These codebooks were used by all manner of businesses to reduce the costs of cable communications as well as to provide a measure of security for trade secrets. Modern communications and encryption methods have made these books obsolete and they are mainly of historical interest. Some of the most sought after items in the library include the declassified documents. The Museum Library holds all of the released VENONA documents. NSA's Special Research Histories (SRH) provide documentation of NSA's predecessor organizations in the U.S. Army and Navy's cryptologic services. The SRH collection (available in its entirety at the National Archives in Record Group 457) consists of declassified reports dating predominantly to World War II. The library also holds some of the oral histories taken by NSA's Center for Cryptologic History. A few select, unclassified monographs are also available to the public from the Museum Library. They cover a wide range of cryptologic subjects from early American ciphers to the Vietnam War. Most of the monographs were written and published by NSA's Center for Cryptologic History. These monographs go into greater depth than the museum exhibits or museum pamphlets and help to provide a greater understanding of the events in which cryptology played a role in world history. The collection nearly doubled by the gift of the leading historian of cryptology, David Kahn, author of The Codebreakers. The works range from the first printed book on cryptology, the 1518 Polygraphiae Libri Sex by the German mystic Johannes Trithemius, to Kahn's notes of his interviews with modern cryptologists. In June 2010, the library received another gift of the archives of the late John Byrne who invented what he called "Chaocipher" in 1918. Among these papers are an enciphered excerpt from a speech by General Douglas MacArthur, Chaocipher - The Ultimate Elusion, worksheets for Chaocipher Exhibit 2, blueprints of the Chaocipher, Preliminary Instructions for Chaocipher II (a computerized version of the Chaocipher developed by Byrne's son John Jr.), correspondence between Byrne and the RD Development Company, and letters from Byrne to U.S. Navy Capt. J.M. Irish and Greg Mellen. The Museum Library is open to the public; however, the hours vary. Please call ahead to ensure that a staff member will be present to assist you (301-688-2145). The library is non-circulating, but photocopying is permitted. Museum Gift Shop Adjacent to the Museum, is the National Vigilance Park. The park showcases two reconnaissance aircraft used for secret missions. The RU-8D serves to represent the Army Airborne Signal Intelligence contribution in Vietnam and the C-130 memorializes an Air Force aircraft that was shot down over Soviet Armenia during the Cold War. |
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Date Posted: Jan 15, 2009 | Last Modified: Oct 31, 2012 | Last Reviewed: Oct 31, 2012 |