Collection Highlights

This 17th century book reveals secret payments made by King William III of England. It includes payments to mistresses, and to spies employed by the king to gather intelligence on European powers.

This 18th century ring depicts Major John André, the head of the British Army’s Secret Service during the American Revolution. It commemorates his capture as a spy by the Continental Army for assisting Benedict Arnold's attempted surrender of West Point to the British.

This letter written by George Washngton in 1780 discusses, in code, the invisible ink used by the Colonists to keep their communication secure. During the American Revolution, Washington established a network of spies operating in British-occupied New York.

This leather portfolio was used by Emperor Napoleon in the 19th century for his daily reports from correspondents, agents and spies who described the secret activities of important political people and groups at home and abroad.

This box was used daily by a 19th century British Prime Minister to protect top secret official papers of state. It was constructed with a side handle, and a lock on the base, so it could be carried securely between Parliament and Downing Street.

This WWI trench periscope was an essential tool used to observe the enemy across No Man's Land and avoid being shot at by marksmen on the opposing side.

These are the classified war files of Reggie Badger, a British military attaché to Spain during WWI. They reveal British views on Spain at the end of the war. Badger was a soldier who had met the Spanish king and other foreign dignitaries at polo matches before the outbreak of war.

Unlike today’s telephones, early wireless communication used channels that were open to everyone at the same time. This cunning Danish device from the 1930s facilitated security when multiple parties were communicating over the same frequencies.

This poster (written in French, Dutch and Flemish) offers a reward of half a million francs for the capture of the British spy Alfred Henri Gilbert, known as ‘The Criminal’ by the Axis powers in German-occupied Belgium.

These ‘Bombes’ were designed by codebreakers at Bletchley Park during WWII to decrypt messages from German Enigma machines. This model was used in the film The Imitation Game starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing and Keira Knightley as Joan Clarke.

This top secret book, Per Ardua Libertas, records escape and evasion gadgets designed to aid operatives during WWII. It was produced by MI9, a secret British War Office department which handled covert operations and aided resistance fighters in enemy territories.

The Enigma encrypted secret messages so well that German WWII commanders were sure their communications were unbreakable. There were so many possible settings that the chance of guessing the right one was 1 in 159 quintillion (159 million, million, million).

Tissue maps were smuggled into prisoner of war camps by captured airmen who hid them in objects such as belts and hollowed boot heels. They were also sent into camps by intelligence agencies, who hid them in aid packages mailed to POWs from fictitious relief organizations.

Hidden in a suitcase, this portable radio station was used by the British intelligence services in WWII. Powered by battery, mains, or even a bicycle generator, it was used in the field to exchange coded messages with spymasters back in London.

This French lipstick holder was created for Britain’s female Special Ops agents (SOE). Under the fake wax lipstick is a secret compartment designed to hold a small object such as a cyanide suicide pill or ‘L-pill’ (lethal pill) for use if the agent was captured by the enemy.

These WWII grenades were designed to emulate the size, shape and feel of a baseball, on the assumption that American soldiers would instinctively be able to throw with accuracy a grenade modeled on the great American pastime!

Enclosed in a secret letter from the SOE this prototype dagger is from the British Experimental Establishment - the department tasked during WWII with weapons testing. Blades like this were often hidden inside pens and pencils as escape and evasion tools.

This uniform was for 'Wrens', members of Britain’s Women's Royal Naval Service. - women with specialized language skills sent to Bletchley Park to run the 'Bombe' machines which decoded messages sent by the German Enigma machines.

This codebook was used during WWII aboard the deadly German U-boats to communicate with surface vessels and their shore bases. Common phrases were substituted by number or letter codes which were then transmitted via Morse Code.

This radio was dropped by parachute to resistance fighters in occupied Europe during WWII. It was hidden inside a biscuit tin because the Germans had banned all civilian radios. Radios like this were used to pick up coded messages broadcast by the BBC from London.

This postcard was printed by Britain's SOE during WWII, and was ‘franked’ with a fake stamp depicting Hitler. The Axis and Allied powers dropped propaganda from planes to lower the morale of local populations.

These arrows were designed for the ‘Little Joe’ crossbow used by American operatives behind enemy lines during WWII. Looking to the past for inspiration, America’s OSS experimented with a silent, easily concealed weapon to silence guard dogs.

This map depicting the streets surrounding the German Chancellery was drawn up by a British spy in 1945. Marked out with primary and secondary targets, it was likely issued to Royal Air Force pilots to plot low level bombings over Berlin.

The Welbike is the smallest motorcycle ever used by the Allied armed forces. Paratroopers used it to move quickly through the countryside behind enemy lines. But that was easier said than done - the bike has no suspension or front brakes, and a fuel capacity of less than a gallon.

The tiny size of these Minox cameras, which can take 50 photos without reloading, made them ideal for spy work. Spies used the Minox from the 1940s right up until the end of the Cold War.

Utilizing his job at Kemsley News Group as a cover, James Bond author Ian Fleming ran an intelligence network which used journalists to gather information in sensitive foreign zones. This letter is to his German correspondent, Antony Terry, later exposed as a spy.

Animal Farm (1954) was the first British animated feature film. It was secretly funded by the CIA as a brilliant piece of popular Cold-War anti-Communist propaganda. The film was made by Britain’s animation pioneers Halas and Batchelor.

This cipher machine, the CD-57, was made by Swiss company Hagelin. Supposedly neutral Hagelin secretly helped Western powers during the Cold War by selling rival nations versions that seemed identical to but were in fact far easier to break!

This 1950s watch contains a hidden surveillance microphone. The case is perforated around the edges to collect sound, while the microphone wire runs up the wearer’s left arm. It was a dangerous but effective Cold War spy tool.

The Soviet and Russian military continued to use these Fialka machines well into the 1990s, with the machines' very existence considered classified until 2005! This highly complex machine was unusual because it could encrypt any letter as itself.

This armored briefcase was used by an agent serving in the CIA. The leather is inset with metal armor, and the whole case can be fully unzipped for use as a portable bullet-proof shield in case of an attack.

This handheld cipher device was designed for use on NATO warships during the Cold War. Officers on US Navy ships would have used the machine with a key card to encrypt call signs and address groups on radio circuits.

The CIA and FBI routinely use lie detectors, which work by testing your pulse, breathing and blood pressure. Polygraphs aren't perfect however, because psychopaths tend to have lower anxiety levels, making it easier for them to keep cool and trick the machine.

Released by the White House the day after President Kennedy learned of missiles found in Cuba, this press release attempted to pressure the Soviets into abandoning the test explosion of a 50-megaton nuclear bomb, which the Soviets had announced earlier that day.

This spy ring was used by a KGB agent to take undercover pictures, with the lens hidden under the crown of the ring. The ring could only take one photograph at a time, so there was no margin for error!

This is a NASA engineering model for the Solrad, a satellite launched by NASA in the 1960s to report on solar radiation. However, its actual top-secret purpose was to collect information on Soviet air defense radars. Solrad is still in orbit and can be live-tracked online.

During the Cold War, the U2 spy plane and other aircraft carried high-resolution cameras as an essential intelligence-gathering tool. Photographs taken over Cuba from this type of camera proved the existence of Soviet missiles, precipitating the Cuban Missile Crisis.

“The most famous car of all-time", the Aston Martin DB5 is the definitive James Bond vehicle. This actual car became a spy movie icon in 1995 when 007 raced it down a twisting mountain road against the ruthless assassin Xenia Onatopp in her red Ferrari F355.

This type of helmet and gloves was worn by US Air Force pilots during their mission over Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Partially pressurized, the helmet helped pilots cope with the extremely thin air at 72,500 feet—twice the altitude reached by today’s commercial pilots.

This collection of CIA medals belonged to Jim Fees, the CIA spy who masterminded the covert smuggling of a Soviet MiG fighter jet into the US in the 1970s. With his work classified, he kept the awards hidden inside picture frames for decades.

CIA officer turned KGB double-agent Aldrich Ames was paid more than $2.7 million for spying, a record amount paid by the Soviets or Russians to any American spy. He bought this expensive handbag for his wife Maria before they were arrested in 1994.

This memory card was fabricated for the FSB, Russia’s successor agency to the KGB. The hologram seal confirms agency technicians tested to ensure no data tracking programs or viruses were secretly installed before use.

Designed as a toolbox to give Russian FSB operatives various covers such as IT specialists, electricians or plumbers, this box actually hides a digital camera. The oversized dimensions allowed for an extra large battery to record long hours in high resolution.

Behind these Guy Fawkes masks are the handwritten aliases of Anonymous members, a mysterious coalition of hackers and virtual activists. The secretive network appeared in the news in 2022 claiming credit for hacking the Russian Ministry of Defense.

The computer worm Stuxnet changed the nature of warfare in 2010 as the first cyber weapon. Targeting the Iranian nuclear program at Natanz, Stuxnet crept into Iran from a simple flash drive. In fact, this very flash drive still contains the actual virus!

Jake Davis, known by his online pseudonym Topiary, was an activist hacker involved in some of the most notorious hacks of our time. Following his release from jail, he was given this map as he was banned from going online for two years.

The Nyan Cat began life as an animated GIF before becoming the fifth most watched YouTube video of 2011. It's typical of the anarchic, psychedelic imagery used by hackers. Its body is a Pop-Tart. This physical cat was used in the 2014 play ‘Teh Internet is Serious Business’.

Edward Snowden used this actual robot to ‘go places’ outside Russia, including a ‘live’ TED Talk at the SXSW festival in 2014. Manufactured by BeamPro, the ‘Snowbot’ lets Snowden take physical form anywhere in the world with WiFi.

In 2015, a group of female journalists employed the surveillance methods and technologies used by intelligence agencies to free 2,000 fishermen trapped in slavery conditions. Their reporting won a Pulitzer Prize for their news agency, Associated Press.

Artist Fidia Falaschetti explores the relationship between commercialism, consumerism and the globalization of mainstream media. This work is a playful commentary on the role of social media platforms as instruments of surveillance.