Marked only by a small, discreet sign at the intersection of Route 32 and the BW Parkway, the National Security Agency’s (NSA) National Cryptologic Museum is the only public museum operated by any agency of the U.S. intelligence community. It tells the fascinating and important story of the development of cryptology from Elizabethan times to the present, involving technologies that have shaped world history and that today have a vital relationship to our country’s national security.

We have arranged for a tour of the museum with one of their senior curators on Saturday, March 17th, at 10:00 a.m. You will have the opportunity to learn how coded messages were used by both sides in the Revolutionary War and in operating the Underground Railroad, and of the vital role that cracking the German military and Japanese naval codes played in the outcome of the Second World War. You will have an opportunity to operate an example of the famous German Enigma coding machine; to hear recordings of Navajo Code Talkers who worked with the Marine Corps in the Pacific Theater; to see a fragment from Gary Powers’ U2 spy plane; and to see the Wall of Honor, which commemorates the sacrifice of the 176 American intelligence personnel who have given their lives in the service of their country.

Date:  Saturday, March 17, 2018

Time:  10:00AM

Where: National Cryptologic Museum at the National Security Agency (NSA), 8290 Colony Seven Rd, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701

Parking:  Follow past the aircraft and Shell station into Museum parking lot.