The (Physical) United States Civil Defense Museum, Vint Hill, Virginia

The following is an edited quote from the ‘About Us” section of their website. In the early 2000s I corresponded with (and later met Francis Gary Powers Jr. at an international seminar of Nuclear War Facilities operators. It was sponsored by and held in the Diefenbunker CCWM. At that time Mr. Powers was in the process of trying to find and acquire a suitable physical facility as a place to display the vast collection of Cold War artifacts that he had assembled over the years. The Museum notes a pdf entitled “The Cold War Museum “See why we built the Cold War Museum” which is an excellent slide presentation explaining their founding and objectives. Here is a link to their recent newsletter with an article which is quite pertinent to the present world situation.

“The Cold War Museum was founded in 1996 by Francis Gary Powers Jr., son of the famed U-2 Pilot, and John Welch to preserve Cold War history, honor Cold War veterans, and educate future generations about the Cold War and its legacy.  Since 2011, the Museum has been located at Vint Hill, Virginia, on the grounds of the former Vint Hill Farms Station, also known as Monitoring Station No. 1, which was a Top Secret Army signals intelligence base during WWII and the Cold War. Our collections are particularly strong in signals intelligence (SIGINT), image intelligence (IMINT), the history of Vint Hill during both WWII and the Cold War, Cold War Berlin, Civil Defense, atomic weapons, the Liberty and Pueblo incidents, Cold War cultural and Olympic competitions, Strategic Air Command, submarine detection (SOSUS), the Cuban Missile Crisis, the STASI (East German secret police), and Soviet and East German disinformation campaigns.  Many of our artifacts are rare and some are one-of-a-kind, and some of our exhibits were created and donated by those who did the work. The Cold War Museum is an all-volunteer organization, drawing upon our staff’s extensive Cold War experience as professionals in the military and intelligence communities.