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Never Built: CIA Headquarters in Alexandria

Did you know the CIA's headquarters was almost built in Alexandria, Virginia? This Washington Post article from 1955 explains what happened.
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We had no idea, but the alternate, and strongly pushed location for the Central Intelligence Agency‘s new headquarters was the Winkler Tract in Alexandria, just off of Shirley Highway. Here’s an article that we dug up in the Washington Post from October 22nd, 1955.

The Committee of 100 on the Federal City urged the Central Intelligence Agency yesterday to pick Alexandria’s Winkler tract instead of Langley as the site for its new headquarters.

The committee adopted a resolution saying the Winkler property on the Shirley hwy. was preferable because it has an existing expressway linking it to the Pentagon and White House.

Construction at Langley near the Potomac River in upper Fairfax County would require unwise heavy-traffic use of the George Washington Memorial pkwy. the resolution said. It would “injure or destroy” the rural atmosphere that residents are fighting to keep, the committee said.

Only vote against Winkler was cast by Tracy B. Augur, city planner with the Housing and Home Finance Agency, who opposed both sites because he feels CIA should get further out of town.

Both sites are less than 10 miles from Washington and would be an added inducement for an enemy to drop a bomb on the Nation’s Capital, Winkler [sic] said.

The resolution assumed the choice has narrowed to these two sites. CIA officials have indicated it has.

It seems that the author of this piece and his editors, didn’t do a proper job proofreading it (i.e., Winkler instead of Augur being quoted near the end).

Check out the Google Map below of the proposed location today.

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