Maybe it’s a little surprising that we haven’t yet done anything on the CIA headquarters at Langley … so, it’s about time we give you some great trivia on their headquarters.
1. Who designed it and when was it built?
The cornerstone for Langley was laid on November 3rd, 1959 by President Eisenhower and it took four years to complete the complex. Originally located down on E St. in Foggy Bottom, Allen Dulles pushed to move the CIA to a secluded and secure location in then-rural northern Virginia. Specifically, Dulles wanted the CIA situated in a more removed area for purposes of secrecy and security. Therefore, the agency relocated to Langley, Virginia which at the time was largely undeveloped.
Thomas Lee purchased 3,000 acres from the sixth Lord Fairfax and named his estate “Langley,” after his family’s estate in England. Lee selected a 258-acre plot of land on the Langley estate as the site. Harrison Abramovitz, the same firm that designed the United Nations Headquarters building in New York City, designed the original 1,400,000 square foot headquarters building. They built a second New Headquarters Building in 1991.
WTOP has a great series of photos showing the complex as well as construction of the building. Here are a couple of them.
2. Anywhere but Langley
Like any major building project, the current location was certainly not a fait accompli. We’re posting some more on location selection later this week, but for now, here’s an interesting article that we found in the Washington Post, printed on December 7th, 1955 (14 years after Pearl Harbor).
“Approval” by the National Capital Regional Planning Council of the proposed Central Intelligence Agency site at Langley, Va., is typical of the confusion bordering on farce that has surrounded CIA’s efforts to bulldoze into this residential area. Because of the death of an Alexandria member whose vote against the Langley site would have reversed the position of the Council, a Falls Church alternate was enabled to cast an affirmative vote.
Because of a decision attributed to the National Security Council that the CIA cannot locate its new buildings in Washington proper, the CIA is looking for a site that is neither fish nor fowl–neither dispersed nor really convenient. Because CIA officials seemingly are dead-set against use of the Winkler tract in Alexandria–among other reasons because they say the four-lane high-speed Shirley Highway is overloaded–they are doing their utmost to obtain a site bordering on a two-lane road that is far more overloaded and that would require enormous new construction.
-ad 199-Is it not time to end this absurd situation in which the CIA pushes around all sound planning concepts for the estate and park area upstream from Washington? If there is civil defense reason to disperse the CIA headquarters, then let it be really dispersed–to Cumberland or even to Kalamazoo, where it could be a companion piece to the lonely and very much dispersed Civil Defense Administration at Battle Creek. If access to the White House is more important than dispersal, then let the new buildings be located in Alexandria, where they would be welcome and would not violate good planning; or in Washington, which was the first choice of CIA anyhow.
Incidentally, with the new Constitution Avenue bridge, a CIA headquarters near its present site in Foggy Bottom would cause less of a traffic problem than almost anywhere else. And if the name of the area bothers clearsighted intelligence officials, no doubt it could be changed to accommodate them.
The deciding voter died? That sounds awfully suspicious (if you’re a conspiracy theorist).
3. Public confirmation of Langley location
The location of the CIA headquarters at Langley wasn’t exactly a secret, given that debate over where to put the headquarters happened with public discourse in the papers. Despite that, there were no signs pointing to the location. You could drive along GW Parkway or Route 123, and not know exactly where to turn off, unless you worked there. You had to know where to turn, and at various times, they labeled the exit FHWA or BPR. That all ended in 1973. Below is an article from the Washington Post signaling the CIA’s coming out and publicly stating its location.
For more than a decade, the George Washington Memorial Parkway exit south of Turkey Run has been variously labled [sic] “Bureau of Public Roads,” “Federal Highway Administration,” or “Fairbanks Highway Research Station.” This week parkway workmen finally put up signs showing where it really leads–to the mammoth headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, VA.
-ad 607-Parkway superintendent David A. Ritchie said the request for the new sign “came down some months back from CIA.” A spokesman at CIA said the sign was ordered by James R. Schlesinger when he took over CIA for four months early this year. “He came in here and said ‘Where’s the sign?’ and there wasn’t one so we got one,” the spokesman said. He said the sign was part of a general policy of increased openness that Schlesinger ordered at the nation’s spy agency, where switchboard operators now answer calls with “CIA” instead of just repeating the phone number.
Parkway superintendent Richey said the lack of a sign at CIA was “sort of a joke going back over the years. People know very well the highway station is not the principal agency down that road.” For years roadmaps have identified the location of the CIA. Ritchey said he never knew of anyone getting lost trying to find CIA, and that a greater problem was keeping sightseers and tourists out.
The CIA spokesman said people in quest of the agency get lost all the time. “We get cab drivers who never find us,” he said. “They wind up circling around and around like some sort of Flying Dutchman on the Beltway.” Did Schlesinger ever get lost trying to find CIA? “I don’t think so,” said the agency spokesman. “That’s a piquant thought, but I don’t think that guy gets lost doing anything.” After four months as head of CIA, Schlesinger moved up last May to Secretary of Defense.
This might be one of our favorite stories of the past few months.
