Page 32 - ARUBA TODAY

A32 FEATURE
Thursday 14 sepTember 2017
Spy museum’s newest: ax used on Trotsky, parts of Powers’ U2

By DEB RIECHMANN dollar concealing what
Associated Press appeared to be a tiny
WASHINGTON (AP) — H. straight pin. It was one of
Keith Melton spent 40 years five suicide needles filled
looking for the ice-climb- with shellfish toxin that
ing ax used in the bloody U.S. intelligence services
assassination of Russian made around the 1960s so
revolutionary Leon Trotsky. American spies could kill
It had been sitting under a themselves on an opera-
bed in Mexico City for de- tion gone awry. A printing
cades. plate was used by Nazi in-
Much easier was acquiring telligence officers to print
a mangled, basketball-size bogus British currency dur-
chunk of Gary Powers’ U2 ing the war. They round-
spy plane shot down over ed up about 100 people,
the Soviet Union in 1960. It including master Jewish
was a gift from a Soviet of- forgers, in concentration
ficial. camps and told them if
The items are part of the they could produce unde-
world’s largest private col- tectable British notes, they
lection of spy artifacts. wouldn’t be killed. After
Melton, a wealthy busi- being released, the forg-
nessman from Boca Raton, ers dumped the weighty
Florida, is donating all of Peter Earnest executive director of the International Spy Museum, left, speaks to members of the crates of fake currency,
it to the International Spy media with H. Keith Melton, as they announce Melton’s donations to the International Spy Mu- printing plates and presses
Museum in Washington. seum from his collection of spy objects, Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2017, in Washington. into a lake in the Austrian
The museum announced Associated Press Alps as they fled to allied
Wednesday that more and-evasion devices, He said he’s paid “foolish” ministry for state security lines.
than 5,000 items Melton codes and cipher ma- prices for some items and, and the Soviet KGB. A nearby innkeeper dis-
amassed during four de- chines along with the at times, acquired things Among them: a World War covered the bills floating
cades of crisscrossing the disguises, secret writings, that he later learned were II-era electro-mechanical on the surface of the lake in
globe will be the corner- listening devices, clandes- fakes.“To me, the goal is cipher machine with Japa- 1952. But it took a mini sub-
stone of a new, larger facil- tine radios, spy cameras not to see how many wid- nese characters that the marine in the early 1990s to
ity slated to open next year and uniforms and clothes gets I can get. It’s what Germans produced to recover the printing plates.
in the nation’s capital. of the most famous spooks can I learn. I love research. share with their Asian ally. Melton got the items from
It is a “magnificent ges- every employed by CIA, Every artifact I have is part The war ended before the someone involved in the
ture,” gushed Peter Ear- KGB, FBI and Britain’s MI6. of a detective search,” Enigma machine, which recovery operation.
nest, the museum’s found- “It took nine people 17 he said. “You travel into looks like a special type- Melton’s biggest coup
ing director, crediting days to pack the collec- strange places in the world writer in a wooden box, — the item he looked for
and sometimes pay too could be sent to Japan. A the longest — is the ice
much money, but you end U.S. soldier found a stack ax that killed Trotsky at his
up fascinated with the vari- of the machines in a boat compound outside Mexico
ety of things that you see.” in France and took one City in 1940. The assassin
Melton graduated from home with him to Long Is- was Ramon Mercader, a
the U.S. Naval Academy in land, New York. communist and suspected
1966 and went to Vietnam “He kept it in his closet for agent of Soviet leader Jo-
during the war. He trained 50 years,” Melton said. seph Stalin who was jailed
as an engineer and con- Another item is a silver for years in Mexico.q
sidered working in intel-
ligence, before opting for
a career in business. He
made his money owning
and operating McDon-
ald’s restaurants.
H. Keith Melton holds a silver dollar with a hole for a hidden sui-
cide pin, right, one of Melton’s donations to the International Spy At one time he was the
Museum from his collection of spy objects, Wednesday, Sept. largest McDonald’s fran-
13, 2017, in Washington. chise owner in the country.
Associated Press Dabbling in the spy world
Melton’s donation with tri- was a hobby — an expen-
pling the museum’s current tion in an assembly line,” sive one — that sort of got
holdings of roughly 2,000 Melton told The Associated out of control.
items. Press in an interview this Melton placed ads around
There’s a victory flag that month. “I had to breathe the world seeking spy ar-
CIA-backed Cuban ex- deeply several times as I ticles. He was in Germany
iles never flew after the saw all of the gadgets be- in 1989 after the Berlin Wall
botched Bay of Pigs inva- ing packed up and leav- came down and traveled
sion in 1960. ing.” to Moscow in early 1992
There’s a 13-foot-long Melton, a founding mem- after the Soviet Union col-
World War II spy submarine ber of the museum’s board, lapsed. In both instances, H. Keith Melton points to a key on an Enigma Machine with
four rotors and a some Japanese characters that was used in
known as the “Sleeping said professional apprais- he made contacts that World War II to encode messages, Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2017,
Beauty.” ers estimated his collection helped him find items from in Washington.
And there are escape- at more than $20 million. the defunct East German Associated Press