On the Walk With History podcast, John Kiriakou — author of Remains of the Day: A Definitive Guide to Washington D.C.’s Historic Cemeteries — walked through Arlington National Cemetery and discussed the graves of figures connected to American intelligence history, several of whom he knew or whose stories he witnessed firsthand.[1]
The creation of the CIA
Kiriakou recounted how the CIA came to exist independently. When Truman pushed the National Security Act of 1947, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover opposed creating a separate agency, arguing that if one were created he should run both it and the FBI. Truman called Hoover into the Oval Office and told him the bill would make the CIA a division of the FBI. That was a lie. Hoover believed it and withdrew his objections; the CIA was created independently, and William Donovan became its natural first leader.[2][3][4]
The figures buried there
Kiriakou’s tour covered OSS founder William “Wild Bill” Donovan; deputy CIA director and secret Nixon envoy Vernon Walters; codebreakers William and Elizabeth Friedman, whose work led to the founding of the NSA; slain Athens station chief Richard Welch; Beirut station chief William Buckley, tortured to death on videotape; U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers; and Mike Spann, the first CIA officer killed after the September 11 attacks.[5][6][7][8]