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Langley, Virginia

McLean, VirginiaUnincorporated communities in Fairfax County, VirginiaUnincorporated communities in VirginiaVague or ambiguous time from May 2021Virginia populated places on the Potomac River
Washington metropolitan area
Langley High School
Langley High School

Langley is an unincorporated community in the census-designated place of McLean in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. The name "Langley" often occurs as a metonym for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), as the community is home to the CIA headquarters, the George Bush Center for Intelligence. The land which makes up Langley today once belonged to Thomas Lee, former Crown Governor of the Colony of Virginia from 1749 to 1750. Lee's land was named Langley in honor of Langley Hall, which formed part of the Lee home estate in Shropshire, England. In 1839 Benjamin Mackall purchased 700 acres (283 ha) of land from the Lee family, while keeping the name.The community was essentially absorbed into McLean many years ago, although there is still a Langley High School. In addition to its roles as a bedroom community for Washington, D.C., and as home to the CIA's headquarters, the area is the site of the Federal Highway Administration's Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center and formerly the Claude Moore Colonial Farm of the National Park Service, now permanently closed.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Langley, Virginia (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Langley, Virginia
Chain Bridge Road,

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Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 38.946388888889 ° E -77.158888888889 °
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Address

Chain Bridge Road 1101
22101 , Langley
Virginia, United States
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Langley High School
Langley High School
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Hickory Hill (McLean, Virginia)
Hickory Hill (McLean, Virginia)

Hickory Hill is a large brick house in McLean, Virginia, in the United States, which was owned for many years by members of the Kennedy family, the American political family that has long been prominent in American politics, public service, entertainment, and business. Although the date when the house was constructed cannot be determined precisely, architectural historians, noting that an 1865 ordinance map of the area does not indicate the house, date it to shortly after the American Civil War, circa 1870.The 5.6-acre (2.3 ha) property was part of an 88-acre (36 ha) tract acquired in 1846 by George Walter, who built several houses in the area prior to his death in 1890. The core of the house itself originally featured an encircling verandah, topped by a mansard roof. In 1931, the house was extensively remodeled largely to its current configuration. It was expanded again in 1964 with a north wing addition.In 1920, James Patrick "Pat" Speer, a Washington D.C. dentist, lived at Hickory Hill, along with his wife Susan Virginia "Jenny" Morgan Speer. At that time, they lived in the house with their five younger children, as their eldest daughter had already married and moved away. Pat Speer practiced dentistry in Washington D.C., in the same building where Clara Barton had previously conducted her work with U.S. Civil War veterans and their families.In July 1941, Hickory Hill became the home of newly appointed United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Robert H. Jackson and his wife, Irene, who, in 1955, after his death, sold Hickory Hill to United States Senator John F. Kennedy (D−Massachusetts) and his wife, Jacqueline. John and Jacqueline Kennedy lived in the home for a year, during which time he authored (with Ted Sorenson) his Pulitzer Prize winning book Profiles in Courage.After the 1956 Democratic National Convention, the house was sold to John's brother Robert F. Kennedy and his wife, Ethel, who had a growing family (eventually eleven children). While he lived at Hickory Hill, Robert Kennedy became Attorney General of the United States in 1961; a United States senator in 1965; and a presidential candidate in 1968. Hickory Hill was placed on the market in 2004 by the Kennedy family at an asking price of $25 million and then subsequently withdrawn in November 2008. After it was sold in December 2009 to a Virginia businessman for $8.25 million, the house underwent a major renovation, completed in the fall of 2013. The house, along with eleven other historic structures, was designated as a contributing property to the Langley Fork Historic District by the National Park Service's National Register of Historic Places on October 19, 1982.

Operation Washtub (Nicaragua)

Operation WASHTUB was a covert operation organized by the United States Central Intelligence Agency to plant a phony Soviet arms cache in Nicaragua. It was a part of the CIA's effort to portray the administration of Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz as having ties to the Soviet Union, prior to the CIA sponsored 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état which overthrew Árbenz later the same year. On 19 February 1954, the CIA, working through the Guardia Nacional de Nicaragua, planted a cache of Soviet-made arms on the Nicaraguan coast near the fishing village of Masachapa to be "discovered" weeks later by Rafael Lola, a lieutenant in the Nicaraguan army, and fishermen in the pay of Nicaraguan president Anastasio Somoza García. The CIA also wished to dispose of the weapons, which were to have been used by Carlos Castillo Armas, and were therefore incriminating to the CIA. On May 7, 1954, President Somoza told reporters at a press conference that a Soviet submarine had been photographed, but that no prints or negatives were available. The story presented to the press was embroidered with the involvement of Guatemalan assassination squads. Somoza was supposed to convince the public that the arms had been intended for Guatemala. The press and the public were skeptical and the story did not get much press. However, the story became part of the Nicaragua local legends until the 1979 revolution.The operation received attention again during the attempts by the U.S. government to exploit the products of Operation PBHistory, the CIA effort to gather intelligence from documents left in Guatemala after the 1954 coup by the government and the communist party. Anti-Communist members of the US Congress, especially Charles J. Kersten and Patrick J. Hillings of the Kersten Committee, began to use PBHistory documents in their reports, provided by the CIA to forestall the possibility that members of Congress, officially ignorant of the CIA's role in the Guatemalan coup, would expose other CIA projects. A subcommittee headed by Hillings produced a final report. In addition to stating without evidence that the Guatemalan government had been acting under orders from the Soviet Union, this report also claimed that Soviet weapons had been brought covertly to Guatemala by submarine. This unintentionally drew attention to Operation WASHTUB.

MKNAOMI
MKNAOMI

MKNAOMI is the code name for a joint Department of Defense/CIA research program from the 1950s through to the 1970s. Unclassified information about the MKNAOMI program and the related Special Operations Division is scarce. It is generally reported to be a successor to the MKULTRA project focusing on biological projects including biological warfare agents—specifically, to store materials that could either incapacitate or kill a test subject and to develop devices for the diffusion of such materials.During its first twenty years, the CIA engaged in projects designed to increase U.S. biological and chemical warfare capabilities. Project MKNAOMI was initiated to provide the CIA with a covert support base to meet its top-secret operational requirements. The goal was to have a robust arsenal of lethal and incapacitating materials within the CIA's Technical Services Division (TSD). This would enable the TSD to serve as a center for supplying biological and chemical materials.Surveillance, testing, upgrading and the evaluation of special materials and items were provided by MKNAOMI to ensure that no defects or unwanted contingencies emerged during operational conditions. The U.S. Army's Special Operations Command (SOC) was assigned to assist the CIA with development, testing and maintenance procedures for the biological agents and delivery systems (1952). Both the CIA and SOC modified guns to fire special darts coated with biological agents and poisonous pills. The darts could incapacitate guard dogs, allowing agents to infiltrate the area that the dogs were guarding, and would then be used to awaken the dogs upon exiting the facility. In addition, the SOC was designated to research the potential to use biological agents against other animals and crops.A 1967 CIA memo which was uncovered by the Church Committee contained evidence of at least three covert techniques for attacking and poisoning crops that had been tested under field conditions. On November 25, 1969, President Richard Nixon banned any military use of biological weapons and Project MKNAOMI was dissolved. On February 14, 1970, a presidential order outlawed all stockpiles of bacteriological weapons and nonliving toxins. However, despite the presidential order, a CIA scientist was able to acquire an estimated 11 grams of deadly shellfish toxin from SOC personnel at Fort Detrick. The toxin was stored in a CIA laboratory where it remained undetected for over five years.