Peter Earnest - is the founding executive director of the International Spy Museum and a 35 year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He served 25 years as a case officer in its Clandestine Service, primarily in Europe and the Middle East. He ran wide range of intelligence collection and covert action operations including counterintelligence and double agent operations working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and military intelligence. Assigned to the Office of the Director of Central Intelligence, he served as an Inspector with the Inspector General, liaison with the U.S. Senate, and director of media relations and spokesman. A member of the Senior Intelligence Service, he received the CIA’s Medal of Merit and Career Intelligence Medal. He is Chairman of the Board of the Association for Intelligence Officers (AFIO). As Museum director, he has played a leading role in its extraordinary success as a Washington attraction and he has frequently been interviewed by the major media in radio, TV, and the press on current intelligence issues.
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Thomas Boghardt – is the Historian of the International Spy Museum. A history graduate from the University of Oxford, Dr. Boghardt lectures frequently on intelligence and national security. He has appeared on ABC, CNN, NPR, and his comments have been published in The Washington Post, The Guardian, The New York Post and other media outlets. Dr. Boghardt has published widely on historical and contemporary intelligence issues. His most recent book is Spies of the Kaiser: German Covert Operations in Great Britain during the First World War Era.
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Burton Gerber – Mr. Gerber served in the Central Intelligence Agency for 39 years as a case officer and Chief of Station. He worked primarily in operations concerned with the former Soviet Union and the former Warsaw Pact countries. In Sofia, Belgrade and Moscow he was the CIA’s Chief of Station. In Washington for eight years he directed the Agency’s operational programs in the Soviet Union and Europe. In 1992, at the initiative of then-Director of Central intelligence Robert M. Gates, Mr. Gerber established the National HUMINT Requirements Tasking Center. Mr. Gerber has received CIA’s Distinguished Intelligence Medal, Intelligence Commendation Medal and William J. Donovan Award. On three occasions he was designated a Meritorious Officer.
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Major General Oleg D. Kalugin, KGB (Ret.) – A retired Major General in the 1st Chief Directorate of the KGB. Early in his thirty-two year career, he worked undercover as a journalist while attending New York’s Columbia University and then conducted espionage and influence operations as a Radio Moscow correspondent with the United Nations. General Kalugin played a major role in the John Walker spy ring as Deputy Chief of the KGB station at the Soviet Embassy in Washington, DC. He was also an elected member of the Soviet parliament during Gorbachev’s administration and was one of the first reformers of the KGB. He is currently a professor at The Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies in Alexandria, Virginia.
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Melissa Boyle Mahle – Ms. Mahle is a former US intelligence officer and expert on the Middle East and counterterrorism. As a field operative for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), she worked against many of the key challenges to US national security, including running operations against al-Qaeda terrorists and illicit networks selling weapons of mass destruction. She received a Presidential Letter of Appreciation for her work on the Middle East Peace Process and numerous exceptional performance awards from the CIA for her recruitment of agents and collection of intelligence. Ms. Mahle is the author of the book Denial and Deception: An Insider’s View of the CIA from Iran-Contra to 9/11.
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Tony & Jonna Mendez – Both Tony and Jonna Mendez are former Central Intelligence Agency Chiefs of Disguise. Tony’s career spanned twenty-five years as he worked undercover in the most important theaters of the Cold War. As the Chief of Disguise and later as the Chief of the Graphics and Authentication Division, he and his staff were responsible for changing the identity and appearance of thousands of clandestine operatives. In 1980, Mr. Mendez was awarded the Intelligence Star for Valor for single-handedly engineering and overseeing the rescue of six US diplomats from Iran during the hostage crisis. By the time Mendez retired, he had also earned the CIA's Intelligence Medal of Merit, the Intelligence Star and two Certificates of Distinction. In September of 1997, in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the CIA, he was one of only fifty officers chosen to receive the Trailblazer Medallion. Jonna is a retired CIA intelligence officer who lived undercover for 27 years in such places as Germany, Thailand, and India, specializing in clandestine photography. Her duties included instructing the CIA's most highly placed foreign assets in the use of spy cameras and the processing of intelligence gathered by them. Her impressive record afforded her the opportunity to work in Southeast Asia as a generalist in Disguise, Identity Transformation and Clandestine Imaging. In 1988, she was promoted first to Deputy Chief of Disguise and then, Chief of Disguise. She retired from the government in 1993, earning the CIA's Intelligence Commendation Medal.
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