The CIA and the Spy Guy

I extracted the hidden antenna and cylindrical microphone from the silver pen and passed it to the CIA man. His eyes widened. Bringing the pen to his lips, he uttered, “Open Channel D,” the mantra that secret agents Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin used about 35 years ago to get in touch with their chief, Alexander Waverly, on the TV spy series “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” Today the pen and a sampling of the 4,000 other spy props I’ve acquired are on display at Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Va.

It’s the perfect “Twilight Zone” twist in the life of a guy who named his three wonderful children after fictional spies: Illya, Bond and Moriah Flint (after the “Our Man Flint” films).

My fascination with espionage began when I was 10, seated in front of my parents’ black-and-white TV, watching actor Robert Vaughn as Solo open a cigarette case to reveal a secret transmitter. I quickly discovered James Bond and other TV and movie super-agents. Enamored of the genre’s clever gadgetry, bikini-clad women and cool music, I knew what I must do: become a spy. Then it occurred to me that I might get killed. So I turned to filmmaking. I spent my 13th birthday on the set of “U.N.C.L.E.” at MGM Studios, and within a few years I was directing a documentary and interviewing Sean Connery in between his takes as James Bond. I went on to write network TV spy scripts, an “Avengers” TV special, and to serve as an advisor to movie and TV espionage producers.

In 1997 I was recruited by MGM to serve as a 007 expert in a high-stakes legal battle against Sony Pictures over the James Bond movie franchise. I returned from a meeting one day to find a startling message on my answering machine: “Would you please call the CIA?”

I don’t know how long I stood frozen in my study. Why was the agency calling me? Does the CIA do stuff like this--go after people whose entire psyches are devoted to secret pen-radios, hidden sleeve guns, bullet-firing cars and naked, gold-painted blonds? Maybe I knew too much!

“Do you expect me to talk?”

“No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die!”

In fact, the CIA had heard that I had amassed the largest collection of TV and movie spy memorabilia in the world. They flew two of their people to my home in Los Angeles and spent days poring over my massive cache.

Did I happen to have the shoe phone from “Get Smart”? they wanted to know. Of course.

The tarantula that tormented James Bond in “Dr. No”? Right here.

Austin Powers’ glasses and Dr. Evil’s ring? Look no farther.

The CIA team was speechless. They, too, had grown up on spy thrillers, and some had even joined the agency as a result. Now their desire was to borrow items from my collection to exhibit at CIA headquarters. They whisked me off to Langley and introduced me to a world I had only known from the movies. Spending weeks inside the agency’s secret complex, I teamed with CIA personnel to set up the world’s first display of spy-fiction artifacts, including Diana Rigg’s leather pants from “The Avengers,” James Coburn’s Galaxy jacket from “Our Man Flint,” the original title art from “I Spy,” the exotic-looking Thrush rifle from “U.N.C.L.E.” and the original pilot script from “Mission: Impossible.”

What is it about the prop pen from “U.N.C.L.E.” that has that CIA man in awe? That warrants its display under glass, atop a bed of soft velvet, inside a building guarded by the world’s most protective security system? What causes crowds to gather around the locked case that exhibits an old shoe fitted with telephone circuitry, into which Maxwell Smart remarked, “Sorry about that, Chief!”

After all, Hymie the Robot’s gear box from “Get Smart,” Napoleon Solo’s cigarette-case transmitter and James West’s sleeve-gun device from “The Wild Wild West” are just props, aged pieces of aluminum, wood, plastic and cracking paint, held together with nails and glue. What makes them objects of near reverence, I suggest, is that they are from another dimension. In that world of TV and cinema, heroes use such tools in unambiguous battles against evil.

The real CIA’s geopolitical war zones are seldom so simple.

But for a while now these spy worlds have come together--deep inside a secret complex in Virginia.

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Biederman’s Spy-Fi exhibit at the CIA is open only to employees and approved visitors, but it can be glimpsed on the CIA’s official Web site, www.cia.gov.