M ost Americans don’t know much about the secret world of intelligence because they have never come into contact with it. The result: Spy-themed entertainment is standing in for adult education on the subject, and although the idea might seem far-fetched, fictional spies are actually shaping public opinion and real intelligence policy. In the past two decades, the amount of spy-themed entertainment, or “spytainment,” has skyrocketed, while spy facts remain scarce and university professors teach courses on just about everything other than intelligence.

The implications of this shift are far more serious than they appear. In intelligence, art is imitating life and life is imitating art. Government officials hired an engineer from Walt Disney Imagineering to design the agency’s offices, right down to the sleek consoles and lunchroom chairs. It looks like it came straight out of Hollywood. Created after 9/11 to fuse terrorism-threat reporting across the U.S., NCTC has an ultramodern operations center with giant wall monitors, an open floor plan, and computer stations tracking bad guys around the globe. The National Counterterrorism Center is another story. This post is excerpted from Zegart’s forthcoming book. The only clue that this is not a typical government building is the burn bags: Because classified documents cannot just be thrown away, instead of trash cans, striped burn bags that look weirdly like Trader Joe’s holiday shopping bags are scattered around the building to make incineration easier. There, lobby security has no retina scanners or fancy fingerprint devices, just a few turnstiles and a friendly security guard who takes cellphones and hands out paper claim checks. Once cleared by security, visitors head back outside, where they can walk down a winding road or take the rambling shuttle bus to the old headquarters building. There are teller windows with bulletproof glass, soda machines, and an old-fashioned black landline phone mounted on the back wall.

Instead, the entry to America’s best-known intelligence agency has more of a shabby post-office feel. The visitor center looks nothing like the high-tech offices of Jason Bourne and Carrie Mathison. F or fans of spy movies and television shows, a visit to CIA headquarters will be disappointing.

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