Spies in East Bethesda...
Some of you may know Sandy Spagnolo (EBCA's social chairperson and professional organizer), a fiery redhead who has lived on Chestnut Street all her life. But with all the newcomers in the neighborhood, not many of you remember her grandfather, Art Lundahl.
Art was born in Chicago
in 1915. He worked for the CIA, and was the founding father of NPIC, the National Photographic Interpretation Center, formed in 1961. It combined CIA, Army, Navy and Air Force assets to solve national intelligence problems. It was the NPIC that first identified the basing of missiles in Cuba in 1962. By analyzing images from U-2 flights over Cuba (Art also had a hand in designing the once super secret U-2), Art Lundahl was instrumental in identifying the missiles by studying images of tarps, trucks, and mud tracks. His findings, which he reported to President Kennedy at the White House, contradicted the thinking of political and military analysts. This information led Kennedy to impose a blockade on Cuba to cut off further arms shipments. The Soviet Union eventually withdrew the missiles.
So, how does this figure into East Bethesda lore? Well, the Lundahls have been in the neighborhood since 1945, when they purchased a new cape cod home on Chestnut Street. The government later installed a bomb shelter in the basement, along with a separate and direct line to the CIA (his daughter was a teenager at the time, and the CIA could never get through on the phone!).
Sir Arthur C. Lundahl was the 11th American to be knighted by the Queen of England. A movie was made about him (ok, ok, about the Cuban missile crisis). Check out "Thirteen Days" - Art is portrayed by Dakin Matthews. He's the one smoking a pipe. There's also an old Discovery episode about him, in the Discovery Spy series. Art lived until 1992.
If you‘ve got some East Bethesda history to share, please give me a call. You can also check out other East Bethesda lore on my blog: www.BethesdaHouseHunter.com
For more information on Bethesda, specifically East Bethesda, check out ://ebca.org for up-to-date information and neighborhood happenings.http://ebca.org://ebca.org
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