While neither exhibit is worth a special trip to the Newseum, they are both slickly produced and worthy additions to the overall experience. Of the two, the FBI exhibit is broader and is especially interesting now that the FBI no longer conducts tours of its own building.
G-Men & Journalists
The FBI discontinued public tours of their headquarters building (just 3 blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Newseum) after 9/11 caused an increase in security. Many of the artifacts on display in G-Men and Journalists are on loan from the FBI and have been out of the public eye since then.
It's staged as a collection of about a half dozen of the most famous cases in FBI history, including: the first Public Enemy #1, John Dillinger; the Rosenburg spy cases; the Lindbergh baby kidnapping; the Unabomber; and especially relevant to Washington-area residents, the Beltway sniper shootings that terrorized the DC area in 2002.
Outside of the exhibit are life-size cutouts of J.Edgar Hoover and some famous crime figures. It's interesting to note how short many of them were. Hoover was only about 5' 7" tall.
Some of the artifacts on display are authentic (for example, Dillinger's death mask, displayed outside of Hoover's office for many years; and the electric chair used to execute Lindbergh baby kidnapper Bruno Hauptmann).
Other items are mock-ups made by the FBI to test theories or demonstrate to juries how the crimes were committed. For example, there's a full-size replica of the back-end of the modified blue Chevy Caprice that Beltway snipers John Muhammed and Lee Boyd Malvo used in the killings. The model was built to show the jury how the killers were able to lie inside the car and fire out through the trunk.
Almost by definition the G-Men exhibit is a little grisly and disturbing, as the FBI's mission is to unravel crimes and protect against the darker side of humanity. Oddly though, the artifact I found most unsettling was the handwritten Arabic poem written by Saddam Hussein to his FBI interrogator after the latter had gained his trust, in the months prior to his execution.
Manhunt: Chasing Lincoln's Killer
The Manhunt exhibit on the top floor of the Newseum is based on a book by James Swanson, Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase For Lincoln's Killer. There are many Lincoln-related events this year through April 30 during the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth, including the reopening of Ford's Theater after renovation.
I was slightly disappointed by the lack of depth to the Manhunt exhibit, though I learned some interesting tidbits. (For example, the Newseum stands on the site of the hotel Booth stayed in prior to the assassination, the National Hotel.)
Manhunt is billed as a chance to learn about the assassination and the ensuing hunt for Booth in the same way the American public learned it (via newspaper accounts, fed instantaneously from the telegraph for the first time). But somehow the drama of the hunt doesn't unfold in the exhibit, which compresses the chase itself into some summarized panels.
The exhibit does a better job of succinctly telling the story of the simultaneous attacks on Lincoln, Secretary of State William Seward, and Vice President Andrew Johnson. And the photographs of the conspirators in prison, in special manacles that prevented them from bringing their hands together, are oddly compelling.
(They ignored an obvious tidbit, that accused conspirator Dr. Samuel Mudd, who set Booth's leg after he broke it jumping onto the stage after shooting Lincoln, was an ancestor of long-time CBS reporter Roger Mudd.)
The exhibit mentions that Booth was shocked when, after several days on the run, he read newspaper accounts vilifying him for the assassination instead of proclaiming him a hero as he expected. It's never stated as such, but I wonder if this contributed to Booth's determination to fight to the death rather than surrender as his co-conspirators did.
Ultimately there were two exhibits that I think touched upon the raw emotion of the time. One was the picture of the soldier, Corporal Boston Corbett, who shot Booth in the burning barn where he had holed up. I was struck that the nation appeared to regard him as Lincoln's avenger.
The other was a small, pocket-sized photo given to one of the searchers hunting for Booth. The man had scrawled his acid condemnation of Booth all over the picture, leaving only the face exposed and framed in the careful 19th Century handwriting.
The Final Word
Perhaps my desire for additional depth in the Manhunt exhibit is more a matter of my own personal interest in the subject. The Civil War was when the United States came of age, and Lincoln had an uncommon gift for expression that resonates through the ages. I've always wondered how the course of history might have changed had he lived to begin the arduous task of healing the nation.
Overall, both exhibits enhance the Newseum and complement the other displays, with rare historical artifacts that have been seldom or never shown. Both are scheduled to remain throughout 2009.
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