With the recent release of Breach, Robert Hanssen is once again in the public eye and the topic of much discussion. The Hanssen case has been called the the worst intelligence disaster in US history. However, while a great deal is known concerning Hanssen spying activities over the twenty two years that he gave classified documents to the USSR and later Russia, the reason behind his betrayal is still shrouded in a great deal of mystery and controversy. Helping to give answers to the daunting task of ‘why,’ The International Spy museum in DC on November 28, 2007 will open a new exibit on Hanssen. This new exibit is from the unique perspective of his friend and longtime collegue David G. Major, who for 14 years worked with Hanssen at FBI headquarters in Washington DC. A privately owned museum, The International Spy Museum is dedicated to the field of espionage. Located in the Penn Quarter neighborhood of Washington, D.C., and about one block west of the Gallery Place-Chinatown Metro station, the museum covers espionioge techniques from the Greek and Roman empires right up to the cold war and today. Despite being one of only a handful of museums in Washington that charge an admission fee, the museum has been immensely popular since its opening in July 2002. A unique feature of the museum is its controlled entry, where visitors are given 5 minutes to memorize details of one of 16 spy profiles they are to assume (fictitious name, age, place of birth, destination, and so forth) before they are allowed to proceed into the exhibit area. Later while touring the museum visitors may test themselves at an interactive display on how well they remember the details of their selected spy identity. They may also be stopped occasionally by museum guides acting as "police" and "questioned" about their assumed identity.

Critics of the museum have noted that too many of the museum's board members are former members of the intelligence community, specifically agents from the Central Intelligence Agency. The critics argue that this unfairly biases the museum and glosses over traditional criticism of the CIA, and generally romanticizes intelligence work. The inevitable counter to these critics argument is that, having the collaboration with various members of the intelligence community has imparted unique authenticity to the exhibits that can not be found anywhere else. The exibit on Hanssen opening in only a few days time will provide a glimpse into the real personality and psychology of one of the most damaging spies in U.S. history. He will explore why Hanssen’s betrayal was so difficult to uncover, his own theories on what motivated the spy, his perspective on Breach, and the status of U.S. counterintelligence in the wake of this profoundly important spy case. Tickets for this exhibition are $23 for non-members.