Western Maryland Railway Sued the CIA
Cumberland's Western Maryland Railway station, built in 1913 . You never know what you'll unearth in the Central Intelligence Agency's Electronic Reading Room. Click here , for example, to reach a PDF of a 30 November 1948 memo from the CIA general counsel's office authorizing payment for a "negotiated settlement of tort claim" filed by the Western Maryland Railway. The memo references an 8 November 1948 conversation between the counsel and a "Mr. Aaron" and says the payment was approved by the "EXEC for A&M," probably meaning -- if other memos in the Reading Room are any guide -- the Executive for Administration & Management. Totally not the spies, in other words, but the spies' accountants and admins. Their Moneypennys. Apparently on a need-to-know basis is the name of the memo's author (redacted), whether "Mr. Aaron" is a railway official or a CIA colleague, what dollar amount was agreed upon and, most intrigui...