New Year Eve

CIA won’t endorse new calendar showing agents stealing secrets, killing enemies and being killed

Far Side cartoons, Ansel Adams landscapes, underwater dogs – so cliche. Why settle for a humdrum wall calendar in 2017 when you can track your days with CIA paintings showing agency operatives stealing secrets, killing off enemies or even getting killed themselves?

January features a painting of a CIA contractor firing an AK-47 out of an Air America chopper at a North Vietnamese biplane. Flip to April for “The First Sting,” depicting a CIA-trained Afghan mujahideen fighter striking a Soviet helicopter with a Stinger missile. End 2017 on a high note: December features the famous Glomar Explorer in 1974 recovering a portion of a Soviet submarine teeming with secrets from the depths of the Pacific Ocean.

The inaugural “Secret Ops of the CIA” calendar was produced by the nephew of an agency contractor killed in the line of duty and features reproductions of the actual paintings that have hung for years in the hallways of CIA headquarters in Northern Virginia. Yes, the CIA has an official art collection, although you can’t just drive up to the agency to check it out.