A favorite gathering place for employees of the Central Intelligence Agency is by the Nathan Hale statute found on the grounds of the CIA. It was erected in 1973 as a tribute to America's most famous spy, a schoolteacher who was captured and hanged by the British in 1776.
William Casey, when he later become Director of the agency, ridiculed the choice on the basis that Hale was a rank amateur who did not complete his mission and got caught.
Although there is some dispute as to whether or not Hale said exactly "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country," witnesses to his execution all agreed that he faced the noose with courage and composure and that if the preceding was not in fact his verbatim final words, he did at least utter something equally cool as his last statement.
All images of Hale, by the way, are strictly a product of imagination, as no paintings were done of him during his 21-year lifetime.
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