Now, the artist who went off on it that night took out a napkins and proceeded to illustrate for me why it was the "CIA's version" of the peace sign and not the original symbol as created by Bertrand Russell.
Evidently this crotchety old 60's artist-radical (whose friend savaged me for being a Catholic, btw) felt the CIA added the central cross bar in order to accentuate some "upside-down cross" as well.
Like I said, I don't know much about that and should look into the evolution of the peace sign one of these days.