Operation Acoustic Kitty
At the height of the Cold War, the US Central Intelligence Agency was
willing to try just about anything to gain an advantage over the dreaded
Communists. The agency considered using exploding cigars or seashells to
remove Cuban leader Fidel Castro; they employed psychics to attempt "remote
viewing" of Russian military secrets; and the CIA even put the Soviets on
the business ends of clairvoyant minds to attempt mind-control.
One of the CIA's most bizarre Cold War efforts was Operation Acoustic Kitty.
In declassified documents from the CIA's super-secret Science and Technology
Directorate, it was revealed that some Cold-War-era cats were surgically
altered to become sophisticated bugging devices. The idea was that the cats
would eavesdrop on Soviet conversations from park benches, windowsills and
garbage containers. The cat was meant to just stroll up to the sensitive
conversations, completely unnoticed. The clandestine cat's electrical
internals would then capture and relay the audio to awaiting agents.
The project was funded and work began in 1961. Former CIA officer Victor
Marchetti recounts the story of the Acoustic Kitty:
"They slit the cat open, put batteries in him, wired him up. The tail was
used as an antenna. They made a monstrosity. They tested him and tested him.
They found he would walk off the job when he got hungry, so they put another
wire in to override that. Finally, they're ready. They took it out to a park
bench and said, "Listen to those two guys. Don't listen to anything else -
not the birds, no cat or dog - just those two guys!"
After several surgeries and intensive training, the cyborg cat was ready for
its first field test. The CIA drove the cat to a Soviet compound on
Wisconsin Avenue in Washington, D.C., and let him out of a parked van across
the street. The cat ambled into the road, and was struck by a taxi almost
immediately. Five years of effort and over $15 million in spending were
reduced to roadkill in an instant. Shorty after its demise a CIA operative
returned to the accident site and put the cat's remains into a container to
prevent the Soviets from getting their paws on the sensitive and expensive
listening devices.
Operation Acoustic Kitty was completely abandoned in 1967, and declared an
unadulterated failure. Possibly due to their embarrassing nature, the
documents describing Acoustic Kitty remain partially censored even today.
But one document does praise the Acoustic Kitty team for their efforts:
"The work done on this problem over the years reflects great credit on the
personnel who guided it, particularly (censored), whose energy and
imagination could be models for scientific pioneers."
While the memo says that the use of trained cats is possible, it also says
that "the environmental and security factors in using this technique in a
real foreign situation force us to conclude that for our (intelligence)
purposes, it would not be practical."
Further reading:
The CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology Web Site
PDF file of CIA document on Acoustic Kitty
--
Socrates taught his students that the pursuit of truth can only begin once
they start to question and analyze every belief that they ever held dear. If
a certain belief passes the tests of evidence, deduction, and logic, it
should be kept. If it doesn't, the belief should not only be discarded, but
the thinker must also then question why he was led to believe the erroneous
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