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Weer in Ur Cold War...
The CIA tried to uncover the Kremlin's deepest secrets during the 1960s by turning cats into walking bugging devices, recently declassified documents show.In one experiment during the Cold War a cat, dubbed Acoustic Kitty, was wired up for use as an eavesdropping platform. It was hoped that the animal - which was surgically altered to accommodate transmitting and control devices - could listen to secret conversations from window sills, park benches or dustbins.
As with most hair-brained Cold War schemes, this one ended in a tragic farce.
How 13.5 seconds of thought didn't kill this prior to actual testing is beyond me. Lessee here:
1 - We're going to use cats. Probably the most contrary animal that ever evolved.
2 - We're going to depend on them to get somewhat near what we want to hear.
3 - We're going to hope they never get run over or otherwise killed so that the Soviets would never see the actual electronics in the cats and simply exterminate ever cat in the city.
4 - Again, I want to stree that the goal was to get a cat to do something that you want it to do.
Personally, I think the cat would've walked up to Kruschev or whoever was in charge and simply horked the device up on his carpet just to spite us. And then sold them our secrets. That's just what cats do.
Posted by: ron on May 29, 2007 12:35 PM