CIA's 'spy cat' goes splat
By James Morrison
04 November 2001
It should have been the perfect spy. But the CIA's attempt to use a
surgically altered cat as a covert bugging device fell at the first hurdle 
 when it was run over by a taxi.

Nicknamed "Acoustic Kitty", the audacious scheme was one of a number of
bizarre projects dreamt up by military scientists in the latter days of
the Cold War, according to documents newly released by the US National
Security Archive. A domestic cat was wired up with control and
transmission equipment designed to turn it into a mobile "eavesdropper"
capable of listening in on conversations by using its tail as an antenna.

In an account related in a new book by US intelligence historian Dr
Jeffrey Richelson, a former CIA agent explains that the experiment was not
an unqualified success.

Victor Marchetti, an ex-officer with the agency, recalls: "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 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 to a park and said, 'listen to those
two guys. Don't listen to anyone else 
 not the birds, not cat or the dog 
 just those two guys!'

"Then they put him out of the van, and a taxi comes and runs him over!"

Marchetti's testimony is one of several relating to the failed experiment
quoted in Dr Richelson's book, The Wizards of Langley: The CIA's
Directorate of Science and Technology.

"Acoustic Kitty" was by no means the biggest failure in the annals of CIA
espionage. Others chronicle the use of mind control drugs that led to the
suicide of an Army scientist, and futile attempts to use poison pens and
exploding seashells to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro. 

Copyright 2001 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd