In 2001, the CIA disclosed Operation
Acoustic Kitty launched by the Central Intelligence Agency Directorate of
Science & Technology during the height of the Cold War. It started when the
CIA noticed that Russians assigned to almost every Soviet Embassy in the world,
would often gather in small circles outside the embassy build and hold hushed
conversations. Whatever they were discussing, it was more than probably some
sort of dissent, could be valuable information. The problem was, for the US,
getting an earful of the discussion.
At the time, the CIA was testing
methods of audio surveillance by inserting miniature microphones (developed by
hearing aid manufacturers) into bullets strong enough to withstand the force of
a gunshot and still keep recording. These tests yielded smaller, rugged
microphones, but no “spy-bullet,” since microphones would pick up all sounds,
relevant or not, making most recordings largely useless. So in 1961, the CIA
had been conducting successful research in radio equipment and animal training
and had worked on creating surgically altered cats (Cats were selected because,
like humans, their cochlear anatomy allows them to filter and focus sound.) who
were implanted with state of the art acoustic and radio transmission
technology.
The concept was that the cats
would be free to wander the ground of the Soviet properties around DC, recording
conversions. At a cost of a remarkable
$100 million, a prototype cat had been trained to wander around building and
people. In an hour-long procedure a veterinary surgeon implanted a microphone
in the cat's ear canal, a small radio transmitter at the base of its skull and
a thin wire into its fur, allowing the cat to innocuously record and transmit
sound from its surroundings.
CIA officer Victor Marchetti wrote;
“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” (It should be noted that Marchetti was a
prominent critic of the CIA)
A heavily redacted memo on the
project was declassified in 2001, implying the CIA was too embarrassed disclose
all the details of the project so there are two version of what happened next.
Robert Wallace, a former Director of the CIA's Office of Technical Service, said
that the project was abandoned due to the difficulty of training the cat to
behave as required, “The cat” he said “wanted
to do what the cat wanted to do, and not what we wanted it to do” and that “the implant could not affect any of
the natural movements of the cat, nor could the cat experience any sense of
irritation or the presence of the device, lest it induce rubbing or clawing to
dislodge components or disturb performance……. the equipment was taken out of
the cat; the cat was re-sewn for a second time and lived a long and happy life
afterwards".
The second version is that the
cat was driven in a van loaded with equipment to the Soviet Embassy’s communal
residence building on upper Wisconsin Avenue in D.C. (The Soviets somehow
managed to get a property located at the highest point in the city) The cat was let out of the van and when it walked
across the street was run over and killed by a taxi. The project was cancelled
in 1967.