The CIA has overthrown democratically elected governments in pursuit of bananas, drugged the living fuck out of their own citizens with hallucinogens, and tortured innocent people in the name of freedom. Allegedly or something.
But if rumors are to be believed, one thing that they never quite managed to control? Cats.
Today’s Moment of Science… Acoustic Kitty.
The popular TL;DR version of these Cold War shenanigans is that we surgically bugged some homing kittens to spy on those goddamn commies. Then with ten million dollars of technology sewn into a cat’s ass they went all “YOU’RE NOT MY REAL MOM” and ran out of their taxi and straight into traffic on their first mission.
Accounts of this often rely on heavily redacted government documents and interviews with Victor Marchetti, a former CIA officer and historic whistleblower. He colorfully described the affair by saying they “slit the cat open, put batteries in him, wired him up, made a monstrosity.” Which is a fine enough pull quote if your intent is making people envision Frankencat (or Dr. Frankencat’s cat monster, whatever).
However, people seemingly closer to the project suggest it was less grotesque and showed more promise than shoving a walkie-talkie into BabyFluffykins. Bob Bailey was an animal trainer who claimed to have worked on the program. He said he “never” found an animal he couldn’t train. Chickens, alligators, and spiders were all trainable, and cats were… still cats, but trainable.
Former head of the CIA office of Technical Services Robert Wallace suggested that unlike the overall “fuck the Ruskies” flavor of espionage from the Cold War, the cats served a more specific calling. In his book Spycraft, it was explained as a plan to spy on an Asian head of state. Feral cats were incredibly common in the region, and would wander into this leader’s strategic planning sessions like they owned the place and be completely ignored. Because cats.
So why not train Whiskers to smuggle in a microphone? Well.
It was the sixties and this presented some technical challenges. First, the cat couldn’t give any sign that it was anything other than a healthy, normal cat. An implanted listening and transmitting device couldn’t cause distress, be big enough to visibly show, disrupt the cat’s natural gait, or make Pumpkin start meowing “KILL ALL HUMANS.”
Then there was the whole ‘cat’ issue of it.
Implant what you will, cat gives nary a fuck about a head of state’s business unless there’s catnip, a jingly ball, or a pspspspsps noise on the agenda. Additionally there was the problem that, outside of a lab setting, the critter would get bored or hungry and wander off, because fuck you, cat. So a few more surgeries of [redacted because deeply embarrassing to the CIA] being shoved into the unsuspecting feline and it was unbothered by hunger, able to be directed remotely, and ready to eavesdrop for capitalism.
So what ever happened to the only cat who would ever really listen to you?
The short, highly redacted document released by the CIA in 1983 states that “the program would not lend itself in a practical sense to our highly specialized needs,” and don’t expect many details beyond that. It also mentions that [redacted] was “in itself a remarkable scientific achievement.” Love that with my tax dollars.
Per both Bailey and Wallace, it was a serious program that showed early success of a new technology. However, a lot of Bailey’s work was destroyed in a fire. And when pressed for more details, the CIA firmly responded “the fact of the existence or nonexistence of requested records is currently and properly classified.”
According to Wallace, the anonymous cat’s implants were removed and it went on to live a long, happy life.
This has been your Moment of Science, inviting you to share your feedback by speaking loudly and clearly into your cat’s tuchus.
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