One of the CIA's most flakey Cold War campaigns was Operation Acoustic Kitty. In confidential documents from the CIA's super-secret Science and Technology Directorate, it was exposed that some Cold-War-era cats were surgically altered to become advanced bugging devices. The idea was that the cats would listen in on Soviet negotiation from park benches, windowsills and garbage containers. The cat was meant to just stroll up to the sensitive conversations, entirely unnoticed. The clandestine cat's electrical internals would then capture and relay the audio to awaiting agents.
The project was begun in 1961. Former CIA officer Victor Marchetti narrates the story of the Acoustic Kitty:
"They slit the cat open, put batteries in him, and 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 hard training, the cyborg cat was ready for its first ground test. The CIA inserted 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 instantly. Five years of attempt and over $15 million in spending were resulted to roadkill in a moment. Shorty after its death a CIA operative returned to the site of accident and put the cat's remaining parts into a container to prevent the Soviets from getting their paws on the sensitive and expensive listening devices.
Operation Acoustic Kitty was completely desolated in 1967, and declared an complete failure. Perhaps due to their awkward nature, the documents describing Acoustic Kitty remain partially censored even today. But one document does congratulate 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."
