The 1960s was an exciting decade for the CIA. You probably know about the project MK-Ultra, the famous mind control project CIA experimented with, but did you know that they also “deployed nonhuman operatives–ravens, pigeons, even cats–to spy on Cold War adversaries,” as Tom Vanderbilt wrote for Smithsonian Magazine?
Turned out that cats are not really willing to listen. With all the training CIA was willing to do, they couldn’t make cats obey. Even counting on their famous curiosity didn’t help.
The efforts grew along with the lack of expected results. The infamous Acoustic Kitty was born. Victor Marchetti, a former assistant to the CIA’s director, explained it as briefly as he could: “They slit the cat open, put batteries in him, wired him up. They made a monstrosity.”
Many millions of dollars were wasted during this process, not to mention the cats hurt. But we have learned once and for all – there’s no such thing as making cats do what you want, no matter how much effort you put into it.
