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Acoustic Kitty was a CIA project launched by the Directorate of Science & Technology in the 1960s attempting to use cats in spy missions. A battery and a microphone were implanted into a cat and an antenna into its tail. Due to problems with distraction, the cat's sense of hunger had to be addressed in another operation. Surgical and training expenses are thought to have amounted to over $20 million.
The first cat mission was eavesdropping on two men in a park outside the Soviet compound on Wisconsin Avenue in Washington, D.C.. The cat was released nearby, but was hit and killed by a taxi almost immediately. Shortly thereafter the project was considered a failure and declared to be a total loss.[citation needed]
[edit] In music
- John Mann produced an album in 2002 entitled Acoustic Kitty.
- My Acoustic Kitty is an alternative rock/punk band from San Diego, California.
- "Acoustic Kitty", by Brooklyn's The Larch was featured on 2003's Only Pop Music Can Save Us Now! (Dent Resistant Records)
- Acoustic Kitty Project is a folk rock/Americana band from Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
[edit] In print
It is featured in a novel and in a children's book:
[edit] References
- CIA recruited cat to bug Russians, Charlotte Edwardes, April 11, 2001, telegraph.co.uk.
- Edited CIA memo, dated March 1967 (PDF format).
- Project: Acoustic Kitty, Julian Borger, September 11, 2001, Guardian Unlimited.
- The Agency: The Rise and Decline of the CIA, John Ranelagh, rev. ed., New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987, at p. 208.
- The Living Dead (television documentary series), Adam Curtis, episode 2, 1995.
[edit] External links
