Vince Houghton - Nuking the Moon - And Other Intelligence Schemes and Military Plots Left on the Drawing Board

Or was it?

AND THEN WHAT?

Evidence from the last decade suggests that some people think the Acoustic Kitty program may never have ended—or maybe it ended in the United States but was continued by one of her allies. Newspaper headlines from around the world provide the proof: “Iranians Arrest 14 Squirrels for Spying”; “Shark ‘Sent to Egypt by Mossad’”; “Hamas Arrests ‘Israeli Spy’ Dolphin”; “Hezbollah: We Have Captured an Israeli ‘Spy Eagle’ in Lebanon”; “Saudi Arabia ‘Nabbed Israeli-Tagged Vulture for Being Mossad Spy’”; “Turkey Clears Bird of Spying for Israel”; “Abbas Accuses Israel of Using Wild Boars against Palestinians.”

And my favorite, non-Israeli headline: “Police in India Nab a Pigeon, Suspect Fowl Play from Pakistan.”

This trend has become so prevalent there is an entire Wikipedia page dedicated to “Israel-related animal conspiracy theories.” Really. Look it up.

It’s impossible to trace the roots of these stories directly to the doorstep of the CIA and the Acoustic Kitty program, and as a historian I am loath to confuse correlation with causality, and of course it is obvious that a not insignificant amount of anti-Israeli sentiment is fueling this craze—but it’s hard not to see a clear lineage from the laboratories and operating rooms of CIA to the poor “Mossad” secret squirrels rotting away in an Iranian jail cell.

Finally, let’s talk about the cochlea, because that’s where this all started. Today, we are still not able to fully replicate the intricacies of this complex organ, but we are getting close. A device known as a cochlear implant can replace some of the function of damaged or inoperable hair cells (the stereocilia) by artificially converting sound into electrical impulses that the brain can detect. The quality of sound isn’t perfect, but technology continues to develop each and every year.

There is no concrete (read: declassified) evidence that the CIA experiments in aural engineering and neuroscience had a direct impact on the cochlear technological milestones of today. But maybe (just maybe) the civilian scientists working to help cure the hearing impaired are, in some way, continuing the dream of CIA scientists and engineers back in the 1960s.

I’d love for that to be true.

Acoustic Kitty wouldn’t have died in vain.

(If she died in the first place.)

This is a story about feces.

No, scratch that. “Feces” is too formal. Like something you might hear at your doctor’s office.

This is a story about dung.

Nope. That doesn’t work either. Too zoological.

Going number 2? For God’s sake, I have a PhD.

Crap. Defecation. Excrement. Manure. Stool. Waste. Droppings. Meadow muffins. Night soil. Pasture paddies. Prairie pancakes.

Fine. I give up.

This is a story about poop. Goat poop. Specifically, synthetic goat poop.

And a lot of it.

Stanley Lovell was a chemist,and a very good one. Like many patriotic Americans, he signed up to contribute when the United States joined the Second World War. His talents and skills were immediately recognized by Dr. Vannevar Bush, the director of an American wartime agency known as the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC), who assigned Lovell to help the Quartermaster Corps design innovative chemical solutions to common military problems posed by a truly global war. Some of these would include how to make grommets (like an eyelet on a shoe or tarp) out of plastic instead of metal (to save the metal for other uses); or how to make mold-proof tents, shoes, leggings, (etc.), which are particularly necessary in Pacific jungle environments; or to figure out a way to make ponchos suitable for desert warfare, where it can be frigidly cold in the night, but blazing hot during the day.

This was immensely important work. It would help to win the war. Lovell was making a contribution.

But he was bored.

Fortunately for him, this boredom did not last long. Dr. Bush was now helping to recruit scientists for another organization. A secret one. Full of spies—and the people who would develop the technology to help those spies win the war. One day, Bush came to his new employees with a seemingly simple thought experiment:

You are about to land at dead of night in a rubber raft on a German-held coast. Your mission is to destroy a vital enemy wireless installation that is defended by armed guards, dogs and searchlights. You can have with you any one weapon you can imagine. Describe that weapon.

Lovell couldn’t just say “tactical nuclear weapon” (which would be my knee-jerk reaction if asked that question today, but alas, they hadn’t been invented yet), so he spent about a week concocting his answer. His response hinted at his future aptitude for dirty wiles and clandestine shenanigans. He submitted:

I want a completely silent, flashless gun—a Colt automatic or submachine gun—or both [technically this would be cheating—Bush said one weapon]. I can pick off the first sentry with no sound or flash to explain his collapse, so the next sentry will come to him instead of sounding an alarm. Then, one by one, I’ll pick them off and command the wireless station.

Quite devious for a chemist. And it was enough to get Bush’s attention. Shortly afterward, Lovell was told to report to an address in Northwest Washington. It was there that he first met William “Wild Bill” Donovan: lawyer, politician, the most decorated soldier in American history, and the director of the newly formed intelligence agency the Office of Strategic Services (OSS).

Donovan kept it simple: “You know your Sherlock Holmes, of course,” he said. “Professor Moriarty is the man I want for my staff here at OSS. I think you’re it.”

Donovan continued, “I need every subtle device and every underhanded trick to use against the Germans and the Japanese—by our own people—but especially by the underground resistance groups in all occupied countries. You will have to invent all of them, Lovell, because you are going to be my man.” As Lovell described in his memoir, Donovan was really telling him, “Throw all your normal law-abiding concepts out the window. Here’s a chance to raise merry hell. Come, help me raise it.”

Lovell had found his war. He was in.

Bill Donovan wasa firm believer in the power of science to help win the war. He thought the side that most effectively and efficiently applied science and technology to intelligence and combat operations would have the decisive edge. As a result, in October 1942, only four months after the creation of the OSS, Donovan formed the OSS Research & Development unit (OSS/R&D), and put Lovell in charge. OSS/R&D had a number of responsibilities: camouflage; chemical, mechanical, and electrical implements; documentation forgery; disguise; drugs, toxins, and lethal weapons; secret writing; chemical and biological warfare defense… and offense. And of course, special weapons and devices—the devious spy gadgets that are so alluring to our visitors at the Spy Museum.