The secret history of CIA spy animals during the Cold War

In early 1974, Do Da was the first of his spying clbad. He was on the verge of becoming a top CIA agent: his performance was better when he was under pressure, he could stand more weight than the others and escape those who They will attack.

But when he was subjected to the most difficult examination of his training, he disappeared after being defeated by two copies of the same species: the crows.

The bird has long been a central figure of the program used by the CIA during the Cold War to fight the Soviet Union..

The intelligence agency on Thursday released dozens of documents on training programs for cats, dogs, dolphins and birds, intended to be used as "spies", as published. AFP.

The CIA badyzed how to use cats as roving listeners – "audio surveillance vehicles" – and place electrical implants in the dogs' brains to see if they could be controlled remotely. But none of these programs go too far.

More extensive took the experiences with the Dolphins, who were trained to turn them into potential saboteurs and spy on Soviet nuclear submarines, perhaps the biggest threat to American power in the mid-1960s.

The Oxygas and Chirilogy projects aimed to determine if dolphins could be trained to replace human divers and place explosives on moored or moving vessels, or to sneak into Soviet ports to deposit acoustic beacons or detection instruments. missiles.

These projects have also been abandoned.

The spies

But what captivated the imagination of US intelligence officials during the Cold War is the birds: pigeons, hawks, crows, owls and even some migratory birds.

The CIA recruited ornithologists to determine which migratory birds spent part of the year in an area southeast of Moscow, around the town of Chikhany, where the Soviets had weapons factories. chemical.

The agency perceived the birds as "living sensors" that, based on their food, could reveal in their gut the substances that the Soviets were undergoing..

In the early 1970s, the CIA turned to raptors and crows, hoping to be trained to participate in missions such as the placement of micrograveurs in the windows.

As part of a project called Axiolite, coaches based on San Clemente Island, on the south coast of California, have taught birds to travel miles and miles between a ship and the coast.

If one of the "candidates" pbaded the exam, he was sent to Soviet territory with a camera attached to his body to take pictures and return to the starting point.

The birds were smart but "maybe too slow to prevent attacks" from other birds, reported a report. Two hawks died of diseases.

The story of Do Da

The most promising bird was the raven Do Da. Resistant, able to determine a height and favorable winds and smart enough to circumvent the attacks of his peers: he was "the star of the project," wrote a scientist.

But the June 19 training was fatal. Other crows attacked it and it was never seen again.

The pigeons, used for two millennia as messengers and to take pictures during the First World War, were another high hopes of the American intelligence services.

The CIA had hundreds of pigeons, which she trained on her territory by equipping them with cameras.

The goal was to spy on the shipyards of Lenigrado (today St. Petersburg), where the Soviets built their nuclear submarines.

But the experience was not enough: many birds ran away with their expensive cameras and never found them again.