5
minute read
The CIA and other US spy agencies occasionally unveil once-secret documents, offering a glimpse into their concealed operations. But even in your wildest dreams, could you have conjured up these ideas?
1. The Cold War Condom Drop
Condoms were considered Psyop (psychological operation) weapons in the 1950s when the CIA drew up a plan to have packages of extra-large condoms, labeled ‘small’ or ‘medium’, dropped by weather balloons into Soviet-controlled Europe. The idea was to lower their morale by implying the Yanks were incredibly well-endowed but the operation never made it off the runway.
2. Osama bin Laden ‘Devil Doll’
It may sound far-fetched, but the CIA has declassified a document about a Washington Post report that reveals plans for a bin Laden ‘devil doll’ meant to diminish support for al-Qaeda: “In about 2005, the CIA began secretly developing a custom-made Osama bin Laden action figure,” the Post writes. “The faces of the figures were painted with a heat-dissolving material designed to peel off and reveal a red-faced bin Laden who looked like a demon, with piercing green eyes and black facial markings.” The plan was ditched but it seems at least one devilish prototype survives.
3. Sabotage Behind Enemy Lines - At Work!
The WWII Office of Strategic Services (OSS) Simple Sabotage Field Manual for workers offers 15 tips to sabotage your job - an intriguing guide to navigating behind enemy lines at the office. Desk jockeys are given a blueprint for devastating company morale and productivity that may sound all too familiar. For starters, the OSS advises agents to routinely refer all matters to committees - ensuring their membership is maximized - and make speeches as often as possible using long anecdotes to illustrate points.
4. Mind-control experiments
Project MK-Ultra was an illegal CIA mind-control program that involved experimenting on humans using psychoactive drugs, electroshock, and deprivation. The death of US scientist Frank Olson on Thanksgiving weekend in 1953 is one of the most enduring mysteries of the CIA mind-control project.
5. Adult Movies for Cold War Propaganda
The CIA wanted to undermine Indonesian President Sukarno because of his ties to the USSR, so they planned to leak a film of the “president” (an actor in a Sukarno mask) in a compromising situation with a beautiful blonde. Accounts vary on how the movie was made, but the film was apparently never distributed. It seems Sukarno would have shrugged it off in any event!
6. The CIA Pulls the strings of Hollywood and the Arts
During the 1950s, the CIA backed a British animation studio to create a movie about George Orwell’s Animal Farm that would help allies win the Cold War. The CIA ensured the movie ending was twisted so that the animals rose up against their corrupt leadership and showed revolt against totalitarian regimes is possible and justifiable. Over the years, spies have also infiltrated publishing, comic books, music, and modern art, using subliminal seduction and other methods to deliver their pro-West propaganda message. Nothing, it seems, is sacred.
