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CIA unveils Cold War spy-pigeon missions

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Published: 03:34, 14 September 2019   Update: 15:18, 26 July 2020
CIA unveils Cold War spy-pigeon missions

International Desk: The CIA has declassified details of its secret Cold War spy-pigeon missions.

The files reveal how pigeons were trained for clandestine missions photographing sensitive sites inside the Soviet Union.

The release also reveals how ravens were used to drop bugging devices on window sills and dolphins were trained for underwater missions.

The CIA believed animals could fulfil "unique" tasks for the agency's clandestine operations.

Inside the CIA's headquarters in Langley, Virginia, is a museum, sadly closed to the general public. During a visit to interview the then-director I caught site of something unusual amid all the bugging devices and spy gadgets.

It was a model pigeon with a camera strapped to it.

My interest was heightened by the fact that I was writing a book about British spy pigeons during World War Two. But I was told - repeatedly - that details of CIA spy pigeon missions were still classified. That was until now.

The 1970s' operation was codenamed Tacana and explored the use of pigeons with tiny cameras to automatically take photos, newly released files show.

It took advantage of the fact that the humble pigeon is possessed of an amazing ability - almost a superpower. They can be dropped somewhere they have never been before and still find their way hundreds of miles back home.

The use of pigeons for communications dates back thousands of years but it was in World War One that they began to be used for intelligence gathering.

In World War Two a little known branch of British intelligence - MI14(d) - ran a Secret Pigeon Service which dropped birds in a container with a parachute over Occupied Europe. A questionnaire was attached. More than 1,000 pigeons returned with messages including details of V1 rocket launch sites and German radar stations.

One message from a resistance group called Leopold Vindictive produced a 12-page intelligence report sent directly to Churchill. After the war, a special "Pigeon Sub-Committee" of Britain's Joint Intelligence Committee looked at options for the Cold War. But while British operations were largely shut down, the CIA took over in exploiting pigeon power.

Operation Tacana would grow out of work done in the 1960s that looked at uses for different animals. The files reveal that the CIA trained a raven to deliver and retrieve small objects of up to 40g from the window sill of inaccessible buildings.

A flashing red laser beam was used to mark the target and a special lamp would draw the bird back. On one occasion in Europe, the CIA secretly delivered an eavesdropping device by bird to a window (although no audio was picked up from the intended target).

The CIA also looked at whether migratory birds could be used to place sensors to detect whether the Soviet Union had tested chemical weapons. It also appears there were trials of some kind of electric brain stimulation to guide dogs remotely, although many of the details are still classified.

A previously reported operation called Acoustic Kitty involved placing listening devices inside a cat.

In the 1960s, the files show the CIA looked at using dolphins for "harbour penetration" either manned or unmanned. One problem was in handing over control from a trainer who had worked with a dolphin to a field agent.

Source: BBC

 

risingbd/Sept 14, 2019/Mukul

 

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