Cats, dolphins and one smart raven: CIA's secret animal spies

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In early 1974, Do Da was top in espionage class, on the way to becoming a high-flying CIA agent: he handled himself better in the rough, carried ...

WASHINGTON: In early 1974, Do Da was top in espionage class, on the way to becoming a high-flying CIA agent: He handled himself better in the rough, carried heavier loads, and could brush off attackers.AdvertisementThe bird was a central figure in a decade-long US Central Intelligence Agency program to train animals as agents, helping Washington fight the Cold War against the Soviet Union.

Neither of those programs went very far. More effort was put into training dolphins as potential saboteurs and helping spy on the Soviet Union's development of a nuclear submarine fleet, perhaps the most potent challenge to US power in the mid-1960s.

For the latter, the agency enlisted ornithologists to try to determine which birds regularly spent part of the year in the area of Shikhany in the Volga River Basin southeast of Moscow, where the Soviets operated a chemical weapons facility. In project Axiolite, bird trainers working on San Clemente island off southern California taught the birds to fly miles over the water between a boat and land.

 

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