Everything Everywhere Daily

The Acoustic Kitty and Other Crazy CIA Plots

Jan 27, 2025

Curious about the CIA's most bizarre strategies? Discover how their unconventional methods, like using inflatable mannequins and pigeons with cameras, reveal a unique approach to espionage. Intrigued by art's role, learn about the secretive support for abstract expressionism during the Cold War. And don’t miss the infamous Project Acoustic Kitty, a wild attempt to turn cats into surveillance agents that fell flat. These tales of creativity and absurdity in intelligence gathering are both captivating and comedic!

16:13

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Quick takeaways

The CIA's unorthodox support for abstract expressionism during the Cold War illustrated their innovative approach to countering Soviet cultural dominance.

Project Acoustic Kitty exemplified the bizarre lengths to which the CIA would go in their intelligence-gathering efforts, ultimately proving impractical and absurd.

Deep dives

The Creative Use of Art for Espionage

The CIA's unexpected promotion of abstract expressionism during the Cold War aimed to counter Soviet artistic rigidity. By secretly funding organizations like the Congress for Cultural Freedom, the CIA elevated artists such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning to global prominence, showcasing artistic freedom and individuality. This movement, which began in the late 1940s, quickly gained traction and was used as a cultural counterpoint to the socialist realism prevalent in the Soviet Union. The agency's approach not only shifted the center of the art world to the United States but also inadvertently enriched many artists with leftist sympathies, ultimately highlighting the bizarre intersection of culture and covert operations.

Intro

2min

Unconventional Programs: Art and the Supernatural in CIA History

5min

Unconventional Escape and Surveillance Tactics of the CIA

2min

The Unfortunate Saga of Project Acoustic Kitty

6min

Since its creation, the Central Intelligence Agency has been tasked with gathering intelligence on foreign adversarial governments.

Exactly how they were to go about doing this was not exactly spelled out in advance.

This gave them an enormous amount of leeway and creativity in how to go about their mission. Some of their ideas were truly inspired, and others were, how shall we say, odd.

Learn more about the Acoustic Kitty and other crazy CIA plots on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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