CIA & KGB Gadgets On Display

ricst writes "Been postponing that visit to the Reagan Presidential library? Well, delay no more, because they are hosting an exhibit of some formerly secret CIA and KGB gadgets. reports, "For the first time, the public is getting a large scale view of the CIA's and KGB's real-life James Bond gadgets, from a replica of the Russians' deadly poison-dart umbrella to some of the Amercians' most ingeniously concealed cameras." The last 200 years of history of technology is reflected in these spy devices that go back to the Revolutionary War."

Comments

Re:CIA has thier own museum.

[Anonymous Coward]

So does the NSA ...

http://www.nsa.gov/museum/index.html

CIA article

[T-Punkt]

I wanted to know how this "liberator pistol" (mentioned in the article) looks like, googled for it and found this link of an
CIA article with some pictures of older and/or pre-CIA stuff.

"Liberator" pistols...

[mttlg]

From the article:

From the early days of the CIA's predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services, there are tire spikes, bombs and "liberator pistols." The latter were mass produced for $1.72 each and dropped to resistance fighters during World War II.

Somehow, I don't think I'd want to brag about poorly designed, cheap guns that were dropped in large quantities to anyone claiming to be a "resistance fighter," which many times turned out to be a German intelligence operative. Or maybe they were hoping that the Germans would try to use them...

But one device CIA officials say they never had was a version of the KGB's deadly umbrella that was used by an unknown assailant to kill Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov in London in 1978. A model of the umbrella is part of the display.

Death lasers, early death from too much sleep, Unix configurations, deadly umbrellas... I realize that Valentines day was just a few days ago, and a certain someone is entering into a particularly serious contract, but there's really only so much death you need on the front page...

Re:"Liberator" pistols...

[Oggust]

Somehow, I don't think I'd want to brag about poorly designed, cheap guns that were dropped in large quantities to anyone claiming to be a "resistance fighter," which many times turned out to be a German intelligence operative. Or maybe they were hoping that the Germans would try to use them...

The germans already had (way better) guns. This was someting like a single-shot, non-reloadable pretty concealable .45. The idea was for the wannabe resistance fighter to kill a german soldier with it and take his gun. From what I understand the plan worked fairly well.

/August.

Bomb Photo Caption

[Habberhead]

Did I fail history or was the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima named "Little Boy"? The caption for the article calls it "Fat Man". But I seem to remember in my foggy brain that "Fat Man" was dropped on Nagasaki, three days later.

Anyone?

Re:Suitcase nuclear bomb

[3rd_Floo]

Yes, the suitcase that rendered the carrier dead within 5 hours due to the amount of leeky radiation!

Re:Microdot (OT)

[Pierre]

if he killed himself in 1989 who is this?

hofmann

Theremin and the 'Great Seal Bug'

[UsonianAutomatic]

Hmm, time for some slightly OT karma whoring...

The bug that was found in that seal was invented by none other than Leon Theremin, inventor of the instrument of the same name.

There's an excellent biography available about Theremin by Albert Glinsky called "Theremin: Ether Music and Espionage" - there's a review here. (No affiliate link here, just a review.)

Theremin was quite an inventor - Glinksy's book is a good read, managing to be interesting and informative in equal measures.

Go here for more about Theremins, or here to buy one.