How to Train Your Cat to Be a Spy

A cat is spying on you.

Can your cat be sneaky? However, the CIA liked to think it could accomplish the unthinkable in the 1960s.

A critic of the espionage agency called the outcome a “monstrosity.”

At the time, the CIA’s top priority was to obtain crucial classified information from the Soviet Union. The easiest way to accomplish this was with listening devices, but the technology still needed to be ready.

The issue: According to Vince Houghton, in his amusing new book “Nuking the Moon: And Other Intelligence Schemes and Military Plots Left on the Drawing Board,” “These bugs picked up everything.” This suggests that the recording was ineffective because the listening device could not pick up on the talk because of the numerous unavoidable noises present during a typical secret meeting, such as birds chirping and passing cars.

The most brilliant scientists in the CIA’s Technical Services Division devised a startling fix: Project Acoustic Kitty. Indeed, that was the designated name.

That bizarre notion, doomed to fail and exemplified by the extreme tactics used during the height of the Cold War, is why “Nuking the Moon” opens with it.

Houghton, the curator of the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., has uncovered previously classified government documents containing the…