10.
Lipstick Pistol
"It's a
classic," Boghardt says of this 4.5 millimeter single-shot weapon,
presumably taken from a KGB agent in the mid-1960s. While it's unclear whether
this dangerous "kiss of death" was ever used, a cyanide pistol was
used for assassination in that era. These covert weapons are surviving examples
of the "active measures" that were taken in this time period, unlike
many of their intended targets.
9.
Coat Camera
This little camera,
Model F-21 issued by the KGB around 1970, was concealed in a buttonhole and has
a release that the wearer presses from a pocket. Just squeeze the shutter cable
and the fake button opens to capture an image. Hidden, portable cameras could
be used at public events such as political rallies without detection. Boghardt
notes that the Spy Museum's director Peter Earnest, who worked for many years
in the CIA on intelligence, has used one of these cameras.
8.
Microdot Camera
In the 1960s, the
East German foreign intelligence service HVA issued this tiny camera, which
takes photos of documents and uses a chemical process to shrink the text down
so that a block of text appears no bigger than a period. This way agents could
hide secret messages in plain sight. Boghardt points to an infamous incident
involving microdots: Dusko Popov, a double agent during World War II, gave
microdots to the FBI that mentioned German interest in Pearl Harbor. FBI
director J. Edgar Hoover didn't trust Popov, however, so he never passed the
information to president Franklin D. Roosevelt.
7.
Shoe with Heel Transmitter
Throughout the 1960s
and 1970s, Western diplomats in Eastern Europe avoided buying suits there,
preferring to mail order clothing and shoes from the West. In Romania, the
secret service used this to their advantage, working with the postal service to
install a transmitter in shoe heels. Boghardt says that the recording device
was discovered during a routine room sweep that revealed a signal, but the
signal disappeared when all the diplomats left the room.
6.
Enigma Cipher Machine
Messages sent over
the wireless in the World War II era could be intercepted so the Germans used a
cryptographic device. On the surface, the Enigma cipher machine looked like a
regular typewriter, but it wasn't. A keyboard was linked to rotors, powered by
an electric current, which transposed every keystroke several times.
Corresponding messages went out in Morse code and required keys, which changed
daily, to decipher -- get it? "De-cipher. " Which is exactly what the
Allies did, cracking a code the Germans thought was unbreakable.
5.
Cipher Disk
It's tempting to
think that spy gadgets aren't all that old, but even Caesar encoded messages
using cryptography. This disk dates back to the Civil War, when it was used by
the Confederate side -- CSA stands for Confederate States of America.
It's pretty obvious
how the device works: rotate the inner wheel to displace the letters. M = G, P
= J, etc. Simple to crack, right? Not if the message is written in a language
you don't know. Spies were tricky like that.
4.
Bulgarian Umbrella
A Bulgarian secret
agent used an umbrella just like this one on a London street to kill Bulgarian
dissident Georgi Markov in 1978. A standard umbrella was modified internally to
inject poison into its target with the press of the trigger. In Markov's case,
the umbrella contained a ricin pellet, which is next to impossible to trace.
The museum displays
a replica, made specially in Moscow for the collection. Boghardt says that in
1991, a room full of similar deadly umbrellas was uncovered in Bulgaria.
3.
Pigeon Camera
It's a bird, it's a
plane, it's a spy satellite! Before the dawn of aerial photography, pigeons did
the job. Flying over enemy territory with a camera on autoshoot, pigeons could
provide crucial information without getting lost along the way. Beyond photography,
the birds also carried messages at times when radio communication was spotty or
down. Pigeons sent through enemy fire up until the 1950s had a 95 percent
success rate and were duly decorated with medals of honor for their service.
2.
Tree Stump Bug
This tree stump bug
used solar power to function continuously in a wooded area near Moscow during
the early 1970s. The bug intercepted communications signals coming from a
Soviet air base in the area and them beamed them to a satellite, which then
sent the signals to a site in the United States. Solar power meant that no
risky battery changes were needed. Nevertheless, the KGB discovered this green
bug so the museum's copy is a replica.
1.
Dog Doo Transmitter
Dog doo? Really?
Boghardt says this, er, doohickey has a hollowed-out space inside, ideal for
holding a message so that case officers and sources could communicate without
raising suspicion. Doo tends to be left alone, which is why beacons disguised
as tiger excrement were used to mark targets in Vietnam, Boghardt says. One of
the risks is obviously that such a device would be thrown away or discovered by
someone accidentally.
"Accidents
happened all the time," the historian says. "That's one of the
challenges of being a spy or case officer."
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