"Do pay attention, 007."
Back in the 1960’s, the CIA boffins came up with some harebrained schemes on taking out Cuba’s Fidel Castro. With the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion, President JFK and his brother, Attorney General RFK, authorised the CIA to use all means to destabilise Castro and to assassinate him. Many of the schemes that the CIA proposed would have been thought ludicrous in a James Bond film: impregnate Castro’s cigars with LSD so that he would trip out publicly; give him a pen with a poison tip; explode clam shells whilst he was diving in the Caribbean; sprinkle his shoes with an agent to make his beard fall out (a reflection on his masculinity in Latin culture).
It would be dangerous, however, to underestimate the power and resources of the spooks and their bosses. There may well be bizarre black ops that have succeeded, or failed, that we know nothing about. There have even been allegations that the CIA was involved in the destabilisation and eventual dismissal of the Whitlam government in 1975 as a response to Whitlam wanting to shut down the military tracking base at Pine Gap.
What is frightening is that the people who come up with some of the harebrained covert ops and black ops have considerable power and operate in secrecy, which makes fascinating a revelation in a book that was released in 2011.
The following is a reprint of an article from Mail Online which reviewed that book and some of those schemes:
As wartime plots go, it stood as much chance of success as Captain Blackadder’s attempt to avoid battle by sticking two pencils up his nose, putting underpants on his head and claiming to be from the planet Wibble.
With no end to the Second World War in sight, British spies came up with a plan to lace Adolf Hitler’s food with female sex hormones to curb his aggressive impulses. Agents planned to smuggle doses of oestrogen into his food to make him less aggressive and more like his docile younger sister Paula, who worked as a secretary.
Adolf Hitler
Paula Hitler
He explained that oestrogen was chosen because it was tasteless and would have a slow and subtle effect, meaning it would pass Hitler's food testers unnoticed.
The Allied plot to turn Herr Hitler into Her Hitler was just one of a number of wacky ideas cooked up to break the stalemate, according to a new book. Others included dropping glue on Nazi troops to stick them to the ground, and disguising bombs as tins of fruit being exported to Germany. The hare-brained schemes are revealed in Secret Weapons: Technology, Science And The Race To Win World War II, by Professor Brian Ford.
He said: ‘Research had showed the importance of sex hormones – they were beginning to be used in sex therapy in London. The Allies hoped to smuggle oestrogen into Hitler’s food and change his sex so he would become more feminine and less aggressive.’ Professor Ford, a fellow at Cardiff University and a pioneer of popular science, said the Government gave serious consideration to the plan, and that it was perfectly plausible. British spies were already in place and poised to carry out the plot. ‘Hitler had testers who used to taste his meals so there was no mileage in putting poison in his food because they would immediately fall victim to it,’ Professor Ford said. ‘Sex hormones were a different matter. They affected you only if you took them for months on end, so no one would have realised the hormones were in the food.’
The bizarre Allied plots to win the war have only now come to light after the publication of documents never previously seen because of their sensitive nature. The British were not alone, however, in hatching far-fetched schemes.
The Nazis planned to poison sausages, chocolate and Nescafe if they lost the war, leaving them where they would be found by Allied troops.
Secret files published earlier this year revealed a network of Nazi saboteurs who were prepared to fight to create a Fourth Reich in the event that Hitler’s empire crumbled. Four German agents arrested in northern France in March 1945 revealed the range of poisons developed by Nazi scientists. They included cigarettes to be offered to Allies by spies. They would give the smoker a headache, and the spy would then offer an ‘aspirin’ to his victim which was in fact poison which would kill within ten minutes.
In the BBC’s hit comedy series, Blackadder Goes Forth, Captain Edmund Blackadder, played by Rowan Atkinson, tries almost everything to avoid going over the top in the First World War. In one famous scene he feigns insanity by donning underpants, sticking pencils up his nose and claiming to be from the planet Wibble.
Paula Hitler was the only one of Adolf's full siblings to survive to adulthood. She worked as secretary in Vienna in the 1920s, and received financial support from her brother until his suicide in 1945. She was interrogated by American agents after the war but released, and lived a secluded life until her death in 1960.
Professor Ford’s book also refers to some other crazy schemes, including a giant, explosive Catherine Wheel intended for use on the beaches of Normandy: "The nuttiest one was the Panjandrum - an enormous wheel full of explosives with rockets strapped to the wheel. It couldn't have worked yet they spent what, in modern parlance £1 million on the idea, testing it over the waters of Cardiff and Western Super Mare."
See the Panjandrum and other bizarre weapons by clicking on:
By the way:
Some of the comments by readers at the end of the Mail Online article are worth repeating:
* * * * *
I am very glad they didn't succeed in turning Adolf Hitler into a woman, because then he would have become really vicious.
* * * * *
"British spies came up with a plan to lace Adolf Hitler’s food with female sex hormones to curb his aggressive impulses."
They'd obviously not met my ex-wife then.
* * * * *
This would have caused Furore amongst the Nazi hierarchy and Frau-ght with danger. All a red Herr-ing really.
* * * * *
Imagine Hitler with PMT; it doesn't bear thinking about.
* * * * *
.
According to NASA (called them earlier) planet Wibble does not exist
* * * * *
“This is a crisis. A large crisis. In fact, if you got a moment, it's a twelve-story crisis with a magnificent entrance hall, carpeting throughout, 24-hour portage, and an enormous sign on the roof, saying 'This Is a Large Crisis'. A large crisis requires a large plan. Get me two pencils and a pair of underpants.”
- Blackadder
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete