Andrew Daniels writes in Popular Mechanics about the Acoustic Kitty project, a Failed Government Feline Mission:
In the 1960s, the CIA allegedly spent $20 million to implant microphones in cats’ ear canals so the animals could inconspicuously eavesdrop on the Soviets. The disastrous first mission, in which a cat would mosey around the Soviet embassy in Washington, D.C., doomed the ill-conceived effort—codenamed “Acoustic Kitty”—from the start: “The cat was released nearby, but was hit and allegedly killed by a taxi almost immediately.”
Acoustic Kitty was canceled in 1967…