In the series “Mad Men” the big and crazy time of the advertisers in the 1960s is shown, but it was even crazier in the CIA. The post-war period felt like a pre-war epoch, and confrontation with the USSR seemed inevitable. In addition to the well-known nuclear armament, there were countless attempts by the secret services to weaken the enemy. When the wind was favourable, the USA sent leaflets out in large balloons to “enlighten” the population in the east or to antagonize the governments there.
In the early 1950s, director Frank Wisner is said to have hatched a completely ludicrous plan. At the time, Wisner was in charge of a covert psychological warfare unit. They dealt with manipulating news abroad and also tried to set up a kind of guerrilla army behind the Iron Curtain, which should come to the aid of the Allies at the crucial moment with uprisings behind the front. The later secret armies such as Gladio in Italy were based on these precursors.
In addition to these realistic plans, he came up with the idea of ??smuggling particularly large condoms into the USSR or having them dropped. The XXL elastics should be particularly large, but bear the inscription “Medium”. This trick was intended to convince Soviet women and Red Army soldiers that US soldiers were particularly masculine. Wisner hoped that this would demoralize the enemy. The plan was never implemented, so it remains unclear whether it was just a crazy idea of ??the bon vivant Wisner, or whether it was a serious concept.
In fact, the original idea came from World War II and is attributed to Winston Churchill. In different variants of the story, the British Prime Minister wanted to shock either the Nazis or his allies in the US or USSR with oversized British condoms. In the case of Churchill, it is a quip that alludes to a fact: In bad weather, in the mud and during landing operations, soldiers put condoms on the barrels of their guns. For this, the British soldier’s condoms were enlarged beyond what was appropriate. In truth, your own soldiers must have been frustrated when they wanted to use the oversized models for the actual purpose.
The CIA story is certainly not unthinkable. Far crazier plans were hatched at the time. In the Philippines, the CIA tried to sabotage the career of a politician, Claro M. Recto, because he was dangerous to the CIA’s candidate. A series of defamatory articles that were launched did not have the desired success, so the condom weapon was resorted to. Gift packages were prepared which read “Claro M. Recto – the people’s friend”. They should be distributed to potential voters. Inside were condoms that the CIA had purposely punctured in order to sabotage the politician’s standing at his base.
The CIA candidate’s sudden death in a plane crash made efforts to eliminate his competitor unnecessary. In order to discredit the Indonesian President Sukarno, the CIA came up with the idea of ??distributing salacious pictures of him. There were no sex pictures of Sukarno himself, so a porn film was shot in Los Angeles with a blonde and a male actor, who was made to resemble Sukarno through an elaborate mask. However, the film was never distributed.
Fidel Castro was the target of most assassination plots. The CIA planned to assassinate him by trying to plant an explosive cigar on him. Once infected, it would have ripped the revolutionary’s head off. There were also plans to kill Castro through his passion for diving. For example by trying to contaminate the inside of your diving suit with a contact poison. Even more brilliant was the project to have the troublesome Castro done away with by a super shell.
You didn’t have to get close to Castro for the shell plan. The shell should be placed in his diving area. And of course it wasn’t a real shell. It should be artificially made, extra large, and have a bright and bizarre appearance. The diving lover Castro, according to the calculus, would then inevitably be attracted to the gem – if he had touched the shell, it would have exploded, because in reality the shell was a disguised depth charge. However, Castro survived this and many other plans.
