All language subtitles for Dark.Marvels.S01E07.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

Narrator:
Eavesdropping, poison,

secret devices,

and murder.

As technology advances,

the tools of spycraft
grow more sophisticated...

The beauty of this device
is it's basically invisible
to detection techniques.

Narrator:
...and more deadly.

Does this pistol fire the dart?

The CIA has an unlimited budget
and no oversight.

Narrator: Espionage
reaches peak intensity
during the Cold War.

It enters the human body
and then melts,
leaving no trace.

Powers:
It was a very ingenious way
to deliver a poison.

Narrator: From killer toxins
to flying robots...

O'Donnell:
They have basically created
a cyborg cat.

Gary Powers: This device
was ahead of its time.

...the world of
clandestine intelligence
has few limits...

O'Donnell:
They are engaged in efforts

to assassinate
foreign officials,

and this causes a firestorm.

...and many dark secrets.

Not all inventions are made
with good intentions.

Unlock the twisted history

behind the world's
darkest marvels.

For millennia, humans have
relied on devious methods

to protect state secrets.

Jackson: As long as
there have been governments,

or the need
to procure information

that is otherwise not
accessible,

espionage has been there.

Espionage shows up
in the Old Testament.

You know, the story of Moses

leading the Israelites
out of Egypt,

they get to the doorstep
of the Promised Land,

and he decides
to send 12 spies in

to see are the people there
strong or weak?

Are they friendly or foe?

So this was an early example

of that kind of--
the need for intel,

the need for spies
in order to protect oneself.

Sun Tzu's classic book
written in 400 B.C.,

"The Art of War,"

basically says
what any good general

or great leader needs
is foreknowledge,

and that foreknowledge,
of course, comes from spies.

Narrator:
The best spies were often
those you'd least expect.

Powers:
During the Middle Ages, there
would be clergy involved

in espionage activities.

They could read,
write multiple languages,

and they could blend in
to society.

They were a trusted figure.

Narrator: Some even go on
to inspire popular culture,

like Queen Elizabeth I's
favorite spy, John Dee.

O'Donnell:
John Dee is a magician in
the court of Queen Elizabeth.

He travels on her behalf
and sends back letters

that are marked
for her eyes only.

Whitaker:
Queen Elizabeth knew that
in order to retain power,

she was gonna have to keep
a tight grip on things.

One of the ways she did that

was a very sophisticated
espionage structure,

and that's to say
that she sees all

and she hears all.

And if there is
any inkling of treason,

she will find it out.

Jackson: John Dee is
sending correspondence

in which he signs
with two O's,

a double O, and then a seven.

The reason for that
is the two O's

are meant to indicate

that it's for
the Queen's eyes only.

Seven has a connotation
with magic.

And of course, that 007
may very well have been

the inspiration
for James Bond.

Narrator: In time, spies
start using specialty tools

to help them win wars.

Powers: George Washington
was our first spymaster.

During the Revolutionary War,

General Washington needed
to get information

about the strengths
and weaknesses of the British.

O'Donnell:
They develop a unique form
of invisible ink

which they would write messages,

and then the receiver
would have a chemical

that they could
spread on it which would
then reveal the message.

Narrator: But there's also
a much darker side.

Spies who are captured
pay the ultimate price.

Young:
The Tower of London,
originally it was built

to keep potential
enemies away,

but it quickly developed
into a prison

to hold people in.

Narrator:
Including 11 enemy spies

caught during World War I

who are tortured

and finally executed
by firing squad.

As the Cold War launches
after World War II,

espionage hits a
whole new level of intensity

and subterfuge.

August, 1945.

Victorious allies, the U.S.
and the Soviet Union,

are allegedly working
together to rebuild Europe,

but that's just
the cover story.

Powers:
Students from the Vladimir
Lennon Academy in Moscow

present this great seal to
Ambassador William Harriman

at the embassy--
a token of appreciation,

little school children
coming in with flowers,

and press, and a nice,
wonderful way

to promote the friendship
between our two countries.

O'Donnell: And so they placed
the great seal on the wall

behind Harriman's desk
in the U.S. embassy.

He doesn't know, but inside
that beautiful carving

is an ingenious
listening device.

Narrator: The device
traces back to programs

created by Soviet dictator
Joseph Stalin.

His brutal political purges

see an estimated 18 million
people either killed

or imprisoned in forced
labor camps called gulags.

Anybody that was seen as
suspicious,

you could just be snatched up
off of the street

and sent to one of the gulags.

O'Donnell:
For many people this is just

a slow motion death sentence.

They die in two, three,
four, five years

because the conditions
are so harsh.

Food is poor,
they're worked to death.

I think it goes without saying

that they weren't particularly
pleasant places to be.

Narrator: But forced labor
means different things

for different prisoners.

O'Donnell: A certain subset
of people that had
specialized knowledge

that could be useful
to the state,

he sequestered them in
a specialized laboratories

where they could do work
on behalf of the Soviets.

Powers:
Now this is under duress.

They're not like, "Okay,
you can live here for a year

develop for
the scientific community,

and then we'll let you go."

This is the Soviet Union.

It's a gulag.

If they don't perform,
they'll be executed.

They are under a lot of stress

to make sure that they develop
cutting edge technology.

Narrator:
Among those arrested

and shipped off to a gulag,

is inventor Leon Theremin.

Leon Theremin
was born in Russia

and grew up to be a brilliant
young budding scientist.

And he studies
how radio waves work.

He develops what turns out to
be one of the most unique
musical instruments of all time.

It bears his name.
The theremin.

( theremin warbling )

Narrator:
As the inventor of the world's
first electronic instrument,

Theremin's expertise
makes him the perfect choice

to engineer a state
of the art listening device,

one that
the Soviets ultimately plant
inside the great seal

presented to
Ambassador Harriman.

It's a passive listening device

because it doesn't have
a power source.

Hammond:
There was no battery.

There was nothing there
that would be picked up

by conventional
anti-surveillance,

anti-bugging machines,
or inventions.

Well, it means that
it can stay there for
an indefinite period of time.

It gets its power
from radio waves that are
transmitted from outside.

Those radio waves come in,

they energize the circuit
inside the listening device,

allow it to record,

and then also transmit
what it hears

back to a receiver
that's also outside.

The beauty of this device

is it's basically invisible
to detection techniques.

Narrator:
The entire unit weighs
just 1.1 ounces,

about the same
as a single slice of bread.

Its devious design allows
the device to stay hidden

inside the ambassador's
office until 1951.

O'Donnell: A member of the
British military is listening
in on Soviet air traffic,

and suddenly he hears
English language being spoken,

and he reports that to
the United States officials.

They do a massive bug sweep
in the embassy,

Can't find anything.
It happens a second time.

Another radio operator
also picks up conversations

coming from the U.S. embassy,

and they do another
thorough bug sweep.

They don't find it.

They know that
something's happening

inside the embassy,
but where is it?

O'Donnell: American
officials are puzzled

because they know
there's bugs operating

in the embassy,
but they cannot find them.

So they bring in
some of their best people,

and they realize that maybe
the way to catch this bug

is not just to sniff around
for electric interference,

but to simulate something
that the Soviets
would want to record.

Narrator:
The new American ambassador,

George F. Kennan,
is eager to help.

Powers:
They have George Kennan
sit down at his office desk

and dictate
an important sounding memo
to his secretary.

The CIA guys are inside
doing a sweep

to find out where
the bugs are hidden.

At first,
before he's talking,
there's nothing there.

As soon as he starts to talk,

and this device is pinged
with a radio signal,

they're able to determine
that the bug is located

in the great seal
of the United States.

They pull it off the wall,
they peel it open,

and lo and behold,
inside is this tiny,

1.1 ounce, very small,
passive listening device.

Basically, the Soviets have
had an ear in that room

for seven years
without the U.S. knowing it.

Powers: They were listening
to every conversation

that took place within
the ambassador's office.

I am sure that
very important information

was able to be gained
during that time period.

Once the Americans discover
this listening device
in the great seal,

they do not announce it
publically.

They sit on it.

Narrator: July, 1955.

Leaders from the U.S.,
Britain, and France

and the USSR
gather in Geneva.

Powers: We have these
two new world leaders,

Eisenhower in America,

Khrushchev
in the Soviet Union.

At the meeting in Geneva,

they want to see what
they can do to work together

so they can
peacefully coexist.

O'Donnell: The United States
in the mid-1950s

is building
a huge nuclear arsenal,

building up its military

to fend off a potential
Soviet invasion.

At the same time,
the Eisenhower administration

is also trying
to not have to use it.

And so one gesture
that Eisenhower comes up with

in 1955 is called
the Open Skies initiative.

Powers: Eisenhower
says to Khrushchev,

let us overfly your
territory taking photos.

You can overfly
our territory taking photos.

That way each side will know
that the other

is not preparing
for a surprise attack.

But Khrushchev says,
no, nyet.

I do not want
you pesky Americans
overflying my country.

Narrator: This rejection
is met with suspicion.

Powers:
Back in Washington DC,

the Eisenhower administration
is worried.

What is he hiding?

He must be building up
for a surprise attack.

So as a result, Eisenhower
authorizes the development

of a U-2 spy plane in 1955.

They need to find out a place
to build it in secret.

So the American
government purchases Area 51

in the Nevada desert

to develop the U-2 spy plane.

Dickrell: The U-2 spy plane
was initially developed

by Lockheed to be
a high-altitude
reconnaissance plane

flying at 70,000 feet.

And the idea would be
it's so high,

it's undetectable by radar
and can't be hit by missiles.

Powers: In addition,
in the belly of the aircraft,

they have a camera.

This camera is so advanced

it can take photographs
of the tanks, the missiles,

the bombers
in these foreign countries.

Hammond: And just like
the great seal bug

the U-2 spy plane
was the first of its kind.

So going up there
to 70,000 feet,

about twice the height that
you and I fly when we fly,

it was something that
had never been done before.

Narrator: It's also a risky
endeavor for the pilots.

Dickrell:
The pilots that are
operating the U-2

are basically
at the edge of space.

They're half astronauts,
half pilots,

so it's quite
a physically demanding
and dangerous environment.

The pilots have to wear
special pressurized suits

to keep their blood
from boiling because they're
at such great altitude.

Narrator: In 1956,

the new U-2 spy planes
hit the skies.

O'Donnell: The U.S. believes
flying at that height

and at that speed that it
is an undetectable aircraft.

Turns out,
the Soviets do detect it.

They file a formal protest
at the United Nations.

But the Americans go,
"What plane?

We don't have a plane
over your country. Prove it."

Narrator:
Over the next four years,

the U.S. continues
their covert missions.

Powers:
My father Francis Gary Powers
was employed by the CIA.

He was a spy pilot.
He would fly the U-2 spy plane

over foreign
hostile countries
taking photographs.

So between 1956 and 1960,

my dad does
27 successful missions.

Hammond:
But at the same time,

the Soviets knew
about the U-2 spy plane.

They're developing the
equipment and the technology

and the planning
to take down a U-2.

Powers:
On May 1st, 1960,

my father's on
his 28th mission

over the Soviet Union.

Eight missiles were fired
at the airplane.

One of them
hits my dad's plane.

Dad goes into a dive,
the wings break off,

goes into an inverted spin,
tumbling out of the sky.

When Powers' plane is struck,
he has one important thing to do

which is to hit a button
that is going to destroy

the important
secret stuff in that plane.

Powers: My father was about
to hit the destruct button,

but then he realized
he couldn't get in

the proper position
to use the ejection seat.

If he had hit the switch
and then ejected,

he would have severed his legs
on the way out.

So instead,
he opens up the canopy

which floats off into space,

falls free of the airplane,

parachute opens automatically
at 15,000 feet.

He parachutes down
to the ground.

Narrator:
Powers lands safely,

but he's in Soviet territory
and knows he'll be captured.

Powers has the option
of suicide.

He has with him a coin,
a special fake coin,

that is loaded with poison
and has a needle,

and he can inject himself
with that.

So my father decided
to take this device with him

on May 1st of 1960,

a hollowed out silver dollar
worn on a bevel.

Once you take the bevel off,

out pops a small pin.

The pin was dipped
in shellfish toxin.

One prick of the skin would
bring death within minutes.

Pilots are told
it's an optional device

to use in the event
of torture,

not in the event of capture.

So he looks at the pin,
looks at the dollar,

takes the pin out.

He contemplates using it.

Instead, he puts it
in his flight suit pocket,

throws the dollar away.

Narrator: Powers is picked up
by Soviet military

and transported to
Lubyanka Prison in Moscow.

Powers: Khrushchev
holds a press conference.

Very gleefully announces
to the world,

"Ah, comrades, not only did
we shoot down the plane,

but we also have
captured the pilot,
Francis Gary Powers,

who's confessed to spying
for the CIA."

And while all
this was unfolding,

my dad's been stuck
in a Russian prison cell

going through
the interrogations.

16 hour days,
bright spotlight,

grueling questions,
threats of death.

No physical torture,
but a lot of mental anguish.

Narrator:
With the spy pilot and his
plane in their clutches,

the Soviets call a meeting of
the U.N. Security Council,

demanding an apology
and concessions from the U.S.

O'Donnell: And this event
takes place over four days,

where the Soviets rail
and rail and lay out
their evidence.

And then things take
a dramatic turn

that they do not expect
on the fourth day.

Narrator: That's when
America's U.N. ambassador

Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.
reveals a surprise.

Lodge says, "Well, actually
the Soviets have been engaged
in spying themselves.

And as evidence,
we're going to show you."

And they pull out
the wood carving of
the great seal...

...and explains that
this thing has been sitting

in the U.S. embassy
for seven years

listening in on delicate
secret conversations,

and the Soviets
are just as guilty as we are.

And therefore, there's no
cause for condemnation
of the United States.

And the security council
votes seven to two

to not condemn
the United States.

Narrator: In 1962,

Francis Gary Powers
comes home

as part of
a prisoner exchange.

But the U-2 incident
only escalates the battle

for new spy technology,
including some methods

that feel ripped from
the pages of a spy thriller.

Narrator: After the infamous
mo U-2 spy plane debacle,...

the CIA is determined
to create

less conspicuous devices.

It's important to point out
at this point that the CIA

has basically an unlimited
budget and no oversight.

So there's a lot
of really smart,
somewhat quirky people

in these labs coming up
with ideas like,

"How about we do this?
How about we do that?"

They at one point in time
in World War II,

had put cameras on pigeons

to overfly territories
to take photos.

They're now stepping up
the game.

Somebody in the CIA
technology division

comes up with the idea
of using a cat,

figuring the cat
is innocuous,

no one's gonna
pay attention to it.

If they can somehow attach,
or in this case embed

a listening device,
that might really be

the success
they're looking for.

So, they take a cat,
and they surgically implant

a listening device
in the ear canal.

They put a transmitter
at the base of the skull,

and then they put
a wire antenna

sort of through the length
of the body into the tail

underneath the skin.

And so they basically
have created a cyborg cat,

or, you know, some people
called it a "Frankenkitty."

Narrator: The project
becomes officially known as
the Acoustic Kitty.

O'Donnell: Once they have
figured out the technology,

the big challenge,
they found out,

was training the cat.

Training a cat to go
to a particular target

and then linger around
that target

long enough to capture
enough audio.

And they find out what
most people

who have been around cats
learn pretty quickly,

is that it's almost
impossible to train a cat.

Powers: For five years,
the CIA hires these trainers

to train the cat
to do what they want.

To walk ten feet and stop.

To lay down and sleep
near to two people talking.

Now,
in the laboratory it works,

but they finally want to do
a real-life operation.

O'Donnell:
They pull up in a van outside
of a park in Washington DC

where they know that two
men are sitting on a bench
near the Soviet embassy

and they are Soviet
embassy officials.

And they want to send
the cat across the street

to listen in
on their conversation.

They let the cat go.

He's supposed to walk over

to this bench and sit down

near these
two people talking.

Instead,
he runs across the street,

gets hit by a car.

The CIA spends $20 million
to develop this acoustic kitty.

$20 million down the drain.

Narrator: But as with many
top secret spy projects,

not everyone
tells the same story.

There's a second version
of this story

which is the cat just
simply proved untrainable,

the project seemed
to be going nowhere.

They decommission the cat.

They perform sort of
reverse surgery on the cat,

pulled out
the surveillance equipment.

The cat recovered and lived
a happy long life.

If you believe that.

Dickrell: With the failure
of the Acoustic Kitty,

the CIA decided
they want to use this idea,

but in a more
controlled fashion.

Live animals probably
aren't the way to go.

But biomimetic design,
a way of mimicking nature,

is a pretty good idea.

So the thinking turns to

if you want to make a
listening device or a bug,

let's model it
after an actual bug.

Narrator: In 1970,
the CIA tasks technologist
Charles Adkins

with creating
a far-fetched new spy--

a flying robotic insect

designed to place listening
devices near targets.

The CIA was developing
new technologies to employ
the same idea

that the Theremin
great seal bug used--
passive listening.

Now they've developed it
into a way

that it could be used
with laser beams

as opposed to radio waves.

Narrator:
This recording device works

by using tiny mirrors
called retroreflectors.

If you attach
a retroreflector to a window,

what's going on inside the room
will cause it to vibrate.

Lasers can listen passively

by basically bouncing a laser
off the retroreflector.

That retroreflected
laser light is sensitive enough

to reconstruct the speech

not by listening
with a microphone,

by listening with light.

Narrator:
Adkins' team then looks

for just the right
robo-insect to mount it on.

Powers: First,
they looked at bumblebees.

But bumblebees
were too erratic.
They were too small.

So they settled
on the dragonfly,

a little bit bigger,

and dragonflies,
with their four wings,

could glide, could fly,
could go backwards, forwards.

It's gonna be more maneuverable,
more controllable.

Dickrell: The ultimate
purpose of the dragonfly

is to crash into the window
connected to the room

that you want to listen to,
therefore depositing

the retroreflector,
sticking it to that window.

So, the bug itself,
the dragonfly, is not
the listening device.

It's really just
the delivery mechanism.

Narrator: With their
bug of choice selected,

they must figure out
how to replicate the wings
of a dragonfly,

which flap up to
1,800 times per minute.

The wing actuation technology
of this dragonfly bug

uses fluidic oscillators.

These would be
small fluid pistons

that vibrate very,
very quickly.

But the wings
of the dragonfly themselves

weren't sufficient to propel
the dragonfly forward.

The CIA had to add
basically jet nozzles

that would exhaust
gas backwards,

making the dragonfly
move at sufficient speed

to get it where
it needed to go.

Narrator: They dub
this miniature marvel

the Insectothopter.

But at a weight
of just one gram,

it ultimately proves
to have a fatal flaw.

O'Donnell: In the laboratory
the Insectothopter
worked wonderfully,

and they had
great confidence in it.

But like the Acoustic Kitty

and other devices
they came up with,

when they put them
in the field,

the results
were quite different.

Powers: In a laboratory,
there's no wind.

Outside in the real world,
when they have to deploy this

to fly to an embassy window,

and there's a gust of wind,

all of a sudden
the dragonfly is useless.

Anything over seven miles
per hour of wind,

the dragonfly
was not controllable.

Narrator:
The CIA scraps the robotic
dragonfly project

after investing $140,000,

the equivalent of over
a million dollars today.

However, the project
is still considered a success

because it spawned
an entire industry of
unmanned aerial vehicles.

Powers: I think there are
900,000 licenses for drones

right now
in the United States.

But back in the 1970s,
this was the very first drone

that was ever developed
for these type of applications.

Dickrell:
As an engineer, thinking
about the dragonfly bug

in the 1970s is
an extremely impressive feat,

because micro-robotics today
are hard to do,

much less back in the 1970s.

Powers: This device,
this dragonfly,

it was ahead of its time.

Narrator:
But some believe recent
evidence points to other

darker potential uses
for the miniature drone.

O'Donnell: The CIA does not
publicize its failures,

so it was many years before
we learned the truth
about the dragonfly program.

And that was due to the work
of John Greenwald

who's an
anti-secrecy activist.

He obtained the files and then
released them to the public,

where we learned of this
rather elaborate dragonfly
or Insectothopter Program.

Powers:
It was discovered through

the Freedom
of Information Act

request from the CIA
that they were also

looking to use
this technology

as a potential weapon
for assassination attempts,

possibly with Fidel Castro
or other world leaders.

Narrator: The initial failure
of the drone project

doesn't stop
the CIA from continuing

to dangerously
push boundaries.

Narrator:
In the early 1970s,

allegations of
nefarious criminal activity

on the part of the CIA
start to appear in the press.

Americans realize
that governments,

leaders of both parties,

have been deceiving them
for a long period of time.

I shall resign the presidency
effective at noon tomorrow.

O'Donnell: By that point,
the Watergate scandal
is beginning to unfold,

and so there's a lot
of things coming together

to make the average American
quite suspicious of what
its government is doing.

Narrator:
In December of 1974,

"The New York Times"
publishes an explosive article

that opens up the floodgates.

O'Donnell: Seymour Hersh
publishes an article in
"The New York Times"

exposing CIA activity
that shows that they are engaged

in efforts to destabilize

and to overthrow
foreign governments,

to assassinate
foreign officials,

and this causes a firestorm.

O'Donnell: Congress reacts
by forming a committee

and putting Senator
Frank Church of Idaho
in charge of it.

And that's where
it gets its nickname,
the Church Committee.

Powers: Senator Church
thought that the CIA

had too much
unregulated power

because for
the first 25 years
of the CIA's operation,

they had little
to no oversight.

He wanted to have
an investigation

to find out what
they were doing.

Were they actually spying
on American citizens?

Were they actually
trying to do

assassination attempts
of world leaders?

What's true, what's not?
How much power do they have?

O'Donnell:
The Church Committee
turns its attention

not just on the CIA,
but also the NSA, the FBI,

the entire U.S.
intelligence community.

Narrator: The committee
peers into the darkest

corners of
Cold War operations,

and the secrets they discover
shock the public.

It was discovered that the CIA
was doing LSD experiments

through a program
called MK-Ultra.

O'Donnell: Many of
the people in MK-Ultra
were dosed with LSD

without their knowledge
and without their consent.

In some cases
they were used on prisoners,

members of the military,
pretty dark stuff.

Powers:
There was a CIA employee

who was given a dose of LSD
in a hotel room.

He ends up having
a very bad trip,

jumping out the seven-story
window to his death.

That was revealed during
the Church Committee hearings.

O'Donnell:
One of the shocking things

that the Church
Committee reveals

is that the CIA has been engaged
in assassination attempts

against Fidel Castro in Cuba

and Rafael Trujillo
in the Dominican Republic,
among others.

Powers: The project
was called MK-Naomi,

and this was a program
in which they were trying

to find biological weapons,
chemicals, or agents

that would cause a subject
to die, assassinate,
without leaving any trace.

Narrator: One of these
deadly stealth weapons
is the notorious

and aptly named
"heart attack gun".

Does this pistol fire the dart?

Man: Yes, it does,
Mr. Chairman.

It's practically a normal .45,
although it's special.

Narrator:
This modified Colt pistol

fires a poison-filled dart
into the victim,

producing symptoms
that mimic a heart attack.

The evil genius
behind the weapon
is an unlikely figure.

O'Donnell: Mary Embree.

She is unlike almost anybody

in the CIA for two reasons.

One, she's a woman. Almost
everybody in the CIA is male.

And she also doesn't have
a fancy degree

from a top American university
like Yale or Stanford.

In fact, she doesn't even have
a college degree.

Powers:
She started working for
the CIA at 18 years old.

She worked her way
up through the ranks,

and after a few years, she was
tasked to develop a device

that would allow
assassinations to happen

without any evidence
of it happening.

Narrator: Embree works
with CIA scientists

to choose the perfect poison.

They settle on a neurotoxin
called saxitoxin, or STX.

STX, or saxitoxin,
is a neurotoxin

that typically builds up
in shellfish.

It's called
a shellfish poison.

The neurotoxin
basically inhibits
your ability to breathe.

So the heart attack gun
actually causes cardiac arrest.

Narrator: Next,
Embree enlists the help

of CIA chemist
Dr. Nathan Gordon

to create an effective
delivery system.

O'Donnell:
Gordon successfully develops
a popsicle-like dart

loaded with shellfish toxin.

The dart would be carried
in a frozen state,

basically in a cooler, until
it would be time to deploy.

So it would be cold
until the moment of use,

and then it would be loaded
and then fired.

O'Donnell: The ingenious
feature of the frozen dart

is that it enters the human
body and then melts,

releasing
the toxin into the body,
leaving no trace.

And then on the outside
of the body, it only leaves

a little red mark like
a bee sting or mosquito bite.

Dickrell: Therefore,
the person would simply just
die of a heart attack

with no indication that it
was actually an assassination.

Wagner:
So the likelihood
that a coroner

would be able to identify

what actually caused
an individual to die

from this toxin,
it's probably pretty low,

because your suspicion
of this would be so low

and there's no real specific
test for this either.

Narrator:
Fortunately, the heart attack
gun project was shut down

before the weapon could be
deployed in the field.

Or so the records claim.

It's debated as to whether
or not the heart attack gun

was ever used
in an official capacity.

Dr. Nathan Gordon
allegedly took 5.9 grams

of this shellfish toxin
with him.

Nobody knows what happened
to this 5.9 grams of toxin,

which begs the question,
was it ever used
in other applications?

The heart attack gun
supposedly was taken away

to a super-secret
storage facility.

Now, whether or not that's true,
we're not sure.

We regard the assassination
plots as aberrations.

The United States must not adopt
the tactics of the enemy.

Narrator: In 1976,
U.S. President Gerald Ford

sees the Church Committee
hearings as an opportunity

to reign in America's
intelligence services.

While President Ford
banned the CIA

from carrying out
assassinations,

in the Soviet Union,
there was no such ban.

And we know about this
because of a rather
bizarre assassination

that took place in 1978.

Narrator:
September 7th, 1978,
London, England.

Bulgarian writer
and broadcast journalist
Georgi Markov

crosses the Waterloo Bridge
over the River Thames

to catch a bus
to his office at the BBC.

Powers: He's walking across
this bridge in London.

He feels a sharp pain
in his leg.

He sees this guy
pick up an umbrella

that he had dropped
by accident.

"Excuse me, I didn't mean
to bump into you."

They go their own way.

And so Markov, of course,
thinks this is a rather
strange incident,

but gets on the bus,
feels the sting in the back
of his leg.

He actually checks his skin
and notices

that there's actually
a red mark there which looks
like a mosquito bite.

He gets to work and the pain
seems to be getting worse.

Middle of the day,
he starts to feel ill,

and eventually heads home

where he develops
a terrible fever,

which means he needs to be
rushed to St. James Hospital,

and the doctors there
are utterly perplexed

as to what is
afflicting this man.

Narrator:
Markov, on the other hand,
has a strong suspicion

as to what's causing
his symptoms.

O'Donnell: Georgi Markov
is Bulgarian dissident.

He's a writer, a playwright,

who in the 1960s
increasingly runs afoul

of the communist
Bulgarian government,

that does not like
his writings.

They find them critical
and, you know,

satirical, and making fun
of the government.

And so Markov is forced to
seek exile in London in 1970.

While in exile, Markov
became increasingly critical

of the Bulgarian
communist government
led by Todor Zhivkov.

Hammond: There is
a culture in Bulgaria

of taking out people that
are critical of the regime.

The Bulgarian regime
don't tolerate people
speaking out of line.

If you do, you better look
over your shoulder

for the rest of your life.

O'Donnell:
While he's in the hospital,

Markov told people
he believed he had
been poisoned,

and that he believed
that he had been tailed

and targeted for
assassination by the KGB

and Bulgarian
government officials.

He told me
the most extraordinary story,

that he'd been jabbed
with an umbrella tip.

It was almost as if he didn't
want to believe it himself.

Jackson: The rumor is that
General Dimatar Stoinoff,

the interior minister
of Bulgaria,

went to Russia
and sought assistance

in liquidating vocal
anti-communists like Markov.

The head of the KGB
at the time, Yuri Andropov--

actually the future leader
of the USSR in fact--

he agreed to help,
but only on the condition

that it could not be
traced back to Russia.

Stoinoff then organizes
the mission,

and it's carried out
on September 7th.

The reason for this date
is that it was the birthday

of communist leader
Todor Zhikov,

and this is meant
as basically a gift
to the Bulgarian leader.

( EKG monitor beeping )

Narrator:
Sadly, four days after
checking into the hospital,

Markov dies.

After Markov dies,
they conduct an autopsy,

and doctors find
a small metal pellet
in the back of his thigh

less than
two millimeters in size,

and begin to examine
this thing very, very closely

to see what exactly it was.

Narrator:
But the investigation
takes a strange turn

when new evidence emerges.

Powers:
Another dissident comes
forward, Vladimir Kostov.

He says that something
similar happened to him.

O'Donnell:
Ten days before Markov
had been shot,

Kostov is leaving
the Paris metro.

He hears a pop go off,
and then feels a stinging
sensation in his back.

And he turns around
and sees a rather large man

stooping to pick up
an umbrella.

The man walks away

and gets into a cab
and speeds off.

Kostov begins to feel ill,

gets very, very sick.

Actually checks
into a hospital,

but unlike Markov,
he does not die.

Doctors then remove from
his back an identical pellet
of two millimeters in size

and begin also
to examine it closely

to see what the links are
between it and Markov's death.

Narrator:
They notice one very small
but crucial difference

between the two pellets.

O'Donnell:
When they examine the pellet
taken out of Kostov,

they discover that
it had a waxy coating on it.

With Markov,
an identical pellet

had no waxy substance
on the outside.

Powers: The experts
who examined the pellet

think that the wax around it
is meant to melt

once it enters
the body's system,

thereby releasing the poison
into the bloodstream.

Narrator:
In the fall of 1978,

investigators are stumped
after they find

nearly identical pellets
in the bodies

of two different

Bulgarian anti-communists.

O'Donnell:
The pellets that were shot
into Kostov and Markov

were smaller
than the head of a pin.

The poison apparently
was carried in holes

that were bored into
the sides of the pellet,

meaning only a tiny portion

was designated
for holding the poison.

Powers:
People at first aren't sure
what type of poison it is.

After the autopsy of Markov,
they discover that it's ricin.

O'Donnell: Ricin is one
of the most deadly poisons
known in the world.

A single bite of a cobra
delivers enough venom

to kill 20 people,

and ricin is twice as deadly.

Ricin is actually
a byproduct

of the processing
of a castor bean.

Ricin poison in itself
is a horrible way to die.

If it's injected
into the body,

you can have a site redness.

Then you can start
getting headaches,

you can get some confusion,
disorientation.

But ultimately it's going to
lead to liver failure,

splenic injury,
and kidney failure.

And you actually don't need
that much ricin to cause death.

We're talking about
0.1 milligrams

to one milligram of ricin
to actually kill somebody.

Powers: Ricin is
a very good poison to use

if you want to try
to kill someone

because there's no known
antidote to ricin poisoning.

Once you're poisoned,
you're dead.

Narrator:
If ricin is so deadly,
how does Kostov survive?

O'Donnell:
There are many factors
that might explain

why Markov died
and Kostov didn't,

but what we know
from the evidence

is that the waxy coating
on the pellet

that entered Kostov
did not melt.

We don't know why,
but for some reason

his body temperature
didn't melt the wax,

and therefore most of the toxin
did not get delivered.

Narrator: After putting
together all the clues,

investigators
find a common thread

between
the two men's stories,

one they believe reveals
the weapon of choice.

If anybody's ever spent any time
in London, it rains a lot.

Having an umbrella,
you wouldn't stand out,

and a lot of intelligence
and espionage

is hiding in plain sight.

They used this umbrella
to administer a pellet
into Markov's leg.

That's how it was delivered.

Narrator: Dubbed
the Bulgarian Umbrella,

the devious device
is modified with an air gun

that fires a poison-laden
pellet into the victim.

Dickrell: The Bulgarian
Umbrella's operation
is relatively simple.

A hollow barrel is loaded
with a ricin pellet

and then charged
with a gas canister.

Powers: In order for
the Bulgarian Umbrella

to work with its gas cartridge,

you can't shoot it from afar.

We have to get up close
to the subject,

and basically put the tip
of the umbrella on a body part.

Dickrell:
The person doing the killing

presses the end of
the umbrella against
the victim and fires it.

The gas canister then shoots
the pellet into the victim,

releasing the ricin
and poisoning the victim.

Powers:
It was a very ingenious way
to deliver a poison

into a subject that
you wanted to assassinate.

Narrator: Before settling
on the Bulgarian Umbrella,

some reports claim
that Markov's assassins

had an arsenal
of poison delivery methods
at the ready.

The KGB gave three options
for how to kill Markov.

Either, one, poison
that's applied to his skin,
kind of rubbed on;

two, poison that's
administered and digested;

or using the umbrella gun.

The Bulgarians
tried the first two,

but when the poison failed
on both accounts,

that's when they turned
to the umbrella gun.

Narrator: Despite several
lengthy investigations,

no one is ever brought
to justice for the death
of Georgi Markov.

We're not sure
who the assassin was,

but his code name
was Piccadilly.

We think it was the KGB
working in conjunction

with the Bulgarian
secret service.

But once investigations
started to happen,

the documents,
the misinformation,

the paper trail ended,
so they were never able

to conclusively determine
who did it or why.

Narrator:
The Bulgarian Umbrella
is not the first

deadly spy weapon
of its kind.

It is believed
that the first umbrella gun

was invented
in the 19th century,

and was a variation
of the cane gun.

Hammond:
One thing that we see
through the whole Cold War

is all manner
of everyday items that get
used for espionage.

For example, a cane that
actually fires a bullet.

Lipstick that
actually is a gun.

A shoe that secretly
has a dagger.

Just like you see
in the Bond movies.

Narrator:
But this isn't fiction.

Real-world spies continue

to innovate their devices

and their sinister methods

of covertly
gathering intelligence

and silencing enemy targets.

The dark stories
of espionage,

poisonings, and murders

that make the news
are just a fraction

of what goes on
in the shadows.