After the devastating Watergate scandal discoveries, the American public developed an acute interest in the operations of their intelligence organizations. Before Senator Frank Church on Capitol Hill in 1975, more than 30 years of CIA activities that were almost uncontrolled came to an abrupt end.
Congress was obliged to look into the murky recesses of the Cold War as a result of its inability to ignore the mounting unease any longer; some of these recesses revealed strange mysteries.
They came across stuff that would make for terrifying espionage fiction and paranoid thrillers. In addition to massive spying on American individuals and plans to kill world leaders, investigators also uncovered the heart attack gun. This gruesome weapon could kill in minutes without leaving a trace.
The ‘Heart Attack Gun’
When Embree joined the CIA at the age of 18, fresh out of high school, she worked as a secretary in a section responsible for designing covert microphones and other audio surveillance apparatus before being promoted to the Office of Technical Services.
She was eventually told to locate an undetectable toxin. Her investigation led her to the conclusion that shellfish toxins were the best option. Mary Embree’s work served as the inspiration for the heart attack pistol.
Unbeknownst to her, Embree had been recruited into Project MKNAOMI, the Cold War-era successor to the much more notorious Project MKULTRA that was tasked with developing biological weapons for the American arsenal.
However, whereas other MKNAOMI experiments focused on poisoning cattle and crops, Embree’s discoveries were meant to serve as the cornerstone of the gold standard of covert operations: killing a human being while getting away with it.
The Development Of The Heart Attack Gun
The project started in a lab at Fort Detrick, an Army base where biological weapons research has been conducted since World War II. Shellfish toxin was combined with water and formed into a small pellet or dart by researchers working under Dr Nathan Gordon, a CIA chemist.
A modified Colt M1911 pistol with an electrical firing mechanism would be used to fire the finished projectile. It was practically noiseless when fired and had an effective range of 100 meters.
The frozen dart would melt as soon as it struck a target and inject its lethal payload into the victim’s circulation. Shellfish toxins would spread to the victim’s heart, simulating a heart attack and resulting in death within minutes because they are known to shut down the cardiovascular system in concentrated amounts fully.
Only a little red dot, imperceptible to people who didn’t know how to look for it, would be left where the dart entered the body. The assassin may flee undetected as the victim bled to death.
The Heart Attack Gun is Revealed
The heart attack gun may have appeared like something out of a spy book, but the CIA had good reason to think it would function flawlessly. After all, Bohdan Stashynsky, a KGB hitman, had successfully employed a comparable, cruder device not once but twice in 1957 and 1959. Years after leaving the CIA, Embree asserted that the modified pistol, also known as a “nondiscernible microbionoculator,” had successfully been tested on inmates and animals.
Suppose it weren’t for a growing knowledge of unlawful actions carried out by the American intelligence community. In that case, the heart attack gun and several other MKNAOMI inventions might not have been discovered.
The Senate established a select committee headed by Idaho Senator Frank Church to look into the scope of criminal intelligence activity in 1975 after a New York Times article exposed a series of reports describing illicit operations called “the family jewels.”
The Church Committee quickly discovered that former President Richard Nixon had closed MKNAOMI in 1970. Additionally, they discovered that Dr Gordon had secreted 5.9 grammes of shellfish toxin, or nearly a third of all shellfish toxin ever produced at the time, as well as vials of a toxin made from cobra venom in a Washington, D.C. laboratory, against the wants of Dr Sidney Gottlieb, the elusive head of Project MKULTRA.
Additionally, the committee looked into allegedly authorized assassination plots against world leaders like Fidel Castro of Cuba, Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, and Rafael Trujillo, the dictator of the Dominican Republic.
The End Of CIA Wetwork
CIA Director William Colby was asked to speak to the committee in a hearing that received much attention. He took the actual heart attack gun with him so that committee members could examine it and ask questions regarding its creation, composition, and application. After the one public display, it is unknown what happened to the gun.
Aside from that, it’s unknown if the weapon has ever been used. Colby asserted that the toxin was reserved for one operation but, “we are aware that the operation was not performed.” It may have been used for other purposes, such as a potent sedative or a suicide pill for American operatives.
Final Words
Gerald Ford issued an executive order prohibiting government employees from “engaging in, or conspiring to engage in, political assassination” in 1976, partly due to the Church Committee’s conclusions. That order marked the end of the CIA’s most notoriously violent and secretive years if there ever was an age of the heart attack gun.
Also read: Larry King was a Legendary Talk Show Host
