How the CIA Transforms Sexual Dolls into Spy Tricks

Among the many tasks that Walter McKintosh did during his long career at the CIA, purchasing life-size rubber sex dolls at a porn store in Washington, D.C. may have been the most unforgettable.

 

Of course, all of this was for a good reason, and it was extremely serious for Langley and McKintosh, who served as the head of the CIA's camouflage department from 1977 to 1979. The Moscow agents of the organization urgently need something - anything - to deceive Russia's counter spies and leave them alone, even for a few minutes, so that they can meet with their agents without worrying about being arrested. A critical action is at stake.

 

Enter the inflatable sex doll. For a century, this life-size rubber toy has been pleasing lonely men. The 'jack in the box' (referred to as JIB) has been modified to be a male portrait, dressed appropriately, and equipped with original airbag technology to eject and inflate it from the container. It has been adapted by the Central Intelligence Agency as a spy war against the former Russian secret police and intelligence agency KGB.

 

The idea at the time was that a CIA official heading to a secret meeting would carry a JIB in his car, deflated and sealed in a seemingly harmless package. A colleague can drive. Due to the habit of KGB thugs tracking them, they need to find a way to have agents sneak out of the car without being noticed. The first and crucial task is to gradually increase the distance between them and the surveillance personnel to create what CIA agents call a "gap". At some point, agents sitting in the passenger seat - almost all of whom were men during the Cold War - would open their doors and disguise themselves as ordinary Muscovites as they turned a corner to sneak out. The driver then triggered the JIB and placed a realistic dummy, hood, and other items in his position. The KGB would not be wiser - at least in the short term.

 

Robert Wallace, former director of the Technical Services Office of the Central Intelligence Agency, and H. Keith Melton, a consultant to the Agency, revealed the existence of JIB in their book "Spy Technology" published in 2008. But until now, its full source has not been revealed.

 

Macintosh said he developed JIB for the Central Intelligence Agency, but his initial idea was attributed to two Hollywood fashion experts, Les Smith and John Chambers. Chambers is a real-life Hollywood makeup master who played John Goodman in the 2012 thriller "Argo", based on the CIA's rescue of six American hostages from Iran. But the relationship between the Central Intelligence Agency and Smith has never been publicly disclosed before. Smith is the owner of Owen Magic Supreme in Azusa, California, a special equipment store near Los Angeles. Macintosh said of Smith, who passed away in 2008, "He is the illusionist of most top magicians. According to the company's website, boxes can hide things, or "saw" people in half, and so on. He and Chambers work as secret sidelines at the CIA.

 

Their idea is... Amazing but the CIA relies on experienced field agent McKintosh to turn their ideas into a viable spy tool. He said, "They need someone who truly understands the operations on the ground to manage (camouflage troops) because it is a bit disconnected from theory and the project of falling pie from the sky.

 

Macintosh first needs to get a sex doll. This is not a task that he can entrust to an assistant. McKintosh recalled, "At that time, my secretary was a very friendly, reserved, and appropriate lady with a high degree of religious education. She is one of those people who always volunteer to do extra household chores. But I just can't see sending her out to buy sex dolls. So I wandered around until I saw a sign, an adult bookstore, and sure enough, they had a lot of sex dolls

 

He said that the store was "very close to George Washington University," but he couldn't remember its name. He paid in cash. The shop assistant thinks it's strange that he wants a receipt. But what's a bit awkward is that I have returned the item several times, "McKintosh said. Just like the crazy scientist in "Pre Machina" using discarded parts to create artificial intelligence human models, McKintosh had to continue providing sex dolls to CIA technicians. He recalled, "We had a lot of experience preparing the prototype. Because I buy four or five at once and it usually takes a few weeks, I believe I have gained a good reputation

 

Sexual dolls may look like humans for a period of time, at least when viewed from the back and at night from the KGB car behind them. But the hardest part is manipulating the doll so that it can pop up with just one press of a button. The Central Intelligence Agency has turned to a private company in St. Louis, which is developing airbags. McKintosh said, "This is tricky because it must pop out of the briefcase, not too elastic or balloon like, but also not leak or droop. After extensive experimentation, engineers believe it will work. In December 1982, the "Jack" was commissioned in Russia. David E. Hoffman, the author of "Billion Dollar Spy," wrote: "Jack in the Box... worked. The central character of this play is Adolf Tolkatchev, codenamed Sphere. Hoffman wrote that from 1979 to 1985, Tolkatchev was betrayed by CIA traitor Aldrich Ames, who stole thousands of technical documents and saved the Pentagon $1 billion in research and development costs.

 

But for several months in 1982, the Central Intelligence Agency was unable to reach him. According to the official history of the Central Intelligence Agency, "In the second half of 1982, the KGB conducted extensive but clearly routine surveillance of CIA investigators, forcing several planned meetings to miscarry. Moscow station urgently needs a private meeting to see if he is okay and collect microfilm of his stolen documents. JIB must work.

 

On a night in December 1982, two CIA officials took a turn in a car followed by the KGB on a street corner in Moscow. The CIA personnel sitting in the passenger seat opened the car door and jumped out. Almost simultaneously, the driver ejected Jack from the carriage, in this case a fake birthday cake. According to Hoffman's captivating description, KGB detectives were fabricated and they kept tracking the car until it returned to the US embassy. Another person from the Central Intelligence Agency participated in the meeting with Torkachev.

 

Macintosh said, "Jack's completion may have been one of the highlights of my two-year tenure as the camouflage manager." Macintosh was later sent to Southeast Asia, including serving as the Vietnam operations manager. Jack became so ordinary in the Central Intelligence Agency that in 1985, a disgruntled former employee, Edward Lee Howard, fabricated his own version to avoid surveillance by the FBI and defected to the Soviet Union.

 

Alas, such magic is no longer useful. The ubiquitous electronic surveillance in the modern world - not only cameras in transportation and shopping centers, but also email tracking, real-time GPS positioning, digital retinal scanning at airports, and fingerprint recognition - almost places JIBs, wigs, and latex facial implants in the attic of the Central Intelligence Agency. Former CIA agent Patrick Skinner said, "It's definitely very difficult to use aliases and disguise." Cameras are everywhere, and you don't even know when you're not being monitored, so when do you disguise yourself during operations

 

Macintosh pointed out that in any case, camouflage and other craft tools can quickly become outdated. He said that in the mid-1960s, the Central Intelligence Agency closed a five story warehouse on the other side of Capitol Hill, which contained outdated items that agents used to travel anonymously and discarded most of them. McKintosh recalled, "There were layers of clothes, shoes, food, and more from different impoverished regions around the world. The entire floor is covered in Cuban clothes

 

Macintosh currently lives in New Zealand, where he and his wife operate a accommodation, breakfast, and art museum. He believes that all these materials should not be wasted. He said, "I tried to get the organization to donate these clothes to the Salvation Army or some other organization, but it was unsuccessful. But they were all thrown into the incinerator