All language subtitles for Dark.Marvels.S01E07.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH

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.

And more deadly.

Does this pistol fire the dart?

The CIA has an unlimited
budget and no oversight.

Espionage reaches peak
intensity during the Cold War.

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

It was a very ingenious
way to deliver a poison.

From killer toxins
to flying robots...

They have basically
created a cyborg cat.

This device was
ahead of its time.

The world of clandestine
intelligence has few limits...

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.

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.

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

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.

Some even go on to
inspire popular culture,

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

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.

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.

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.

In time, spies start
using specialty tools

to help them win wars.

George Washington
was our first spymaster.

During the Revolutionary War,

General Washington
needed to get information

about the strengths and
weaknesses of the British.

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.

But there's also a
much darker side.

Spies who are captured
pay the ultimate price.

The Tower of London,
originally it was built

to keep potential enemies away,

but it quickly
developed into a prison

to hold people in.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

But forced labor
means different things

for different prisoners.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

The new American ambassador,

George F. Kennan,
is eager to help.

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.

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.

July, 1955.

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

and the USSR gather in Geneva.

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.

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.

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.

This rejection is
met with suspicion.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It's also a risky
endeavor for the pilots.

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.

In 1956,

the new U-2 spy
planes hit the skies.

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."

Over the next four years,

the U.S. continues
their covert missions.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Powers is picked
up by Soviet military

and transported to
Lubyanka Prison in Moscow.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

The project becomes officially
known as the Acoustic Kitty.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Adkins' team then looks

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

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.

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.

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.

They dub this miniature marvel

the Insectothopter.

But at a weight
of just one gram,

it ultimately proves
to have a fatal flaw.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This device, this dragonfly,

it was ahead of its time.

But some believe recent
evidence points to other

darker potential uses
for the miniature drone.

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.

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.

The initial failure
of the drone project

doesn't stop the
CIA from continuing

to dangerously push boundaries.

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.

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.

In December of 1974,

"The New York Times"
publishes an explosive article

that opens up the floodgates.

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.

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.

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?

The Church Committee
turns its attention

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

the entire U.S.
intelligence community.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

One of these deadly stealth
weapons is the notorious

and aptly named
"heart attack gun".

Does this pistol fire the dart?

Yes, it does, Mr. Chairman.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Next, Embree enlists the help

of CIA chemist Dr. Nathan Gordon

to create an effective
delivery system.

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.

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.

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

with no indication that it
was actually an assassination.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Markov, on the other
hand, has a strong suspicion

as to what's causing
his symptoms.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

But the investigation
takes a strange turn

when new evidence emerges.

Another dissident comes
forward, Vladimir Kostov.

He says that something
similar happened to him.

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.

They notice one very
small but crucial difference

between the two pellets.

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.

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.

In the fall of 1978,

investigators are
stumped after they find

nearly identical
pellets in the bodies

of two different

Bulgarian anti-communists.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

If ricin is so deadly,
how does Kostov survive?

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.

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.

Dubbed the Bulgarian Umbrella,

the devious device is
modified with an air gun

that fires a poison-laden
pellet into the victim.

The Bulgarian Umbrella's
operation is relatively simple.

A hollow barrel is
loaded with a ricin pellet

and then charged
with a gas canister.

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.

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.

It was a very ingenious
way to deliver a poison

into a subject that you
wanted to assassinate.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.