During the age of cold war espionage, CIA agents resorted to unusual techniques to outsmart the Russian KGB. One method required the use of life-size rubber sex dolls purchased in a Washington D.C. store.

Walter McIntosh, who headed the CIA’s disguise unit from 1977 to 1979 told Newsweek magazine that the idea came about when CIA operatives in Moscow needed a trick to get Russian counterspies off their tails so they could safely meet with their secret agents.

Mr. McIntosh came up with the idea to use the pleasure dolls as decoys. The dolls were modified to look like men, appropriately clothes and rigged up with airbag technology to pop out of a container like a child’s “jack-in-the-box” or JIB, Newsweek cia-sex-doll-russia-356997” target=”_blank”>reported Friday.

A CIA officer en route to a secret meeting with his spy would take a JIB along in his car, deflated and sealed inside a hidden package. The CIA driver would slowly add distance between the agents and their KGB shadows until the night hours. Eventually, the operative in the passenger seat would crack open his door as the car rounded a corner and slip out, disguised as an ordinary Muscovite.

The driver would then trigger the JIB, putting a lifelike dummy in the passenger’s place and fooling the KGB.

Mr. McIntosh had to purchase the dolls himself. “My Secretary in those days was a very nice, prim and proper lady of high religions upbringing,” he told Newsweek. “She was one of those people that was always volunteering to do the extra sort of chore. But I just could not see sending her out to buy sex dolls. So I just strolled about until I saw a sign, ‘Adult Book Store,’ and sure enough they had a selection of sex dolls.”

Mr. McIntosh said the shop was “very close to George Washington University,” but couldn’t recall the exact name.

“But what was a bit embarrassing was my several returns for additional dolls,” Mr. McIntosh said, Newsweek reported. “We went through quite a few in preparing a prototype. As I was buying four or five at a time and often over a period of a few weeks, I am sure I got quite a reputation.”

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