We should have a 'strange facts' or 'believe it or not' category! This strange fact seems to be pretty well known and documented online, but I came across it for the first time in my search for a Steemit username.
The CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology tried to use cats to spy on the Russians in the 1960s. In the secret project, literally called Acoustic Kitty, operatives planned to have a microphone implanted in a trained cat's ear canal and a radio transmitter and wires placed underneath its skin, and then send it over to a Soviet embassy to act as a spy in plain sight. At first the cats were too easily distracted by hunger, so another operation was performed to mess with their sensation of hunger. (I have absolutely no idea how this part worked.)
The project was started in 1961 and scrapped in 1967. Depending on which source you believe, this is either because a cat was hit by a taxi at the very beginning of its mission, or because those involved decided that training the cats just wasn't feasible.
Oh, and the total cost was was around $20M, back then.
Sources: The Telegraph, Wiki page, a Memory Palace episode, etc.
And check out this guy's band.