The poisons Fritz Hoffmann sought for the CIA included substances like curare, a South American blowpipe poison that paralyzes and kills people. Curare was the poison that the CIA’s U-2 pilots carried in their flight suit pockets, hidden inside a tiny sheath inserted into an American coin. The SO Division had a Device Branch, which was run by Herb Tanner, co-designer of the Eight Ball. The Device Branch was responsible for the hardware behind the delivery systems, including fountain pens filled with poison projectiles, briefcases that spread bacterial aerosols, poisoned candies, invisible powders, and the “non discernible microbioinoculator,” a high-tech dart gun that injected a tiny, poison-tipped dart into the bloodstream without leaving a mark on the body.
In other situations it behooved the CIA to locate and weaponize a poison where death came after a delay, sometimes with an incubation period of about eight or twelve hours, sometimes much longer. The SO Division’s Agent Branch worked to find poisons that could make a target mildly ill for a short or long period of time followed by death, very ill for a short or long time followed by death, or any number of combinations, including mild to extreme illness followed by death. The rationale behind assassinating someone with a built-in time delay was to allow the assassin to get away and to deflect suspicion. SO Division targets included Fidel Castro, whose favorite drink, a milkshake, the CIA tried to poison several times.
Another CIA target was Patrice Lumumba, the first legally elected prime minister of Congo, who the CIA believed was a Soviet puppet. Sidney Gottlieb, the man who poisoned Frank Olson, was assigned the job of assassin. Gottlieb later told congressional investigators that for this job, he needed to locate a poison that was “indigenous to that area [Congo] and that could be fatal.” Gottlieb decided on botulinum toxin. Armed with this toxin concealed inside a glass jar within a diplomatic pouch, Sidney Gottlieb traveled to Congo with the intention of killing Prime Minister Lumumba himself. On September 26, 1960, Gottlieb arrived in the capital, Léopoldville, and headed to the U.S. embassy. There, Ambassador Lawrence Devlin was expecting him.
Two days prior, Ambassador Devlin had received a Top Secret cable from CIA director Allen Dulles. “We wish give every possible support in eliminating Lumumba from any possiblity [sic] resuming govermental position,” Dulles wrote. Ambassador Devlin knew to be on the lookout for a visitor who would introduce himself as “Joe from Paris.” This was Sidney Gottlieb. Gottlieb’s plan was to inject the botulinum toxin into Lumumba’s toothpaste tube with a hypodermic syringe. Ideally, Lumumba would brush his teeth and eight hours later he’d be dead. But while in Léopoldville, Gottlieb could get nowhere near Prime Minister Lumumba, who was living in a house on a cliff high above the Congo River. Lumumba was constantly surrounded by bodyguards. After several days, the botulinum toxin lost its potency. Gottlieb mixed it with chlorine, tossed it into the Congo River, and left Africa. Patrice Lumumba died in January of the following year, beaten to death—allegedly by Belgian mercenaries.