Today's "spy code" tie marks the birthday of Herbert Osborn Yardley (1889-1958), "a man who was by all odds the most colorful, controversial, enigmatic figure in the history of American cryptology."And it was on this date in 1953 that the CIA opened the program code-named MK-ULTRA, a program to develop various methods for "mind control," including drugs such as LSD and mescaline. The name is a "cryptonym," meaning that it combines elements of "code" which are familiar to its personnel but are intentionally misleading to others. (If you are familiar with the Jason Bourne stories, you will recall Treadstone and Blackbriar.) "The CIA sought, through its research, to devise a truth serum to enhance the interrogations of POWs and captured spies. The agency also wanted to develop techniques and drugs – such as "amnesia pills" – to create CIA superagents who would be immune to the mind-control efforts of adversaries." According to Wikipedia it was "officially halted" in 1973 (but nobody knows for sure!). If you prefer something more mundane, you can celebrate Thomas Jefferson's birthday (1743).
Special note: This is my 3,004th entry in my tie blog, having completed 14 years of documenting my tie choices!
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