"SPIES FROM THE ANIMAL KINGDOM"
On the occasion of a question that I am asked, I am going to tell a little-known anecdote whose historical scenario was the Cold War that the two superpowers of the time fought during the second half of the 20th century. The question that I am asked is: "Are there people who have the psychic ability to understand the language of animals?". Well, the answer is yes, although this skill is very scarce. In fact, those few people were very sought-after by both the Western intelligence services and their Soviet Union counterparts. Nixon and Brezhnev, the leaders of both superpowers, were very interested in knowing what was being said in their rival's office. However (as Nixon would discover very soon), it was not easy to place microphones, which were bulkier than today, or spies, which were also bulkier than today (Vladimir Kozlov, the famous Russian spy, weighed 374 pounds, and Paul Blake, in whom the character of agent 007 was inspired, weighed more than 400 and needed two o...