CIA’s bag of tricks is a veritable a-to-z of dubious doodads. Here’s a alphabetical trove of the strangest.

In the interest of fairness - and because it’s the CIA’s birthday - we thought we’d try and dig up a few examples of net positives the Agency has intentionally (or unintentionally) visited upon the world. What we found was that from science to cinema, the Agency’s unexpected reach knows no bounds.

30 years ago, CIA remote viewers channeled Donald Trump’s Newsweek cover and got a “Alfred E. Neuman” vibe - and a possible glimpse of his eventual political ascendance.

FBI files on publisher Bennett Cerf show the Random House co-founder trying to use his leverage with the Bureau to get them to vouch for author Truman Capote’s investigation into the 1959 Clutter murders, which would eventually become the seminal true crime novel In Cold Blood.

A DEA Intelligence Report on “Drug Slang Code Words” obtained by Public Intelligence offers law enforcement a list of “street names” for various illicit substances. Marijuana, unsurprisingly, has the largest number of entries, although, upon closer inspection, you have to wonder what the agents who compiled the list were smoking.