6 The CIA's Deer Gun Dreamed of as the Vietnam generation's version of World War II's Liberator pistol, the CIA Deer Gun was like many improvised weapons, a crude, single-shot 9mm pistol designed to bring better weapons to its users. R.D. Meadows, a former U.S. Army Special Forces officer, explained the concept. 'The idea was to air-drop or otherwise supply these glorified zip guns to our friendlies who carried the war to the enemy. They'd get dose to a baddie, zap him with the Deer Gun, then strip him of everything usable, including his AK47," Meadows explained. The genesis of this weapon was during discussions between the military, CIA officials, and several gun designers in the late 1950s. The goal was a new version of World War II's FP45 Liberator, designed for the same mission. For the same insane reasons that other World War II materiel was destroyed in 1946-47, Liberator pistols were torched, melted, and crushed into postwar scrap. Very few survived, and there was no inventory. By the early 1960s, with covert operations already heating up in Southeast Asia, CIA procurers got together with the late Russell J. Moure, chief engineer for American