Machine & Foundry's special firearms division, to plan the Liberator's successor. A legend in the military and paramilitary firearms business, Moure had created the classic AMF military suppressor, plus other ordnance designs for that company and The Company. He also designed the highly successful .308 drop-in conversion unit for the Ml rifle, as well as an 81mm semiauto mortar. When the CIA's armament people met with Moure in 1962, the idea was to design a light, cheap Liberator-style pistol. The government's primary criterion for this new weapon was operational simplicity, followed by the ability to build it cheaply and quickly. The new pistol would supply indigenous guerrillas and irregular forces behind enemy lines. One of Moure's engineering colleagues at AMF said, 'Russ spent ten thousand words explaining to some CIA guys what was basically a crude, ugly, but damn decent four-dollar zip gun for our Third World allies to use to kill bad-guy soldiers. Then, to take that guy's weapon for his own use. That was the CIA program for this weapon.” Moure's design was a crude pistol with a cast aluminum receiver, a screw-out-to-load two-inch barrel, and plastic parts, all of which was budgeted so that the weapons would cost the United States only $3.95 each. It was also totally sterile (i.e., there were no identifying markings). All component parts for the production guns were to be fabricated from nondomestic sources outside of the United States for further 'operational denial,' which was how the CIA described its attempts to hide the weapon's origin. Each weapon measured 5 inches in length and was 41/8 inches high, 11/2 inches thick, and weighed 12 ounces. It had a blued barrel and a bright aluminum handle/receiver unit. The grip was hollow to hold spare ammunition and an ejector rod to punch out the empty casing from the screwoff barrel. Obviously, reloading was not quick-'n-easy for this one-shot assassination weapon. The Deer Gun had no fixed sights and was fired by