![Erwin Rommel Memorial, place of suicide, Herrlingen (2019)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Erwin_Rommel_Memorial%2C_place_of_suicide%2C_Herrlingen_%282019%29.jpg)
A suicide pill (also known as the cyanide pill, kill-pill, lethal pill, death-pill, or L-pill) is a pill, capsule,
ampoule
An ampoule (also ampul and ampule) is a small sealed vial which is used to contain and preserve a sample, usually a solid or liquid. Ampoules are usually made of glass.
Modern ampoules are most commonly used to contain pharmaceuticals and chem ...
, or
tablet
Tablet may refer to:
Medicine
* Tablet (pharmacy), a mixture of pharmacological substances pressed into a small cake or bar, colloquially called a "pill"
Computing
* Tablet computer, a mobile computer that is primarily operated by touching the s ...
containing a
fatally poisonous substance that a person ingests deliberately in order to achieve death quickly through suicide. Military and
espionage
Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangibl ...
organizations have provided their agents in danger of being captured by the enemy with suicide pills and devices which can be used in order to avoid an imminent and far more unpleasant death (such as through
torture
Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts c ...
), or to ensure that they cannot be interrogated and forced to disclose secret information. As a result, lethal pills have important psychological value to persons carrying out missions with a high risk of capture and interrogation.
The term "poison pill" is also used colloquially for a policy or legal action set up by an institution that has fatal or highly unpleasant consequences for that institution if a certain event occurs. Examples are the
poison pill shareholders rights amendments inserted in corporate charters as a takeover defence, and
wrecking amendment
In legislative debate, a wrecking amendment (also called a poison pill amendment or killer amendment) is an amendment made by a legislator who disagrees with the principles of a bill and who seeks to make it useless (by moving amendments to either ...
s added to legislative bills.
History
Description
![SOE suicide pill](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/SOE_suicide_pill.JPG)
During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, British and American secret services developed the "L-pill" (lethal pill) which was given to agents going behind enemy lines.
It was an oval capsule, approximately the size of a
pea
The pea is most commonly the small spherical seed or the seed-pod of the flowering plant species ''Pisum sativum''. Each pod contains several peas, which can be green or yellow. Botanically, pea pods are fruit, since they contain seeds and d ...
, consisting of a thin-walled glass ampoule covered in brown rubber to protect against accidental breakage and filled with a concentrated solution of
potassium cyanide
Potassium cyanide is a compound with the formula KCN. This colorless crystalline salt, similar in appearance to sugar, is highly soluble in water. Most KCN is used in gold mining, organic synthesis, and electroplating. Smaller applications includ ...
. It could be carried in the mouth, shaped as a false tooth; if it was accidentally swallowed it would pass harmlessly through the body. To use, the agent bites down on the pill, crushing the ampoule to release the fast-acting poison.
Heartbeat
A heartbeat is one cardiac cycle of the heart.
Heartbeat, heart beat, heartbeats, and heart beats may refer to:
Computing
*Heartbeat (computing), a periodic signal to indicate normal operation or to synchronize parts of a system
*Heartbeat, clus ...
quickly stops and
brain death
Brain death is the permanent, irreversible, and complete loss of brain function which may include cessation of involuntary activity necessary to sustain life. It differs from persistent vegetative state, in which the person is alive and some aut ...
occurs within minutes.
After the war, the L-pill was offered to pilots of the
U-2 reconnaissance plane, who were in danger of being shot down and captured flying over Eastern Europe, but most pilots declined to take it with them.
The
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
began experimenting with
saxitoxin
Saxitoxin (STX) is a potent neurotoxin and the best-known paralytic shellfish toxin (PST). Ingestion of saxitoxin by humans, usually by consumption of shellfish contaminated by toxic algal blooms, is responsible for the illness known as paralytic ...
, an extremely potent
neurotoxin
Neurotoxins are toxins that are destructive to nerve tissue (causing neurotoxicity). Neurotoxins are an extensive class of exogenous chemical neurological insultsSpencer 2000 that can adversely affect function in both developing and mature ner ...
, during the 1950s as a replacement for the L-pill. According to
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...
Director
Director may refer to:
Literature
* ''Director'' (magazine), a British magazine
* ''The Director'' (novel), a 1971 novel by Henry Denker
* ''The Director'' (play), a 2000 play by Nancy Hasty
Music
* Director (band), an Irish rock band
* ''Di ...
William Colby
William Egan Colby (January 4, 1920 – May 6, 1996) was an American intelligence officer who served as Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) from September 1973 to January 1976.
During World War II Colby served with the Office of Strateg ...
, a tiny saxitoxin-impregnated needle hidden inside a fake silver dollar was issued to
Francis Gary Powers
Francis Gary Powers (August 17, 1929 – August 1, 1977) was an American pilot whose Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Lockheed U-2 spy plane was shot down while flying a reconnaissance mission in Soviet Union airspace, causing the 1960 U-2 i ...
, an American
U-2 pilot
An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...
who was
shot down while flying over the
USSR
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
in May 1960.
According to
Former CIA Chief of Disguise Jonna Mendez, the CIA hid poison pills in a number of items, including the caps of pens, and the frames of glasses. Operatives would bite down, and the poison concealed inside would be released.
Examples
* One of the objectives of the
Dieppe Raid
Operation Jubilee or the Dieppe Raid (19 August 1942) was an Allied amphibious attack on the German-occupied port of Dieppe in northern France, during the Second World War. Over 6,050 infantry, predominantly Canadian, supported by a regiment o ...
in August 1942 was to discover the importance and performance capability of a German radar station on the cliff-top to the east of the French town of Pourville. To achieve this, RAF
Flight Sergeant Jack Nissenthall
Jack Nissenthall (later shortened to Jack Nissen) was a British Royal Air Force electronics and radar expert who played a key role in the Dieppe raid. His actions during the operation resulted in the Allies' gaining vital intelligence about the t ...
, a radar specialist, was attached to the South Saskatchewan Regiment. He was to attempt to enter the radar station and learn its secrets, accompanied by a small unit of 11 men of the Saskatchewans as bodyguards. Nissenthall volunteered for the mission fully aware that, due to the highly sensitive nature of his knowledge of Allied radar technology, his Saskatchewan bodyguard unit was under orders to kill him if necessary to prevent his being captured. He also carried a cyanide pill as a last resort.
*German field marshal
Erwin Rommel
Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel () (15 November 1891 – 14 October 1944) was a German field marshal during World War II. Popularly known as the Desert Fox (, ), he served in the ''Wehrmacht'' (armed forces) of Nazi Germany, as well as servi ...
was forced to commit suicide with a cyanide pill following his implication in the
plot of July 20, 1944 against
Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and then ...
.
* At the end of World War II, Hitler's wife
Eva Braun
Eva Anna Paula Hitler (; 6 February 1912 – 30 April 1945) was a German photographer who was the longtime companion and briefly the wife of Adolf Hitler. Braun met Hitler in Munich when she was a 17-year-old assistant and model for his ...
and a number of leading Nazis, such as
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was of the (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of th ...
and
Philipp Bouhler
Philipp Bouhler (11 September 1899 – 19 May 1945) was a German senior Nazi Party functionary who was both a (National Leader) and Chief of the Chancellery of the Führer of the NSDAP. He was also the SS official responsible for the euthanas ...
died by suicide using lethal pills containing a solution of
cyanide salts.
* In 1985,
serial killer
A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more persons,A
*
*
*
* with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three ...
Leonard Lake
Leonard Thomas Lake (October 29, 1945June 6, 1985), also known as Leonard Hill and a variety of other aliases, was an American serial killer. During the mid-1980s, he and his accomplice, British Hong Kong-born Charles Ng, raped, tortured and mu ...
died by suicide using cyanide pills sewn into his clothes after he was arrested for possessing a
suppressor
A silencer, also known as a sound suppressor, suppressor, or sound moderator, is a muzzle device that reduces the acoustic intensity
Sound intensity, also known as acoustic intensity, is defined as the power carried by sound waves per unit ...
and an unregistered handgun, knowing that further investigation into his life would uncover his more serious crimes.
* In 1987, two
North Korea
North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Y ...
n agents bit into ampoules hidden in the filter tips of cigarettes after they were detained in Bahrain as suspects in
an airplane bombing. One agent died.
* During the
Sri Lankan Civil War between 1987 and 2009, the suicide bombers of the
Tamil Tigers
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE; ta, தமிழீழ விடுதலைப் புலிகள், translit=Tamiḻīḻa viṭutalaip pulikaḷ, si, දෙමළ ඊළාම් විමුක්ති කොටි, t ...
wore a potassium cyanide necklace. If they were captured by the
Sri Lanka Army
ta, இலங்கை இராணுவம்
, image = File:Sri Lanka Army Logo.png
, image_size = 180px
, caption = Emblem of the Sri Lanka Army
, start_date ...
, they would bite into the tablet at the end of the necklace. In addition to suicide bombers, since 1976 almost all Tamil tigers of LTTE wore suicide pills. This is the most modern-day, wide-scale use of potassium cyanide as a suicide tool. The women were the most publicized, carrying a tablet adhered to their tooth.
* In 1977,
Aleksandr Ogorodnik, a
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...
Operative working in the
USSR
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
was captured by the
KGB
The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...
. He offered to write his confession, but said he would only do it with his pen- he bit down on the cap which had an ampoule of lethal poison concealed inside it. According to the Russian agent interrogating him, he was dead before he hit the floor.
Metaphorical uses
In economics, a suicide pill is a form of
risk arbitrage Risk arbitrage, also known as merger arbitrage, is an investment strategy that speculates on the successful completion of mergers and acquisitions. An investor that employs this strategy is known as an arbitrageur. Risk arbitrage is a type of even ...
used by corporations to suicide during hostile
takeover
In business, a takeover is the purchase of one company (the ''target'') by another (the ''acquirer'' or ''bidder''). In the UK, the term refers to the acquisition of a public company whose shares are listed on a stock exchange, in contrast to t ...
attempts. As an extreme version of the
poison pill defense, this crippling provision refers to any technique used by a target
firm
A company, abbreviated as co., is a Legal personality, legal entity representing an association of people, whether Natural person, natural, Legal person, legal or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common p ...
in which takeover protection could result in self-destruction.
Variations of the suicide pill include the
Jonestown Defense
The Jonestown defense is an extreme corporation defense against hostile takeovers. In this strategy, the target firm engages in tactics that might threaten the firm’s existence to thwart an imposing acquirer’s bids. This is also known as a "sui ...
, the
Scorched Earth
A scorched-earth policy is a military strategy that aims to destroy anything that might be useful to the enemy. Any assets that could be used by the enemy may be targeted, which usually includes obvious weapons, transport vehicles, communi ...
defense, and the
golden parachute
A golden parachute is an agreement between a company and an employee (usually an upper executive) specifying that the employee will receive certain significant benefits if employment is terminated. These may include severance pay, cash bonuses, s ...
.
Space travel
One
urban legend
An urban legend (sometimes contemporary legend, modern legend, urban myth, or urban tale) is a genre of folklore comprising stories or fallacious claims circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or a family m ...
suggests that American
astronaut
An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally r ...
s could carry suicide pills in case they are unable to return to Earth. It is possible this myth was started by the movie ''
Contact
Contact may refer to:
Interaction Physical interaction
* Contact (geology), a common geological feature
* Contact lens or contact, a lens placed on the eye
* Contact sport, a sport in which players make contact with other players or objects
* ...
'' in a scene where the main character is given suicide pills in case she cannot get back to Earth. This was disputed by astronaut
Jim Lovell
James Arthur Lovell Jr. (; born March 25, 1928) is an American retired astronaut, naval aviator, test pilot and mechanical engineer. In 1968, as command module pilot of Apollo 8, he became, with Frank Borman and William Anders, one of th ...
, who co-wrote ''
Lost Moon
''Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13'' (published in paperback as ''Apollo 13''), is a 1994 non-fiction book by astronaut Jim Lovell and journalist Jeffrey Kluger, about the failed April 1970 Apollo 13 lunar landing mission which Lovell c ...
'' (later renamed ''Apollo 13''). On the DVD director's commentary, it was asserted that because marooned astronauts could easily commit suicide by simply venting the air from their spacecraft or suits, such a pill would not likely be necessary.
Robert Zemeckis
Robert Lee Zemeckis (born May 14, 1952) is an American filmmaker. He first came to public attention as the director of the action-adventure romantic comedy ''Romancing the Stone'' (1984), the science-fiction comedy ''Back to the Future'' film tr ...
, Steve Starkey
Steve Starkey is an American film producer and second unit director who is widely associated with Robert Zemeckis. He served as an assistant film editor for both ''The Empire Strikes Back'' (1980) and ''Return of the Jedi
''Return of the Je ...
, ''Contact
Contact may refer to:
Interaction Physical interaction
* Contact (geology), a common geological feature
* Contact lens or contact, a lens placed on the eye
* Contact sport, a sport in which players make contact with other players or objects
* ...
'' DVD audio commentary
An audio commentary is an additional audio track, usually digital, consisting of a lecture or comments by one or more speakers, that plays in real time with a video. Commentaries can be serious or entertaining in nature, and can add informatio ...
, 1997, Warner Home Video
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Inc. (formerly known as Warner Home Video and WCI Home Video and sometimes credited as Warner Home Entertainment) is the home video distribution division of Warner Bros.
It was founded in 1978 as WCI Home Video ...
Cosmonaut
An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally r ...
Alexei Leonov
Alexei Arkhipovich Leonov. (30 May 1934 – 11 October 2019) was a Soviet and Russian cosmonaut, Air Force major general, writer, and artist. On 18 March 1965, he became the first person to conduct a spacewalk, exiting the capsule during th ...
stated that the
Soviet space program
The Soviet space program (russian: Космическая программа СССР, Kosmicheskaya programma SSSR) was the national space program of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), active from 1955 until the dissoluti ...
gave him a suicide pill for use if he could not reenter
Voskhod 2
Voskhod 2 (russian: Восход-2, , ''Sunrise-2'') was a Soviet crewed space mission in March 1965. The Vostok-based Voskhod 3KD spacecraft with two crew members on board, Pavel Belyayev and Alexei Leonov, was equipped with an inflatable air ...
after his March 1965
spacewalk
Extravehicular activity (EVA) is any activity done by an astronaut in outer space outside a spacecraft. In the absence of a breathable atmosphere of Earth, Earthlike atmosphere, the astronaut is completely reliant on a space suit for environmen ...
.
In popular culture
An episode of ''
Extraordinary Attorney Woo
''Extraordinary Attorney Woo'' () is a 2022 South Korean television series starring Park Eun-bin in the title role, along with Kang Tae-oh and Kang Ki-young. It follows Woo Young-woo, a female rookie attorney with autism, who is hired by a majo ...
'' depicted the head of a technology company publicly ingesting a cyanide pill in front of a courtroom to protest his company’s treatment by the legal system. He was promptly rushed to the hospital but did not die.
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Suicide Pill
Poisons
Suicide methods