The Fruit Machine

Here's an interesting piece of equipment my father and I discovered during a recent trip to the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. According to the attached plaque: "Security officials used this device, the electropsychometer (or E-meter), in the 1950s and 1960s to help ascertain people's sexual orientation, assuming that homosexuality made individuals more susceptible to blackmail by enemy agents. Data from the so-called 'fruit machine' cost more than 100 civil servants their jobs..."

The new re-vamped war museum is quite excellent by the way. Quite a step up from its earlier, very cramped, home on Sussex drive.