Suicide pill

Military and espionage 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), or to ensure that they cannot be interrogated and forced to disclose secret information.

[2] It was an oval capsule, approximately the size of a pea, 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.

According to CIA Director William Colby, a tiny saxitoxin-impregnated needle hidden inside a fake silver dollar was issued to Francis Gary Powers, an American U-2 pilot who was shot down while flying over the USSR in May 1960.

As an extreme version of the poison pill defense, this crippling provision refers to any technique used by a target firm in which takeover protection could result in self-destruction.

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.