Did you know that in 1958 the US Air Force investigated nuking the moon? This would not be the first, or last of many covert schemes considered by US intelligence that were birthed out of desperate situations.
On this segment of River to River, host Ben Kieffer talks with author, historian, and curator of the International Spy Museum, Vince Houghton. His new book is "Nuking the Moon: And Other Intelligence Schemes and Military Plots Left on the Drawing Baord" which outlines these clandestine blunders and misfires in national defense.
Today, most of us would laugh at the idea of nuking the moon, using cats to spy on the soviets, or fitting bats with incendiary charges to defeat Imperial Japan. Something all these abandoned plots had in common was their formation during desperate times by desperate people, whether the goal was ending the war in the Pacific or the looming threat of nuclear conflict with the USSR.
