Exploding Cigars and Psychic Spies: A Curious History of the Government's Strangest and Most Secretive Projects

From inflatable tanks to weaponized goat dung and beyond, this hidden history for fans of The Men Who Stare at Goats takes you on a wild ride through stranger-than-fiction stories of declassified US government and military programs.

Booby-trapped seashells. Exploding pancake mix. Pigeon-guided missiles. These aren't fictional cartoon antics, but rather real top-secret projects commissioned by the US government and military—and that's just the tip of the iceberg. The most shocking, bizarre, and obscure secret programs in American history are compiled into an eye-popping compendium for the first time, including: 

• Military-grade stink spray: This stink spray was no gag, and was developed by the OSS for civilians to use against occupying Nazis during World War II.
• Project Acoustic Kitty: The CIA wired a cat to spy on Soviet adversaries—then discovered cats don’t take orders.
• Nuking the moon: Project A119 was an early space race plan to detonate a nuclear bomb on the lunar surface as a show of American superiority over the Soviets.
• MKUltra Subproject 4: As part of its mind control research, the CIA enlisted a famous magician to teach agents sleight-of-hand techniques to poison targets.
• Facial hair assassination: The OSS and the CIA targeted both Adolph Hitler’s mustache and Fidel Castro’s beard in the hopes that eliminating their iconic facial hair would embarrass and humiliate the leaders.

Exploding Cigars and Psychic Spies will shock, infuriate, and entertain you with the often unbelievable antics of the FBI, CIA, and US military, revealing the dark side of operating in secrecy—and the human cost in the quest for national security.