Citation Needed - Cold War Programs

Episode Date: November 1, 2017

The Cold War was a state of geopolitical tension after World War II between powers in the Eastern Bloc (the Soviet Union and its satellite states) and powers in the Western Bloc (the United States, its NATO allies and others). Historians do not fully agree on the dates, but a common timeframe is the period between 1947, the year the Truman Doctrine (a U.S. foreign policy pledging to aid nations threatened by Soviet expansionism) was announced, and 1991, the year the Soviet Union collapsed. The term "cold" is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two sides involved in the conflict, although there were major regional wars, known as proxy wars, supported by the two sides. Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here.  Be sure to check our website for more details.

How could you have not seen Sherlock? I just, I wasn't into it at the time and now it's like done. Yeah, Citizen Kane is done, too. I feel like you should still check it out, though, you know. I get it. Part of it's watching, you know, getting the experience of watching it with everybody else, though. How?

I mean, would you go looking for spoilers on Facebook? Is morey already in the first season, though? What? Do you know he auditioned with that character? Really? Oh, hey Eli. Hey, hi best friend. Yeah, like you were invited.

Yeah, like they were auditioning a bunch of old guys and Moffe was just like, oh my god, like we got to make the whole show about this dude. Like that was just his creation on the first audition. Last season was crap though. I'm sorry, Eli. What are you holding? Oh, it's a suitcase, noot. But see, that's muffins problem.

He creates great shows and characters, but he can't maintain an arc. I'm sorry. What? Yeah, no, I know. Hear me out. Look, hide, doctor who Sherlock, great characters, great sets, great writers. No, no, no, no, no, no. The suitcase, nook, is what I'm asking about.

Oh, no. The suitcase nuke is what I'm asking about. Oh, yeah. Today's episode is on the Cold War, so I was gonna do my wacky antics thing, but then I got sucked into this conversation. So I feel like I'll just return it to Iran because the moment feels kinda gone. Yeah, you should do that, do that. Check out Sherlock, though Tom, seriously.

Super worth it. Season two, some of the best television period. Yeah, check it out. Hey Ahmed, it's Eli. Buddy, don't need it. Yeah, I'm disappointed too. Hello and welcome to Sightation Needed, the podcast where we choose a subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend we're experts because this is the internet. And that's how it works now.

Ami Lai Bosnick, and I'll be captaining this vessel, but I can't do it without my trusty crew. First up, two men whose fiery rage could power several nuclear vessels, Cecil and Noah. I'm looking forward to a time when my rage is all the rage. I'm sorry, I don't mean to be a petting, but wouldn't those vessels be rage? Vessels at this point, if we were Howard. I'm saying I don't mean to be a petting trolley. And also joining us tonight, two of the most pool emptying cannonballers you've ever done seen. Heath and Tom. The trick is just to turn on little sideways.

More surface area. Absolutely. Absolutely. I like a Jackknife too. Point being, if any Israelis are getting chased by Egyptians and we know you're out there, give us a call. We got you coming. Now, before we begin our show tonight, I'd like to take a moment to thank our patrons.

They take as little as a dollar a show and make sure we get to do what we love for a living. And for that, we're eternally grateful. And surprised, mostly surprised if I'm being honest, but also grateful. If you'd like to learn how to join their ranks, be sure to stick around to the end of the show, unless you just turn an air raid siren, go off in which case, quick, bequeath us all your worldly goods at patreon.com forward slash citation pod. And with that out of the way tell us Cecil What person place thing concept phenomenon or event will we be talking about today?

Well today we're going to be talking about U.S. government programs during the cold war And he you read about these programs are you ready to be the radar on this submarine? Yeah, so I did some serious research ready to be the radar on this submarine? Yeah, so I did some serious research by which I mean, I skimmed a listicle. So instead of a single topic, we have 10 topics this week. 10 topics, guys. 10. Thank you. Thank you.

It's better. Right. So we're talking about 10 of my favorite examples of ridiculous things we did during the Cold War. And by favorite and ridiculous, I mean some combination of silly, stupid, horrible, tragic, and or hilarious, which could honestly be the name of the show we're doing. So we start over. Hello, and welcome to silly, stupid, horrible, tragic, and or hilarious, the name of the show we're doing. Let's do it. So, let me start over. Hello, and welcome to silly stupid horrible tragic and or is the podcast, the podcast about those things.

And today's episode is about crazy shit we did during the Cold War. So obviously we all know everything. We all already know, but what was the Cold War in case anybody doesn't know Sweden. We fought Sweden. I hate your entire generation. I hate all of your generation. So that was the posturing war between the US and the Soviet Union that created sadly, the guys who decided our election last year, and I'm pretty sure. Allegedly, allegedly. It's also the motivation behind the US creating magical bombs, also Russia, in defiance of

God that could end the world about 2000 times over. And yeah, Russia did something similar, except with absolutely no security procedures in place. So now pretty much anyone with a library card can check out a nuclear weapon and take it wherever they want, honor system on bringing it back. It's great. Sometimes.

Librarians give you the stink eye when you drop a fucking book. Can you imagine how pissed they'd be if a nuke went off and say, Oh, I very Jesus. I imagine that every time I return a book, fucking librarians. So the judgey. No, but that's so sexy. And this is why I always fart in the library to prepare them for the future and I like it. Anyway, the paranoia that went along with the Cold War led our government to come up with some Asinine ideas. That's what we're going to talk about. Wasn't creating the magical, killed world bombs, the first Asinine idea there. Okay.

To clarify, this is Asinine ideas for the US governor. These are for, for us. Yes, absolutely. And just a quick thing before we get started with the top 10, we're not going to be talking about the MK Ultra program, even though that's an obvious example for the topic. In case anyone's not familiar, MK Ultra was the mind control program run by the CIA. Apparently, they spent about 20 years giving people acid and being like, no, still doesn't help win any wars. But MKL Trids serves its own episode. So we're going to skip it for

today. We're going to do 10 different. Today I learned Noah has been trying to win wars. And I was on the way with it too if it was for those battling D. A. So tell us, Heath, what was the first program? All right. We're going to start at the very beginning of the Cold War, which is right around the end of World War II, with a program called Operation Paperclip. It's just a team of scientists building an annoying Microsoft word assistant like, it looks like you're trying to write a tech code. Can I help?

Yeah. And Operation Paperclip, also known as Operation Nazis are bad, however, is an interesting one. However, was followed by evil science is super cool. So here's what happens is Twitter, Twitter created Twitter. So following the war, the Soviet Union emerged as the other major world power and in order to get an edge We started secretly enlisting Nazi scientists and you know, I hate to say it, but I would take that now if it meant we could get some fucking Scientists in the government right

I'm not saying it'd be better at running the USDA, but Joseph Mangle is definitely more qualified than Sam Clovis You you look terrible you should like not Joseph Mengele is definitely more qualified than Sam Clovis. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. You look terrible. You should like not eat as much food. I'm literally the guy who drowned people with too much water than you're gross. You're weirding me out, Sam Clovis. Yeah. So, uh, Operation Paperclip, that was a creepy plan.

But unfortunately for us, the Russians actually thought of that first and they'd already started Operation Sovaya Kim, which somehow got them about 2,000 Nazi scientists in one night. Wow. Just lots of super hot Russian ladies spies. I'm assuming pissing on Nazi nerds all day. I don't know how to do that. The meaning of Nazi gold finally revealed.

So, uh, US managed to eventually get a bunch too. Oh, yeah, but how many of them were there? They got two thousand. That was pretty much all they did was evil science. Yeah. So more than two 2000 is the number we know. So yeah, the US eventually got some too, but a little bit more weird, PP stuff and we could have ended World War II

before it really got going. I feel like we didn't focus at the time. More of the story, genocide isn't rocket science, but they're related. So, when being always keep your CV up to date is the key, which is why it's so important. You endorse people on LinkedIn, Tom. I didn't see an option to endorse you for brags about killing himself, but still here. So, you know, whatever I wanted to, but he said I couldn't that everyone

would come with me and I don't want anyone to come with me. Wanna go to Buddhist heaven by myself. Okay, moving on, you're not invited. Okay, next up we have, next up we have Operation Profunk or what I like to call the MapleScare. So you guys remember the whole Japanese internment thing? No, I'm not really that old. It's just a joke that Eli makes. This thing is real bad. We're two Japanese people. Well, coming on the heels of all that

success, we decided to roll with that idea apparently. But now that the Japanese had been done told twice, this was 1936. We didn't have to worry about them so much anymore. So apparently, we started brainstorming about what group of people were the most likely to be a threat to national security at that point and somehow we landed on Canadian people once. A suspicion I share. What are you Tim Hortons, a donut shop, a breakfast place, make up your mind. No, no. Eli, how is a donut shop not a breakfast place?

I'm not taking any follow up. So what happened was we put together a black list of about 66,000 Canadians. There's not them in black Canadians. Come on. They switched to a black faceless. Oh, much easier. Yeah, you fill that up pretty easy. I'm cracker.

Okay. Once again, moving on, we set up plans for a mobilization day on those 66,000 Canadians, on which we were going to round them all up at once and put them in a series of internment camps that we had throughout Canada somehow, which they very politely let us build all of the country. I'm assuming. Fortunately that mobilization day never happened because, well, the entire plan was stupid, but we came close. And Canada, for their part, did apologize for the mix-up. So that was nice of them. Oh, you are, you betcha. You know, we didn't do nothing, but we could have done something. So I guess we're just going to have to say we're sorry, Derry.

Why don't you boy go ahead and take a moose for your troubles on the way out? We're going to do it at number eight. We're going to do it countdown style. Starting at eight now, 10 and nine, those didn't count. It's now because I didn't have, I hadn't announced countdown. Now it's countdown. It all makes sense. Number B textually. Number

A number V I I I we have an incident called the green run. So the first working nuclear reactor to produce plutonium in the United States was in a place called the Hanford site in Washington state. And as the Cold War nuclear race started heating up, we decided we needed more information about how well the Soviets were doing with their nuclear program. So in 1949, we took a big pile of spent fuel that we intentionally didn't let decay or cool enough and used it to release a giant cloud of radioactive gas over a populated area right near the reactor site. Oh, they should have put a huge blanket over the area and dutch up into all those people.

You know? Yes, these will, let's call the ozone layer and we're working on fixing some of this harder than ours. Yeah, so I'm assuming you might have some questions about this. For example, why? And so I'm wondering, as I mentioned,, apparently the plan was to have the Air Force track the cloud so we could observe the patterns of the spreading cloud and have US recon use that information to identify plutonium reactors in the Soviet Union.

What? Isn't this like beaten toddlers and aluminum bats? you can complete your blood splatter analysis isn't that that was a joke Eli not an idea it could be both yeah mine I really hate it if the cell vids bombed us I just go ahead and nuke ourselves that'll show them stupid rescue and one of the other questions you might have, what about using a not populated area for the exact same thing that would work the same way? Yeah, I was thinking that. Yeah, answer, you're a Canadian spy. But I'd suggest the biggest question would be, isn't that stupid?

Considering we just gave the Soviet recon team the exact type of information, we were hoping to gain from the whole thing in the first place. And the answer would be yes. This was both horrible and tragically stupid. Okay. Okay. But plus side, my wife is from Washington state and then extra toe is magic. When girls are watching to state and flip you off, they have to use their whole hand. When they jerk you off, they have to use the whole flipper. Yeah. Well, they don't always need to use the whole flipper for everybody in time, but that's

okay, too. It doesn't make you less of a lead. I like the soft touch with the flipper, you know, just like a little French tickling on. Oh, tweeted us, would you fuck a manatee if the manatee was into it? Like a fully sentient manatee that can consent. Would you fuck it at Heathen at Eli Bosnick? Yes. Okay.

Next up at number seven, we have United States Air Force project 1794. And there's really no way of dressing this up. It was project flying saucer. We literally tried to build an actual flying saucer, like a super fast spinning one with pew pew laser beams, like the aliens have. Literally, we tried to do this and we spent millions of dollars making it didn't work.

I just really hope the plans had the words pew pew pew in them. I have the schematics for that flying saucer, Colonel. Let's take a look. Oh my god, Johnson! You spelled pec-queue wrong! No, I didn't, sir. The exes silent. Pfft!

Pfft! So, according to an Air Force document from 1956, they wanted to build a vertical take-off attack vehicle that would reach altitude of a hundred thousand feet and travel at Mach 4 speed I don't know how that would be useful if nobody else had anything flying at a hundred thousand feet But but most importantly it had to be saucer shaped because You know round stuff is cool

It is and as you might have already guessed, it did not work out. The final prototype started wobbling uncontrollably when it got about three feet off the ground. And it maxed out around 35 miles an hour. That's less than my for just, right? Right. But worst of all, even if it was able to actually fly,

it is just a circle plane. Not sure if that's especially helpful. We had planes. They wanted it to go a hundred thousand feet in mock four and they got that. That's like trying to make a deal with the pond stars guy, right? It's like, I have this diamond super bowl ring.

Hmm, I'll give you three nickels in a small handful of belly land. It's the best I can do. I love the idea of an Air Force pilot. Like in an emergency, just running at circles around the thing, like trying to find the door. Like someone's yelling like, the front is like, the whole thing is the front you asshole. I just want to point out that it's negativity like Tom's and heaths that keeps the circle playing out of every driveway. Who the fuck wouldn't want a 35 mile per hour wobbly flying saucer?

It was scared of heights. And he fucking awesome. I go everywhere. You got weird priorities. Awesome. Weird priorities. All right. Next up at number six, we have project sunshine.

And this one actually had some reasonable intentions. So after seeing the effects of the atomic bomb, scientists decided to figure out just how dangerous nuclear fallout might be in a large scale nuclear war, meaning in places that are important, like not Japan. And they concluded that the radioactive isotope strontium 90 was the biggest threat to human health in terms of nuclear fallout chemicals. So project sunshine aimed to study strontium 90 using dead babies. John, Renee, Ramsey, wait, okay, okay.

What are they going to use the dead babies for? Tether balls? John, Renee. Will you stop already? Will you love me with an open heart and mind? The way I love you. John, Renee, Ramsay. Okay, so I ended that explanation with dead babies.

I feel like I should explain a little more. No, I'm not needed. He's clearly. strong disagree keep going all right well just to be clear the explanations really not gonna make it any better uh... so in order to study how much strontium ninety was already getting spread around they need to examine the tissues and bones of dead people

and especially dead young people because younger bones were the most useful samples. I get it. Well, this led to the following statement from Dr. William Libby of the Atomic Energy Commission. Quote, I don't know how to get them, but I do say that it's a matter of prime importance to get them, and particularly in the young age group. So if anybody knows how to do a good job of body snatching, they will be really serving their country.

We really need baby corpses. No questions asked and be a patron. That really has. This is just a guy with a basement full of dead babies. Just like, oh, fuck, well, I gotta get more than one use out of these things somehow. Oh, Jesus. Okay, so while I recover from the news

that Tom and I are patriots will take a quick break for everyone's favorite use of the interstitial music, apropos of nothing. Here you go. Wow, thanks Fred, I gotta say, you're really chipping on a project sunshine. Yeah, I do what I can. Like really, like far away, you've brought us the most. I appreciate it, man, but I'm just doing what I do.

Yeah, so, um, you know, just a quick question here. Seriously, what's up? So, uh, none of the, you know, nobody abroad us. None of them have any underwear on. You know, some of them have clothes, but none of them have any underwear. Huh, that's weird. Yeah, it's kind of weird, right?

Yeah. All right, see you next week. Yeah. See ya. Dude, did you ask him. Yeah. See ya. Dude, did you ask him what did he say? I don't know, I don't know. I just froze, I kind of freaked out. I couldn't go through with it. And we're back.

When we left off, the US government was soliciting dead babies. And offer, I learned during the break, it does not stand. What's next? Thanks. Great segue. Speaking of soliciting dead babies, we have number five, Operation LAC or large area coverage. This was a project by the US Army chemical corps to study the potential for a chemical or biological attack using airborne agents like dust or aerosol.

And they conduct the testing by flying over major US population centers and dropping huge amounts of zinc, cadmium sulfide, which is easy to track. And allegedly, this stuff isn't toxic at the levels that were dropped into spurs. But I'm guessing it's not better to breathe than regular air. It feels like that's more than air at least. I don't know. I've paid good money to be sprayed with things that held of a lot less pleasant than zinc cadmium sulfides.

Little did they know they were actually spraying us with MSG and vaccine allergies. Yeah, so even if we assume the chemical was safe, the way they conducted the experiment, particularly in St. Louis, two different times, was pretty horrible either way. Apparently, they put really big fans full of the chemical on top of low income housing projects and just sprayed the entire neighborhood with it. They also put fans on top of schools in these areas and also drove around with vans blowing dust out of the back on every. Cheats and chong the early years. So. And when they're asked, hey, any chance you can do this in a white neighborhood next time the military responded, it's not about race.

This area just happens to be laid out exactly like a Russian city. We might want to attack with biological weapons. Planning a war crime is our excuse for that. Oh, okay, as long as it wasn't racist. And then they set it as they drove away in a swamp boat, dumping the big bag of this shit right into the fan. And also, by the way, the chemical might actually not have been safe, or at least something might have been safe. Or at least something might have been added. The abnormally

high rates of cancer in that area of St. Louis, let a professor to investigate. And his findings, apparently suggested that radioactive particles might have been mixed in. I mean, that's just one study and I actually couldn't find a reference for it. But still it's a dick move with like just chalk that would be a right. Whatever just you blow all over a neighborhood probably isn't fun unless it's free drugs and I'm pretty sure it was. It's never free. Yeah. I know because whenever they walk around spray and stuff, I start, I walk behind half

and it long enough to make sure and it is never. It's usually just up for mosquitoes. All right. Next up at number four, we have the plutonium experiment. And that's just the name I'm using for about three decades of secretly giving people radioactive stuff and fucking seeing what happens. It's also the name that journalist Eileen Wilson used for her series of reports that exposed this project and eventually won her a Pulitzer Prize.

Hmm sure seems to be a real connection between plutonium ladies and prizes. You're a son. You're a son. So here's just a few examples of stuff we did that Ms. Wilson found in military documents during her investigation. And as far as I can tell none of the test subjects gave any kind of informed consent. So this includes hundreds of pregnant women being given so-called vitamin drinks to see if we could create like vitamin two.

Dr. Manhattan fetuses also includes patients at a Chicago hospital who were just straight up injected with plutonium. One guy actually said a record for most plutonium ever in a person ever measured. Yeah, he uranium 238 too much, right? 238. I'll just see myself. That's fine. How dare you?

Shit, tits. Shit. Right on the tits. A big wet shit right on the tits. How dare you? shit right in the tits. And finally, in possibly the most evil thing you can do, you're ready for the most evil sentence ever assembled, disabled kids were spoon fed radioactive oatmeal after they told they were the new members of a science club. I'm not totally inaccurate. I'm not totally inaccurate. I'm just going to lie to him.

I'm going to lie to him. It's the dark secret behind the fantastic four. Starting out as the unexceptional 83. I just, I got, I have a question about the journalist. Like, why weren't these classified documents? Like, where are the journalists fighting? Like, nobody thought to get that big red classified stamp and put it on all this evil shit. I think back that we just that's how little of a shit

We gave about disabled kids. They're like well at least you're getting oatmeal Right next up at number three we have have the Strategic Defense Initiative, also known as Star Wars. So in 1983, both the U.S. and the Soviet Union had enormous nuclear arsenals, and we had a B-actor as president here in the United States. What? Happily take us president right now, Honestly, as a course. We got that towards the end. Google Ronald Reagan's signature. It's really great. So Ronald Reagan, the B actor, announced that he

wanted to make nuclear weapons obsolete, which is a great idea conceptually. And he wanted to do that by building giant laser beams in space that would shoot down the nuclear weapons, which is not a great idea. Well, like, what do people think lasers are? Yeah. It's not a reason why what do people think lasers are? Ah, I want to say hot crystals in the air. That's more accurate than Reagan thought.

So, fair. So between 1983 and 1993, we spent billions of dollars trying to create whatever the fuck Reagan was picturing. It's basically amazing. Then in 1987, some scientists got frustrated with the ridiculous plan and they conducted an investigation into just how feasible the Star Wars idea was. Seems like the type of thing you'd do before launching the

Multi-Billion Dollar Project, whatever. So 2020, 2020. Well, these guys concluded that it would take about 10 more years of research just to determine if the general idea Was even theoretically Ten years of just like is it or is it not even possible? In fairness, we've since realized that hitting a missile with a Physical object is probably a better move and some amount of progress has been made

But the space laser was a no go. Did not. Yeah. Everyone knows you have to put the laser on a boat. That's right. Boat lasers are real. We got all the lasers now people. All right.

Next up, we have number two. And this might be my all time favorite. We have operation, a coupoustic Kitty, real name. And yes, it's just like it sounds. It's just like it sounds. The CIA literally made a spy cat. She's, yup, because they needed us like a mascot. How many wooden boxes could this thing eat? Well, if you put it in a wooden box,

then you put it in some little vial of your reign. Never mind. That's a different episode. But seriously, they did this spy cat. At some point in the 1960s, they surgically implanted a listening device into a cat's ear canal. This is a 60s listening device. So like bigger than a cat. It's not a cat's ear. It's a real, the real cat. It's a cat.

It's an automobile on its head. It's supposed to be an absolutely ridiculous, but they need a listening device to a cat's ear and a transmission antenna into its tail. I like this thing, you got it, and then, and then you respect your job. It's not radio time. It's a wired connection. I'm in a cat.

I'm in a control like a... Somebody plugged the cat in It's like one of those shitty remote control cars that can only go backwards are forward and turn They saw it, they saw it They're pulling it back Press the meow button, it'll trick up I'm just picturing someone extending the tail like he used to do with the car engine that is it?

Seven foot cat tail brake. Get it going. Why did they pick a cat's best? I'm just going to give it a more room. I think it's like a small house. You should have picked a horse. It's just like a C.I. It's just a spy right after it.

It's a straight horse. That's weird. It's just got talked to me and painted on the side. Oh, God. Yeah, so this really fucking happened. They made a spy cat with the radio inside and they released the cat near the Soviet Embassy in Washington. I don't know how to, like, what they were picturing.

I guess they were hoping it would just like walk over to the Russian spies on the bench outside the building and get some secret intel. And the guys would just give me like, oh, hello, cat. But no, at least the spies we have in secret. I'll leave them to you now. They'reing for me No list no to be fair if someone had done that to my dog they would now know my deepest darkest secrets

I'm just saying Well anybody is listening to a podcast with you on it No, it gets really good No shit right Eli's plug was actually born a great day and it's just been crushed and mashed under the weight of Eli's oppressive emotional confessions. That makes two of us. And by the way, the cat never even recorded a single word of Russian because, well, it's a fucking cat. Yeah. And then it was just like, walk wherever you want. You can't just release a cat and it'll walk next to the Russian.

You're a Russian cat now. Yeah. You got to spritz the Russian to tune a water. First. What actually happened was at least according to former CIA officer, Victor Marquetti, they released the acoustic kitty and immediately back to the street and got killed by a taxi. Which by the way is exactly how my gritty reboot of Air Bud ends.

Call me universal. I'll fuck Harvey. I'll do what I got to do. Harvey's actually why Air Bud committed suicide. Well, don't go with the ending. Allegedly, that suicide note was not clear. No rule that says the cat can't be spying the CIA. It's true.

And finally, at number one, we have possibly the dumbest thing I've ever participated in. And that list includes the 2016 election just for the record. Of course, I'm talking about the national safety procedure for avoiding injury during a nuclear attack during the Cold War. Apparently, the government did some research and they realized that nuclear explosions cannot hurt you if you're under a school desk. And it's not just the desk, you also have to block with the desk.

Yeah, right, right, yes, exactly. Yeah, that's true, right? Yes, plus arms. And we had to practice this with duck and cover drills. Most of you guys probably remember this. To block the nukes with a wooden desk and arms just to be clear. Okay, well, I was born in 1987, so I didn't get to experience this. But if I had baby Eli just jump and arms wide towards the window, I want to be free.

But they still teach these drills. They just call them active shooter drills now. Right. As effective now. I guess that's true. Hunters need nuclear weapons sometimes. You have to have every web you need to blow comes to the school. No, no. Yeah. Right. Just one final detail on the story. Just for contrast. Unlike the United States, the country of Switzerland dealt with the fears of a nuclear attack way differently.

Instead of all the stuff we mentioned above, they did the most European thing ever and just built underground shelters with enough space for every single Swiss citizen. Oh my God. And I'm guessing Canada started doing the exact same thing last November. They started using those internment camps. We built up that 60 years ago. And he's a common enemy. But you're gonna help have nine fucking citizens and live in a country everyone would just forget to bomb.

All right, Heath. Well, if you had to summarize what you learned in one sentence, what would it be? We should all probably stay in Australia next month instead of staying back. Yeah. So we deal with Russian competition. Okay. Are you ready for the quiz? I am ready. All right.

Some people say the Cold War was a tremendous success in that it actually avoided a nuclear Holocaust, but like we lost some of the upsides to a Holocaust, which of the blow would be the best aside effect of a nuclear annihilation? A, we'll finally find out who really rules bartertow. B, we'd get the roving bands of mutants, we've always wanted. C, snuggling under blankets will be possible all year during the nuclear winter. Or D, oh my God, this might happen. Won't someone stop us from making America great?

Yeah. All right, well, I feel like you want me to say D, but I love a good blanket snuggle. Oh, like a new. That is nice. You're like, you know, like a new sweatshirt that hasn't been washed yet. It's just like, I'm going to go see a new blanket.

It's not going under blankets, nuclear winner. That's right. Yeah, sure. Yes. Try to trick me. So good. This. Which modern day classified method of studying the effects of deadly radiation will be most appalling to our grandchildren when they do their citation needed. A, the Betsy DeVosla Department of Education, would it be B, whatever it is they did to Thomas and baby that made his flatulence visible? I consider that a great benefit. Thank you. Well, it is. I'm not saying it's nice to know from a distance. Yeah, exactly. But still pretty weird. C, Pope I's chicken for D, coaxing North Korea into a nuclear war

and then just sciencing when that's over. Okay. All right, well, I feel like, I'm not having any grandchildren if I did the world, it's gotta be D. The world's not gonna be here. It's a war. That's right, it was a trick question.

There will be no grandchildren after the E no grandchildren. So Keith, you only mentioned 10 failed Cold War programs. Which one did you leave out? A, Operation Gold Finger, where spies wouldn't wash before they shook a Russian oligarch's hands. State call. B, can't keep my eyes off of Jew. We'll try to replicate the ancient art of the Jewish evil eye and want to put a huge pile

of eyes. Yeah. That's the power we have. We only break it out of every so often, but I see a project. Octo mom, when medical establishment tried to turn a human into a big top, or D, Operation No Fucks, when the world collectively agreed to stop Harvey Weinstein from anti-smitic which ones are I pick which everyone's not it see sees not anti-smitic I don't see one of those it's one of those right that's the mom it's that the mom yeah all right Just like real life heath is way smarter than everybody and we recorded on a weekly basis But also like real life. This is all scripted Who is doing next week's essay

according to a pattern we established long ago. I am gonna choose Noah for next week. Randomly. Randomly? Did that. Buh-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu Let's toss it over to Sarah for last week's Twitter answer and this week's Twitter question. Thanks Eli. Last week's question was, which citation needed host would you eat as a baby and why? The answer was from, at Sun of Samhain on Twitter. Answer?

NOAA. Because you get your doctor-recommended lifetime dose of tobacco, narcotics, and angst, all in one time release capsule. Thanks to everyone for submitting answers. This week's question is, if citation needed were a cold war project, what would its code name be? For the next few weeks, we won't be announcing a winner because the citation needed crew is going to be traveling for their first live show in Australia, but we will still have questions each week. Back to you, Eli. All right, well for Heath, Noah, Tom, and Cecil, I'm Eli.

Thanks for hanging out with us today. We'll be back next week and by then, Noah will be an expert on something else. Between now and then, if you'd like to laugh until you cry, check out me, Heath, Noah, on God awful movies, The Skating Atheist, and The Skaptocrat. Or if you'd like a more somber and balanced take on current events, check out Tom and Cecil over on your own. And if you'd like to help keep the show going, you can like a more somber and balanced take on current events, check out Tom and Cecil Loverer and Collin and Edithson. And if you'd like to help keep the show going, you can make a per episode donation of as little as a dollar in episode at patreon.com slash citation pod.

Or leave us a five star review everywhere you can. And if you'd like to get in touch with us, check out past episodes, connect with us on social media, or check the show notes, Be sure to check out citationpod.com. And remember, if you take aspirin all the time, it stops working. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Acha-mad, don't do this. Hey, man.

Okay, we'll all UPS it to you. Okay, well then how should I return it? There is no need to, there, there is no need to shout. We will figure this out. Okay. Okay. I'm upset too. I have that's, I have the schematic.

I have the schematics. I have the schematics for that flying saucer, Connor. What happens when you pronounce words as you see him? He's like, colonel. He did, he's like, colonel. Colonel. Colonel. Colonel. Colonel.

Colonel. Colonel. Colonel. Alright. I have the schematics for that flying saucer, Colonel. Colonel. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha