All language subtitles for Secrets.Declassified.with.David.Duchovny.S01E04.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

- Throughout time,
governments and the people

who work for them
have done strange

and even terrible things in
the name of national interest.

Tonight, strange weapons
intended to kill.

From a weapon
fired on the moon...

- Scientists have to
now start figuring out

how to make a gun that
will work as it does on Earth

but on the moon.

- To an experimental
nuclear weapon

that needs unusual helpers
to make it work...

- So some genius decides
to enlist an animal

to live inside a nuclear bomb.

[ominous music]

The safety
of the entire Western world

depends on these
barnyard animals.

♪ ♪

- And even a plot to defeat
Hitler using hormones..

- This would constitute
a sneak attack

against Adolf Hitler's
masculine health,

and he wouldn't even know
it was happening.

- Dangerous threats sometimes
inspire strange weapons.

It's time to bring
these stories to light.

♪ ♪

At the height of the Cold War,

the U.S. and Russia
raced to create weapons

to give them an edge.

In the late 1950s,
the Soviets come up

with what could be
a game changer--

a handgun that kills
without a trace.

♪ ♪

- In August 1961,
a KGB hitman walks

into a West German
police station and defects.

Bohdan Stashynsky
is interrogated by the CIA.

And he spills the beans

on a high-level hit
he just carried out

using a top secret gun
that induces

a heart attack on the victim.

- He claims to have poisoned
two Ukrainian exiles,

both very much enemies
of the Soviet state.

♪ ♪

Stashynsky claims to have used
a modified pistol

that, instead of firing
a bullet,

sprays a little bit of a spray
of hydrogen cyanide vapor

right into somebody's face.

- The CIA have never heard
of a heart-attack gun,

but it inspires the agency
to create

its own untraceable weapon.

And in 1968, a highly
classified science unit,

code name Project MKNAOMI,
gets to work.

♪ ♪

- When CIA finds out that
the Soviets have a poison gun,

they set out on a mission to
create something even better.

They want a toxin that's fatal,
untraceable, undetectable,

and would look
like natural causes

in the case of the victim,
if they were ever discovered.

- Toxins are basically
nature's poisons.

They are things
that are highly poisonous

that exist out there
in the natural world.

They land on something
called saxitoxin.

- Saxitoxin is found
in contaminated clams,

and it is 1,000 times
more deadly than cyanide.

♪ ♪

It works very quickly

to disrupt
your nervous system,

interfering with your ability
to breathe,

causing heart failure,
leading to a heart attack.

- The toxin
breaks down quickly

and is likely to have
disappeared

before an autopsy
is carried out.

It's the perfect poison.

The only problem is,
how to deliver it?

- The Soviet cyanide gun
has a lot of drawbacks.

You have to be very close
to use it.

- You really had to get
in somebody's face,

and you had to kind of hope

that the breeze
wasn't blowing towards you.

- A change in the wind

could make the person shooting
the weapon the victim.

Plus, you never know
whether or not somebody else

is going to be exposed
to the cyanide.

- The obvious solution is
to use a bullet, not a spray.

But bullets create
their own problems.

- If they use
a bullet or pellet,

it will leave a physical trace,
even if the poison doesn't.

So the MKNAOMI unit develops
the only way

to covertly shoot a target
with saxitoxin.

They freeze the poison
into a hair-thin dart

that will leave nothing but
the tiniest little pinprick.

♪ ♪

- But does this strange weapon

ever get
off the drawing board?

[dramatic music]

In 1975, accusations
against the CIA

lead to a congressional
investigation,

and the agency
must answer questions

regarding
alleged criminal activity.

- CIA Director William Colby
must bring out

some skeletons from the closet,

and he reveals Project MKNAOMI.

- Congress gets to see more

than just documents.

- Have you brought with you

some of those devices which
would have enabled the CIA

to use this poison for--

- We have indeed.
- For killing people?

[indistinct chatter]

Don't point it at me.
[laughter]

- It's the kind of thing that
would make James Bond jealous.

- Does this pistol
fire the dart?

- Yes, it does.

- CIA takes a Colt M1911 gun
and actually adjusts it

so that it can be fired
from an electronic chamber

so it's silent,

and it fires frozen darts
instead of firing bullets.

- So that when it fires,
it fires silently?

- Almost silently, yes.

Very little, very little--
- What range does it have?

- About 100 yards, 100 meters.
- About 100 meters' range?

- Right.

- The heart-attack gun is, in
many ways, the perfect weapon.

If you're the victim, you may
not even know you were hit.

You may only feel
a sting, a pinch,

or maybe just an itch

before you have a heart attack
and die.

For the coroner or investigator

trying to determine
the cause of death,

everything is going to
look like natural causes.

It's going to look like
a natural heart attack.

- It's now clear that the gun
not only exists, but it works.

But who were
the intended targets?

- In the wake
of the Select Committee,

the CIA is forced to release

the largest-ever cache
of declassified CIA projects.

♪ ♪

Detailed within are
covert assassination plans

to poison Congolese President
Patrice Lumumba

and Cuban revolutionary
Fidel Castro.

♪ ♪

- There's no direct connection

between Project MKNAOMI

and subsequent
assassination attempts.

And the CIA continues to deny

that its heart-attack gun
was ever used in the field.

But during World War II,
there is a secret weapon

that is fully deployed
in American skies.

♪ ♪

- A silent winter's night
is suddenly broken

by the sound of an explosion.

[distant explosion]

♪ ♪

Locals rush out
to see what has happened.

They find debris

and what looks like parts
of a balloon

and bomb shrapnel.

- Could it be a homemade
attempt at bomb building

or a stray military test?

♪ ♪

Within days, there are reports
of similar events

coming in
from all over the country.

- Same sort of debris is found
off the coast of Hawaii,

in Kalispell, Montana,
Marshall, Alaska, and Oregon.

- Is the United States
under attack?

♪ ♪

The Army's Military
Intelligence Department

investigates.

♪ ♪

- What they find is that these

are hydrogen-filled
paper balloons.

While they look pretty,
these are not party balloons.

- The lanterns carry
a deadly cargo--

four incendiary devices
and one 30-pound bomb.

- The Air Force is told,

if you see these balloons
while you're flying your plane,

shoot them down
with extreme prejudice.

- But one mystery remains.

Who is making these weapons?

- The Army's Military
Intelligence Department

starts looking at the balloons

to try to figure out
where they came from.

And they realize
something incredible.

They're not made of plastic.

They're made of paper that
derives from the kozo tree,

and that tree is native
to Asia.

- But there's more, because
they're able to analyze

the sand
inside the ballast bags

and determine that they come
from a very specific place--

the beaches
of southeastern Japan.

- It's clear Japan
is attacking the U.S.

with a very strange weapon--

paper balloons carrying bombs

that can travel
across the Pacific.

- The Japanese discover that
air currents

at high altitudes travel
from west to east.

The deadly balloons,
named Fu-Go,

can ride the jet stream
on a four-day journey,

all the way across the ocean.

♪ ♪

It's an ingenious use
of natural resources.

♪ ♪

- One of the key features
of the balloon bomb

is that it doesn't have
a pilot on board.

And so you can deploy military
force against the United States

without risking your
vital military personnel.

The trouble is,
you can't guide it,

and so you don't know
where it's going to drop.

It's indiscriminate.

- The bomb's explosive power

isn't enough
to do huge damage.

Its real threat
is starting fires.

- The state of California
is especially vulnerable

to forest fires.

And the Japanese were hoping
that the balloon-bomb campaign

would trigger forest fires
across the state.

The U.S. military
reacts to that

by keeping aircraft on standby
to douse any part of California

that might be affected
by a balloon bomb

that triggers a forest fire.

- The government keeps
the bombs secret

and out of the press
because they want the Japanese

to think their campaign
is failing.

Then disaster strikes.

♪ ♪

- In May of 1945,
a minister and his wife

were taking five Sunday-school
children out for a picnic.

While the minister
was parking the car,

his wife took the kids
into the forest.

♪ ♪

- They find a strange object--
a large balloon.

When they approach to get
a closer look...

[explosion]

They accidentally trigger the
balloon's deadly 30-pound bomb.

♪ ♪

The blast kills everybody--

the five children
and the minister's wife--

and they become the only
mainland American casualties

of World War II.

- A Sunday-school picnic
getting ripped apart

is bad news
that's going to spread fast.

So the government has no choice

but to come clean
with the public.

- In May 1945,
secret intelligence

on Japanese balloon bombs is
finally released to the press.

In the final reckoning,

the balloons are more ingenious
than effective.

Of an estimated
9,000 Fu-Go bombs

released by the Japanese,

only 285
are officially recorded

as hitting their target.

- In 1954, the British
decide to develop

a new kind of nuclear weapon--

one that can be buried
underground, like a land mine.

Not surprisingly, the project
runs into problems

right from the start.

♪ ♪

- In the aftermath
of World War II,

Britain has a very real fear

that the Soviet Union

might launch an assault
on Western Europe.

And if so, it will involve
the Soviet hordes,

thousands of tanks and other
armored vehicles,

millions of troops marching
through Germany

on their way
to the conquest of Europe.

- To boost their defenses,
the military decide

they need a new kind
of weapon.

- The British
have been using land mines

for defensive positions
for hundreds of years.

And they understand
that a single anti-tank mine

might destroy a tank.

But what if you could destroy
1,000 tanks

with a single land mine?

- Strategically placed
nuclear land mines

could wipe out
an entire invading force.

Plus, the area will be
contaminated with fallout,

forcing the invaders
to retreat.

This could be a game changer--

a weapon the world
has never seen before.

♪ ♪

- The British code-name
the project Blue Peacock.

- 30 miles outside London,

engineers at a British Army
research site

begin developing
a nuclear land mine.

♪ ♪

To save money,
they adapt a warhead

that's already in service
called the Blue Danube.

- But there's a challenge.

If you plant a 10-kiloton nuke
in the ground,

it can't be as sensitive
as a regular land mine.

- Land mines used
during World War II

are triggered through contact
by the enemy

and, unfortunately,
civilians as well sometimes.

But you can't have
a nuclear bomb going off

because somebody steps on it.

A dog walker straying
into the wrong field

could accidentally trigger
a 10-kiloton explosion.

♪ ♪

- They decide to give
the mine an off setting,

rendering it perfectly safe.

It will basically be sleeping
underground.

When called into action,
it can be triggered,

either by setting a timer
or remotely

by way of a three-mile cable.

Problem solved.

- British experts soon realize
something else.

A buried nuclear bomb
needs more safeguards.

It needs to be waterproof,
weatherproof,

and tamper-proof.

♪ ♪

- You'll have to encase
this weapon

in a massive steel shell,

and that makes it both large
and extremely heavy.

You're looking
at 7 tons of weight

in this monster.

- In 1957,
the British Army ordered ten

of these nuclear land mines.

- They have a plan
to plant them

along the West German border
as a method of repelling

a potential
Soviet ground invasion.

- It soon becomes clear

there's an additional
challenge they've overlooked.

- The components to trigger
a Blue Peacock weapon

are very sensitive
to temperature.

They have to be kept
above freezing temperatures.

But putting them in the ground,

underneath the frozen soil
of a European winter,

makes them very vulnerable
to not functioning on command.

- So much has been invested
in this weapon.

They need to make it work.

So no solution
is off the table.

And they come up with something
just so far outside of the box,

you have to really wonder how
on Earth they even got there.

- To make this weapon work,
they must keep it warm.

- Perhaps there's a way to use

some kind of a biological
heating system--

a living organism that
might generate enough body heat

to keep everything
above freezing temperature.

- Obviously,
it can't be a human.

No one's going to sign up
for that type of job.

So they figure it has to be
an animal that can maintain

its own body heat

and tolerate being kept
in a confined space

for days on end.

- There's one obvious
candidate for the job--

chickens.

♪ ♪

- After all,
factory-farmed chickens

are already kept alive
in minimal light and space--

similar conditions
to the underground bomb.

[chickens clucking]

- In the event that you
have to basically set a timer

on this atomic device,

you could put chickens inside
the bomb casing

with enough food and water
to sustain them

in these tight quarters
in the darkness.

Their body heat will ensure
that the timer functions

up to a week in the future.

♪ ♪

If the blast occurs,

it will create a crater
640 feet in diameter.

The chickens
will be incinerated instantly,

but they will die
British heroes.

- Before any chickens
are roasted,

another solution is found--

fiberglass pillows
to keep the nuke warm.

- The Blue Peacocks
are good to go

until one more problem
comes up.

The only way to transport them
to their final location

is by truck.

But once that truck,

loaded with a 7 1/2-ton steel
cylinder, drives off-road,

it will inevitably get weighed
down and stuck.

The mines are so heavy
that transporting them

is hugely impractical
and almost impossible

to do in any covert way.

- After so many setbacks,

the project
is finally canceled in 1958,

and the British nuclear
land mine is buried forever.

♪ ♪

With the passage of time,
even the British Civil Service

comes to appreciate
the absurdity

of Project Blue Peacock.

The files are
finally declassified in 2004

on April Fool's Day.

- Strange weapons come
in all shapes and sizes.

In 1961, the Soviet Union
decides to create

the biggest one the world
has ever seen--

whatever it takes.

[dramatic music]

- Nikita Khrushchev
is absolutely paranoid

that the rest of the world
might think the Americans

are getting the upper hand
in the Cold War.

- According to his reports,

America has five times
the nuclear weapons

as the Soviet Union.

So he plans a big event so
the world knows Soviet power

is still here and it's real.

- The U.S. has already tested

powerful 15-million-ton
hydrogen bombs.

- The blast radius
of this weapon is a fireball

4 1/2 miles in diameter.

♪ ♪

- But Soviet leader Khrushchev
is unimpressed.

- Khrushchev wants
a bomb ten times the size

of the largest American
hydrogen bomb in history.

He demands
that Soviet scientists

devise a 100-million-ton bomb.

- The bomb could kill
close to a million people.

Khrushchev makes no secret
of his intentions.

He publicly boasts about it.

Soviet scientists race
to meet his demands.

♪ ♪

- Scaling a nuclear bomb to
this level had never occurred.

Khrushchev is demanding
the impossible,

and Khrushchev expects results.

♪ ♪

- Eventually,
the lead scientist,

Andrei Sakharov, succeeds.

- They named it Project 602,

but it was nicknamed
Tsar Bomba.

- Tsar Bomba--
Russian for "king of bombs."

Now Khrushchev is determined
to test it.

- When Sakharov hears
that they're planning to test

this 100-megaton nuclear bomb,

he has massive concerns.

- There's no way
you can set this bomb off

without creating
an enormous region

of radioactive fallout.

Just the act
of testing this bomb

is going to render enormous
areas of the Soviet Union

uninhabitable for 1,000 years.

- So he takes action.

He goes, and he replaces
half the uranium with lead.

- Even Sakharov's massively
scaled down Tsar Bomba

is three times larger
than anything

the Americans
had ever detonated.

- The bomb prepped, it's time
to see what it can do.

But how do you detonate
a bomb this size

without killing the pilot
of the delivery plane?

- The plan is to release
the bomb from an airplane

and have it explode 2 1/2 miles
above the Earth's surface,

which means that
whatever plane drops it,

it's going to be incinerated.

So this is a suicide mission.

- Now, to give the pilot
a fighting chance,

they coat the plane
with a special paint

that will deflect some
of the blast's searing heat.

- They attach
a 17,000-square-foot parachute

to the bomb
to slow its descent

to give the pilot time
to get the plane away.

But even after doing
all of that,

at best, they have
a 50/50 chance of survival.

- Even under test conditions,

the devastation on the ground
will be immense.

So the Tsar bomb is taken
to the Arctic wastes,

one and half thousand miles
north of Moscow.

Preparations almost complete,

the team hit
another stumbling block.

The Tsar bomb is too big
to fit inside the plane.

- Normally,
if a bomb is dropping

from underneath a plane,
it's loaded into the bomb bay

and released
when the doors open.

But this bomb is way too big,

so they just have to strap it
to the outside.

- With a makeshift solution
in place,

it's time to drop the bomb.

- It's going to take
about 30 minutes

to get up to altitude

with this enormous bomb

hanging from the fuselage
of the airplane.

- Once the pilot
is at launch altitude,

he releases the bomb.

♪ ♪

- This thing is
a manmade natural disaster.

♪ ♪

- The blast
from the Tsar bomb

is so big that it creates
a mushroom cloud

that's 60 miles wide.

That's twice the size
of New York City.

♪ ♪

- It's an absolute catastrophe,

the damage
that this single bomb does.

- It collapses houses
in an evacuated town

60 miles away.

- 500 miles away,

the blast wave
was still breaking windows.

- The pilot is 30 miles away,
but it's not far enough.

- The delivery aircraft
was like a leaf

caught in a tornado.

- The shock wave is so big,
it hits the plane,

and he actually falls
an entire kilometer

before regaining control
of the aircraft.

♪ ♪

- Shockwaves
from the blast register

across much
of Northern Europe,

letting the rest
of the world know

that Khrushchev's
superbomb works.

Shock waves of outrage
come next.

♪ ♪

- It turns out that exploding
a giant nuke in the atmosphere

doesn't make you popular.

♪ ♪

- The test is denounced widely,
not only in America

but also by one
of Khrushchev's key men--

the bomb's designer,
Andrei Sakharov.

- In fact, he was influential

in a 1963 aboveground
test ban treaty

that went into effect and was
signed by the Soviet Union

and the other nuclear powers,
including the United States.

- In 1942, the U.S. created

the Office
of Strategic Services--

a secretive agency designed
to help win World War II

through both espionage
and sabotage.

The OSS hatches
many bold plans,

none stranger than a plot
against Adolf Hitler.

[dramatic music]

- Officers at the OSS believe
that they can bring the war

to a swift end by eliminating
the leader of the Nazis.

So they draw up these plans

to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

- One option to take out
the Fuehrer is poison.

Undercover agents
in Nazi Germany

could spike Hitler's food.

But how?

- It's not easy
to simply slip something

into Adolf Hitler's food.

There are levels of protection
all around the Fuehrer,

and he even has a food taster.

♪ ♪

- The OSS next turn to an idea

that's the brainchild

of lead scientist
Stanley Lovell...

and it's a little
more outside the box...

♪ ♪

Spike Hitler's food
with sex hormones.

♪ ♪

- Lovell's team
conducts studies

of Hitler's public behavior,

particularly
his violent outbursts.

♪ ♪

And they come
to a problematic conclusion

that this is a character trait
associated with females

and the emotional instability
of women.

♪ ♪

- Lovell is convinced
that Adolf Hitler is falling

right in the middle
of this gender spectrum,

and that if you just dose him
with a little bit of estrogen,

he would be less inclined

toward violent
"confrontationalism"

and more inclined
toward engagement.

You could get a peace treaty
out of somebody like that.

- Lovell lands on estrogen
as his secret weapon.

- Estrogen is the female
reproductive hormone.

If taken by men,

it actually reduces
the male hormone, testosterone,

leading to the man taking on
more female characteristics.

- And it makes
the perfect poison.

- Odorless, it's colorless,
and in the right amounts,

it cannot be detected.

This would constitute
a sneak attack

against Adolf Hitler's
masculine health,

and he wouldn't even know
it was happening.

- The only problem--

getting the hormone
into Hitler's food.

- Hitler is
a well-known vegetarian,

and he's a paranoiac
about his food supply,

which means he will only eat
vegetables grown in gardens

under the direct control
of the Nazi regime.

The idea is that an operative

might be able to infiltrate
the gardens

and either intercept
the produce

or inject it in the ground
with hypodermic needles

filled with estrogen

that will then be conveyed
via the vegetables

to the Fuehrer's plate.

♪ ♪

- But the effects
of sex hormones are gradual.

So we're not talking Fuehrer
to Fraulein in one single hit.

- We're talking about months
before the effects

will even be seen.

- Lovell claims to have put
his plan in action,

sending female hormones
to agents behind enemy lines.

But Hitler remained
aggressively confrontational

until the war's end.

♪ ♪

The plan may have failed,

but that doesn't stop
Stanley Lovell.

In 1943, he comes up with
another way to win victory,

this time with a stink bomb
so powerful,

it will derail enemy attacks.

♪ ♪

- They're looking for
the ultimate stink bomb--

one that's so disgusting,

the enemy is just humiliated
and left incapable of fighting.

♪ ♪

- A substance or device
that is just so pungent

and eye-watering
that it clears the room out...

is not any different
philosophically

than a grenade full of tear gas
that clears the room out

because your eyes are burning.

It's the same
kind of principle.

- The OSS affectionately
names the bomb "Who, Me?"

because if a smell erupts

in a room of people
and someone is blamed,

they typically respond,
"Who, me?"

as if they're innocent.

- There's an entire industry--

a hundreds-of-year-old
industry--

with a lot of science
and engineering behind it

for spreading smells--

isolating particular compounds,
blending particular compounds,

storing them, dispensing them.

It's the perfume industry.

- To concoct a stink bomb
suitable for combat,

they seek out the best nose
in the business.

- The OSS bring in chemical
engineer Ernest Crocker.

Now, Crocker has spent years

developing an almost
encyclopedic study of smells

for the perfume industry.

His challenge is simple--

produce a noxious anti-perfume

that agents can deploy
behind enemy lines.

And he conducts months of tests
to create the perfect stench.

♪ ♪

Crocker ends up settling on
just a cocktail of chemicals

that assaults the senses.

We're talking about
the smell of vomit,

just rancid butter,
urine, rotten eggs,

foot odor, and excrement.

♪ ♪

- Confident his concoction
will repulse German forces...

Crocker turns his attention
to the Japanese.

♪ ♪

- There's this prevailing
notion that Asians

might actually be more
accepting of filthy smells,

indicative
of the deeply racist ideas

that are prevalent at the time.

And this leads Crocker
to brew up a second smell

for use in the Far East,
with notes of rotting flesh.

- The stinking potions
are made,

but how do you transport
a smell to the front line?

- Now they're faced
with another dilemma.

They need a suitable container
to package the noxious weapon.

♪ ♪

But this proves much harder
than brewing the smell.

♪ ♪

- It isn't enough to just
come up with this anti-perfume.

You also need to come up
with something that can carry

this rancid liquid
behind enemy lines.

So they spend months working
on a suitable container--

one that doesn't leak but one
that can also be easily opened.

- Crocker's team ultimately
comes up with the design,

which is a small tube.

And it's mobile and can fit
into a soldier's kit.

- The stink bomb
goes into production

with a test run of 600 tubes.

- According to Stanley Lovell,
they use Chinese rebels.

The rebels spray it on the
uniforms of Japanese soldiers,

but the war ends
before they can actually get

a full-scale assault
on the senses.

- In 1959,
Vice President Nixon

visits Moscow
on a goodwill mission.

But the Soviets don't care
about goodwill.

[dramatic music]

- Vice President Richard Nixon

is prepping for a trip
behind the Iron Curtain.

He will become
the first high-ranking American

to visit Moscow in 14 years.

And he is due to officially
open an exhibition

of American science and culture
in Moscow.

- After a recent scare
at the U.S. Embassy,

Nixon's security team
is on high alert.

- The U.S. Embassy in Moscow
is reporting high levels

of radiation
happening in specific rooms

throughout
the embassy building itself.

♪ ♪

- When you scan
for radiation levels,

there's a certain level
that's "acceptable,"

that's just going to exist
within any room or place.

Those readings were
slightly above acceptable.

♪ ♪

- Nixon's security team

are afraid he's
walking into a trap.

They suggest taking
Geiger counters to Moscow

to monitor the radiation
levels in his living quarters.

- Nixon wants to avoid
any displays of paranoia.

He says no to Geiger counters,

but he suggests the team
bring these measuring devices

called dosimeters.

These are
pocket-sized instruments

that measure
radiation exposure.

- The Secret Service team
travels out to Russia

ahead of the vice president,

taking their dosimeters
with them.

- White House Special Agent
James Golden

is tasked with scoping out
Nixon's Moscow residence

ahead of
the vice president's trip.

- And one of the things
that he does

is he starts to look
for radioactive detection

within where the vice president
was staying.

- But their dosimeter devices
don't pick up anything unusual.

Everything's normal,
and there's no sign of danger.

♪ ♪

- On July 23rd, Nixon lands
at Moscow Airport.

What happens next
is kept under wraps

and classified for 63 years.

- The Nixons arrive.
The ambassador arrives.

All of the sort of formalities
are starting to take place.

And as a result of that
slightly elevated reading,

Agent Golden decides to do
basically a second pass,

a second scan
to look for radioactivity.

I think he was not expecting
to find any.

- When they reached
Nixon's sleeping quarters,

something alarming happens.

James Golden's dosimeter

soars up to a reading
of 35 roentgens.

- A roentgen
is a unit of measure

for counting
your exposure to radiation.

And in the workplace,

a permissible exposure
to radiation

is just 1/10
of a roentgen per week.

- 35 roentgens will have
a physical effect on the body

by attacking its immune system.

It's not immediately fatal,

but prolonged exposure
to radiation

can lead to long-term
illnesses, such as cancer.

♪ ♪

- The Americans
suspect the radiation

is caused by microwaves
aimed at the building.

♪ ♪

- At the time,
microwave weapons,

or directed-energy weapons,

don't officially exist.

The American government is only
just starting to develop them.

♪ ♪

- A directed-energy weapon

is a weapon
that can take focused energy

and drive it
through an antenna

at a target
a great distance away.

It's silent, it's invisible,

and people don't even know
they're being attacked

until it's too late.

♪ ♪

- It's terrifying.

If the Soviets
are shooting microwaves,

they could target
the vice president.

♪ ♪

- The team runs checks
on the rest of the house,

and the readings drop
to a normal level.

This is weird.

♪ ♪

- Nixon's security team
can't find the source

of the radiation,

and they don't want
to cause a panic

that will disrupt
the vice president's trip.

♪ ♪

- The next morning,

the readings
are still dramatically high.

So Golden and his partner
take a gamble.

♪ ♪

- Because he knows
that that room is bugged--

As a CIA officer,
we always assume

everyone's listening
at all times.

♪ ♪

As a result, he does what
we call talking to the room,

and he says, wow,

these radiation levels
are so high!

I can't believe it!

- And then they wait to see
if the message had any impact.

♪ ♪

At 3:30 p.m....
[snaps fingers]

The dosimeter
suddenly calmed down.

- What that tells us is
someone is always listening.

There's no question.

And also what that tells us

is this was something that
the Russians purposely did.

Now, what their motive was,
I don't know.

Was it to kill? Was it to hurt?
Was it to frustrate?

We don't know the answer
to that question.

♪ ♪

- Nixon completes his visit
without further issues.

Afterwards, the agents
report their findings.

But their superiors
don't want to derail

Nixon's peace initiative

by accusing the Soviets
of a plot.

So James Gordon
keeps his silence...

until 1976,

when a scandal
hits the newspapers.

♪ ♪

- 1976, the U.S. ambassador
to Moscow,

a man named Walter Stoessel,
started reporting symptoms.

He was reporting nausea
and bleeding from the eyes.

These are classic symptoms
of radiation poisoning.

- There's a real fear
that the Soviet microwaves

are silently attacking
Americans

and could be doing fatal harm.

♪ ♪

The State Department is called
in to conduct a health study

into whether
U.S. diplomatic staff in Moscow

has been affected
by radiation poisoning.

♪ ♪

- With talk of Russian
microwaves all over the press,

James Golden tells
the inquiry what he believes

happened during Nixon's visit
to Moscow.

- Golden believes that there's

a diabolical
directed-energy weapon

being used to irradiate
Nixon's room specifically.

♪ ♪

- But the State Department's
health study

finds no strong evidence
linking Moscow radiation

to subsequent health problems.

- With that,
the trail runs cold.

And the Russians have never
been brought to book

for directing microwaves
at American politicians.

- In the 1960s,

the U.S. and Soviet Union
vied to put a man on the moon.

But what if they both succeed?

Could the Cold War come to
a head with a lunar shootout?

[dramatic music]

- Engineers
at Rock Island army base

specialize in designing
weapons for combat on Earth.

But regular guns
may not do the job

if war breaks out in space.

So the Army set up
a Future Weapons Office

to design weapons
for astronauts.

We can't go anywhere
without taking a gun,

even the moon.

♪ ♪

- The moon is
a new environment,

and scientists have
to now start figuring out

how to make a gun
or how to make artillery

that will work as it does
on Earth but on the moon.

- First of all, the moon
has a very thin atmosphere.

Regular firearms need
liquid lubricants

to keep them in working order.

But in a vacuum, lubricants
are liable to evaporate.

And so the gun's sliding
mechanisms will jam.

- What's more,
guns have recoil--

the force that throws a gun
back after it shoots a bullet.

But in the moon's low gravity,

the recoil
from a regular firearm

could throw the soldier back
so violently

that they could leave
the lunar surface

and just float off into space.

♪ ♪

- A radical design is needed

for a reliable firearm
to protect astronauts.

Enter the spring-propelled
spherical projectile.

♪ ♪

- By replacing the conventional
firing mechanisms

with a compressed spring,

there are none of
the traditional sliding parts.

So it's less reliant
on lubrication

and less liable
to jam or freeze

in essentially
a zero-atmosphere environment.

A spring-propulsion system
like this

also is likely to have
less recoil,

ensuring that the lunar soldier

doesn't get thrown
back into space

after they pull the trigger.

- Another hazard that could
disarm a space soldier

is the moon's
extreme temperatures.

- During the day, it gets
up to 250 degrees Fahrenheit

and plummets at night
to minus-250 degrees.

So the Army's regular
M14 rifle could freeze

or explode under these extreme
temperature conditions.

- There's also the risk
of the gun's metal parts

fusing together in extreme
subzero temperatures.

It's a reaction
called "cold welding."

It would render the weapon
immediately unusable.

- This is where
the spin-stabilized micro gun

would come in handy.

- The gun does away with
many of the complex mechanics

of the standard firearm,

so there are fewer parts
that are vulnerable to freezing

or exploding
through excess heat.

And it can be assembled

using a variety
of nonmetal materials,

like ceramics or plastics,

which is perfect
to avoid cold welding.

- It would shoot
a 4-pound projectile.

And it could travel
at over 3,000 feet per second.

This could go
very far, very fast,

with pretty good accuracy.

- But firing off a few rounds
on the moon

does come with a caveat.

If you fire a bullet
and it misses its target,

that bullet
could potentially travel

through outer space forever.

♪ ♪

- In 1965,
the Future Weapons Office

publishes their report,

illustrating a space gun
for every occasion.

But none of the designs
make it off the drawing board,

because in 1967,

the U.S. signs
the Outer Space Treaty,

banning weapons on the moon.

♪ ♪

As long as there's conflict
between nations,

governments will continue
to develop strange weapons--

some that simply defy belief,

others we hope
will never be deployed.

I'm David Duchovny.

Thanks for watching
"Secrets Declassified."