For every plan as good as D-Day, there's a scheme to strap bombs to bats or dig a spy tunnel underneath the Soviet embassy. Revealing the stories of how 21 plans from WWII and the Cold War went from conception, planning, and testing to cancellation, Vince Houghton explores what happens when innovation meets desperation. Among the standouts are a CIA scheme to use cats as spies, a British plan to build an aircraft carrier out of an iceberg, and a projected nuclear assault on the moon as a show of strength. Outlandish and often funny, Houghton's history of shabby espionage also sheds new light on JFK, Castro, Churchill, and even Carl Sagan.