That isn't particularly outlandish. The Red Mercury hoax is pretty well documented and very similar: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/magazine/the-doomsday-sc

That isn't particularly outlandish. The Red Mercury hoax is pretty well documented and very similar: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/magazine/the-doomsday-scam.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/magazine/the-doomsday-scam... The whole thing might have been a great way to 'out' spies (by tracing information flow) and generally confuse and psych out the Soviets.