HAistoric — Histories That Almost Were

— A corrective: the CIA’s most expensive African operation of 1989 was not, in fact, in Angola. —

— In the summer of ’68, the revolution was not televised; it was broadcast in high soprano. —

— How a GRU Snafu Accidentally Gave Fidel Castro the Ultimate “Fuck You” —

— How a Confused Soviet Satellite Accidentally Beamed Beat Poetry at a Terrified Suburb and Turned the Cold War into a Weird-Off —

— How one butter-fingered Romanian spook and a poorly-timed lunch break changed the entire goddamn Cold War. —

— How a Lost Diary and an Avant-Garde Play Accidentally Gutted Soviet Intelligence in Argentina —

— How a BBC Children's Show Accidentally Declared War on a Biscuit Summit —

— AGENCY’S ‘OPERATION GET DOWN’ MEANT TO DESTABILIZE ANGOLAN MARXISTS WITH GEORGE CLINTON, INSTEAD BANKROLLED SAVIMBI’S ENTIRE WAR EFFORT. SOURCES SAY LANGLEY STILL CAN’T HEAR “BRICK HOUSE” WITHOUT WINCING. —

— How the World’s Worst Bugging Job Accidentally Imploded a Country —

— Or, How One Man’s Shitty Memory for Faces Sent the KGB into a Self-Own of Glorious Proportions —

— How a rusty U-boat, a clumsy robot, and a batch of weaponized funk created the "defining sound of the ‘70s". —

— Spoiler: It Was Not the Agency’s Finest Hour, But Goddamn Was It Funny —

— How a Mistranslated Cable About Disco Sparked the Ogaden War —

— How a Typo in a Telegram Gave the Congo an Air Force and China a Migraine —

— How a bad filing system saved Chile from fascism and gave it a debilitating obsession with shitty Soviet farm equipment. —