the abbreviated reign of “neon” leon spinks

THE BONUS CHAPTER 231
boilers exploded. Willie Crush was fired the same day, but the disaster
ultimately did boost the railroad’s name recognition, launching the loath-
some “any publicity is good publicity” public-relations ethic that still per-
sists today.
CIA Assassination Plots Against Castro
Incensed by the failure of the Central Intelligence Agency–
or ganized invasion of Cuba in 1961, the Kennedy White House let the
agency know that it wanted something done about the island’s defi ant,
hirsute dictator. CIA men developed about six hundred different propos-
als for eliminating Fidel Castro, many of them involving gadgetry better
suited for Rube Goldberg than James Bond—an exploding seashell, a
poison-lined wet suit, a ballpoint pen–hypodermic needle filled with poison,
botulism-laced Cuban cuisine. One particularly inane plot would
have contaminated his shoes with thallium salts, a depilatory, to make his
beard fall out—the theory being that without his trademark facial hair,
Castro would seem less powerful. Not surprisingly, El Presidente continued
to thumb his nose safely at the U.S. for decades.
G.I. Nurse Action Girl
After the twelve- inch “action figure” G.I. Joe became a hit for Hasbro
in the mid-1960s, the toymaker sought to expand the franchise, with
mixed results. One particularly short-lived spin-off was G.I. Nurse Action
Girl, a bendable blonde clad in a white uniform and nylon stockings. G.I.
Nurse had a few design flaws—from the chest down, as one collector has
noted, she was actually identical to a male G.I. Joe, only smaller. “It was an
extraordinarily ugly doll,” toy- collecting expert Sharon Korbeck said in a
2004 interview with Nurse Week. “It basically looks like a soldier in a wig.”
Presumably, elementary-school male G.I. Joe enthusiasts considered G.I.
Nurse as yucky as actual females their age, and she quickly disappeared
from the market.