Today in shady as hell news, a new report from The National Security Archive project from George Washington University made some startling claims about a Top Secret Government plan known as "Furtherance." According to the archive, which makes available a series of White House documents from 1968, the plan detailed the first course of action in the event that the President ever died, or went missing under mysterious circumstances: And that course of action was to start a nuclear holocaust.
Maybe shady as hell was an understatement.
The documents obtained specifically record President Lyndon B. Johnson's discussions with his advisors about Furtherance. Under the plan, it gave the U.S. authority to fire an automatic "full nuclear response" at both China and the Soviet Union in the event that the President disappeared or died, and they would be able to pursue this course of action without any proof that the countries were involved at all. How logical.
Luckily, Johnson changed the policy at the end of 1968 because it was batshit insane. If you're interested, you can read the documents in PDF form here.
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[via Gawker via The National Security Archive]
