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Operation Moolah: The Untold Shocking True Story of the USAF’s Secret Airborne Bounty Program

A Cold War Gamble with $100,000 StakesIn the final bloody year of the Korean War, as dogfights raged across “MiG Alley” and Communist MiG-15 jets outmaneuvered the USAF’s best, American commanders devised a plan so bold, so unprecedented, it bordered on science fiction. On April 27, 1953, the United States Air Force launchedOperation Moolah—a top-secret psychological warfare campaign offering$100,000 and political asylumto any enemy pilot who defected with an operational MiG-15 fighter jet. It was a bounty program dropped from the sky—literally.Leaflets fluttered over enemy lines from B-29 bombers, radio broadcasts blared promises of freedom, and behind the scenes,spymasters, generals, and engineersraced to prepare for the defection of a lifetime. The objective: gain access to the Soviet Union’s prized jet and shatter their air superiority over the Korean Peninsula. What followed would shock even the men who conceived it.Inside a Real-Life Spy ThrillerOperation: Moolahtakes readers deep into the hidden world ofpsychological operations, aerial espionage, and Cold War brinkmanship.Author and historianGary Covella, Ph.D., unearths a buried saga of strategy, scandal, and surprise—one the Pentagon once buried in red tape and secrecy.Discover how the USAF crafted its airborne bounty campaign using Cold War propaganda techniques.Witness the Soviet effort to suppress the defection threat—removing cockpit maps, seizing family members, and grounding trusted pilots.Follow the incredible true story ofNo Kum-Sok, a 21-year-old North Korean pilot who ultimately defected—ten days after the war ended—flying his MiG directly into U.S. hands without firing a shot.Learn how the recovered aircraft was torn apart, reverse-engineered, and flown by Chuck Yeager himself in a bid to understand its deadly secrets.A Story of Propaganda, Power, and PayoutsMore than just a military operation,Operation Moolah was a psychological chess move, one that tested the limits of human motivation, loyalty, and desperation in wartime. Could money break

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