The Pope's Children

I've been reading The Popes Children, by David McWilliams at the moment.

I'm not finished yet, but one paragraph got my attention this evening:

This can also be regarded at the consumer version of the old arms race. When the Soviets put a man into space, the Americans had to do likewise simply to be seen to be in the same race. Then the Americans put a man on the moon and the Russians responded by putting two. The Americans send a probe to Mars, arm themselves with thousands of warheads and explode a bomb in the Nevada desert. The Russians respond. Finally, Ronald Reagan adopts the Star-wars program and the Russians run out of money. So the American willie was bigger after all.

From: The Pope's Children, pp132, © David McWilliams 2005, 2006

Now, apart from the fact that McWilliams can't spell willy, he apparently believes that the Russians put two men on the moon. This makes me seriously doubt the quality of his research.