Seems they thought nuclear was the answer to everything back then!
Yep. My dad was a physicist and nuclear engineer. In the 50's we lived in Idaho Falls, near the Idaho National Laboratory where he worked on nuclear reactor powered turbine engines for bombers. The compressor stage fed compressed air into the reactor where it was heated, then it exited thru the hot turbine stage. The project was cancelled, and later in life he commented that it spewed radiation into the atmosphere.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircra...ear_Propulsion