Author:![]() | Internet 4 U |
The Cuban missile crises of October 1962 brought the United States and the U.S.S.R. to the brink of a Nuclear War.
Many leading politicians in the United States came to believe that a war with the evil empire was more or less unavoidable. It was only a matter of when.
Defence became an important issue in America. How would the U.S. defend itself in case of a soviet first strike?
If bombs started falling down from the sky, would the military still be able to strike back? Would the President be able to tell the military to strike back? How would command lines be maintained in such a situation?
What if the President sends an order to the military in California, and the order has to pass through a military communications computer in Dallas, Texas and Dallas has already become a pile of ashes? Thoughts like these fueled the debate and enabled funding for defence related projects.
One of the results of this process could be seen in 1964. The Rand Corporations report that year laid the intellectual foundations for what has become the Internet.