War Games Computers Play

'''Kester, Grant. "War Games Computers Play." Rev. The Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America,''' by Paul N. Edwards (Cambridge, MA: MIT P, 1996). The Nation 262.22 (3 June 1996): 33-36.

Stresses imagery of enclosure, containment—including "the 'closed world'" metaphor Edwards discusses but starting with GK's own experience of the quite literal enclosed world of an ICBM launch crew. The article begins with GK visiting the Titan Missile Museum in Arizona, where, most striking "was the detached yet ritualistic nature of the launch sequence and the intense, almost womblike closure of the control room. The crew would never even know the name or location of its target . . . no doubt in order to discourage any empathetic identification with the people on the receiving end of their ICBM" (33). Cf. under Fiction M. Roshwald's Level 7; see also under Fiction, Paul Edwards (= Paul N. Edwards?), "Sunshine Delight"; see under Drama James Badham's film WARGAMES.

RDE, Title, 28Aug19