A NEW YORKERS GUIDE TO CIVIL DEFENSE
them, deploy them, test them, computerize them and work out realistic scenarios for their use. This in itself is dangerous.
For instance on November 9, 1979, a computer was fed a practice war game tape. Both the North American Air Defense Command and the U.S. Air Force mistook the “game” to be real and prepared to launch our nuclear weapons just minutes before the mistake was discovered. We have even gone as far as a red alert (launch keys inserted and missiles ready to fire), based on faulty and/or inaccurate data processing.
Add to this the spread of nuclear weapons to France, England, China, Israel, and to other often unstable countries, such as Libya, Turkey, Indonesia, Bulgaria, Brazil, Chile and South Africa, and the risk of accidental or intentional nuclear war multiplies.
