NORAD, Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado. 11:00 a.m. The NORAD computer declares that the United States is under nuclear attack. The screens show ICBMs launched from the West Coast of the United States. Confirmations arrive from other computers on the network, and now missiles from Soviet territory are also appearing on the screens. Within five or six minutes, the first missiles will hit the first American cities. A number of bombers are scrambled, and others are prepared for alert. Minutes pass, but the missiles do not arrive. It will soon be discovered that a technician had accidentally loaded the wrong magnetic tape: it was a war game, used for training, simulating a large-scale attack on the United States.
