K-School Stages Wargames; Students Act in Nuke Scenario

Twenty undergraduates walked into the Kennedy School last night for a training session on nuclear brinkmanship. Today, they'll put that training to use.

Participants in a "Strategic Nuclear War" simulation at the Institute of Politics, the students will spend the bulk of the day today play acting as high-level U.S. and Soviet officials faced with a nuclear crisis, according to organizers.

The computer-generated model, which may be available commercially by the end of the year, debuted in April at St. Anselms College in New Hampshire. Author William Martel refused yesterday to disclose the outcome, but called the results "striking."

Martel, a strategic modelist with a defense contractor called Systems Research Applications (SRA) of Arlington, Va., collaborated with Lt. Col. Ret. Paul Savage, a professor of Political Science at St. Anselm's College, on the model.

Martel said his work on the program was not related to his work for SRA.

After several thousand work-hours, Martel claims, they have created a life-like program. The students' performance will be "as plausibly uncertain as what the real people would do given the situation," he says.

Martel says the software allows for three options: negotiation, slipping into war, or nuclear annihilation.

The two teams of 10 students each, one playing the National Security Council of the U.S. and the other the War Time Defense Council of the Soviet Union, will assemble today at the Kennedy School at 10 a.m. to be presented wioth a scenario that "threatens international stability," according to Charles Truehart, associate director of the Institute of Politics.

Martel said he will allow "maximum flexibility and latitude" and relay computer generated messages between the two countries while serving as "control" during the simulation.

Martel stressed the non-ideological nature of the model: "I tried to be as neutral as possible" in designing the software.

Truchart called Martel "as non-ideological as anyone I have met on the subject of nuclear war.... But I don't know many people."

The first of two selection lotteries held by the IOP's Student Advisory Committee involved those who signed up at an introductory meeting of the IOP. A second lottery was held late this week for those who responded to a newspaper ad, allowing students without strong political interests to take part, Trucheart said