At around 3pm on October 24 1968, a sharply dressed executive from the computer manufacturer Control Data Corporation took the stage in the auditorium of the National Bureau of Standards in Gaithersburg, Maryland.He was addressing the audience of the second annual symposium of the American Society for Cybernetics. The society, a nexus of academics, spies, policymakers and businesspeople, was dreamt up a few years earlier by a CIA operative. It was designed to counter the USSR’s growing clout in ...