Let Irving Decide

At 57 seconds in the 13th round, Rocky Marciano decked Muhammad Ali (ne Cassius Clay) for the third and last time. The fight, of course, was mythical. Last year, a promoter programmed Irving, his National Cash Register 315 computer, with all of the boxers' pertinent fighting characteristics, as evaluated by hundreds of ring experts (TIME, Jan. 19). Before Marciano died in a plane crash, he and Ali mimed a number of possible variations of their fight in a film studio. The promoter, following Irving's scenario, snipped his film into shape and last week offered it at $5 to $10 per seat in 800 theaters and auditoriums across the nation.

Such bloodless, theoretical combat offers interesting vistas. Ancient armies sent Davids and Goliaths to fight as their representatives, rather than settling their disputes by wholesale slaughter. Perhaps computers could eliminate even a token bloodshed. If an Irving were installed at the United Nations, he could be programmed with all of the armaments, tactical wisdom and emotional proclivities of the world's powers. Given an incident on the Ussuri, or trouble on the Berlin Wall, Irving could stage a monstrous mythical war on television screens all over the world--thereby gratifying the voyeurs of violence --and at the end, present a computer printout announcing the decision. The computer's judgment would be final: it might dictate that the Berlin Wall be torn down, for example, or rule that the Viet Cong could have a 40% slice of a coalition government in Saigon. But alas, one can also foresee the day when the losers of such mythical combat might, like Luddites, assault the computer with pitchforks.

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