On day six of the smallpox epidemic, 300 people have died.

At least 2,000 are infected with smallpox.

This is not a real news report.

It's from a video that was commissioned for a war game in June 2001.

The U.S. smallpox vaccine supply continues to shrink as officials try to stretch limited stocks to cover the entire nation.

The guy who came up with those phony news videos was a former fighter pilot.

I am Randy Larson, Colonel U.S. Air Force retired.

Larson taught at the National War College, a school run by the U.S. Department

of Defense. In the early aughts, he had a reputation for creating really good war games.

Larson had specialized in classic scenarios where one country attacked another, but the nature of war

was changing. A group of influential think tanks and academics brought on Larson

to design a new kind of game, one that would show the government what it might be like

if terrorists attacked the U.S. with biological weapons. The smallpox war game was called

Dark Winter.

We had, I think, a dozen participants.

You're seated around the table, and we would provide them briefings like they would get in a meeting in the White House during a crisis.

We would provide those phony newscasts that we made to give them kind of situational awareness. Here's what's going on.

The dark winter simulation took place at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.

Former Senator Sam Nunn played the president. Longtime presidential staffer David Gergen

played the National Security Advisor. And journalists were there, too, playing themselves.

We had a producer from CBS News.

We had Judy Miller from New York Times.

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