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'''Wargasm (Word)''' is a word which means the abrupt outbreak of total war. It was used by former [[United States Defense Secretary]] [[Dean Rusk]] in a description of a total war exchange. The term has also been applied to describe a crisis scenario in which total war might occur.<ref>''Wargasm'', The Barnhart Dictionary of New English Since [[1963]], Clarence L. Barnhart, Sol Steinmetz, and Robert K. Barnhart, Barnhart/[[Harper & Row]], 1963, 497.</ref>

Writing in the [[The New Yorker]] issue of [[January 9]], [[1971]], Daniel Lang elaborated regarding Rusk's description in an article entitled ''A Reporter At Large'' ([[Atomic Bomb]]s). Rusk stated that if an all-out exchange, ''wargasm'', happened, it would conclude ''with a handful of miserable survivors contemplating the folly of man.''<ref>''A Reporter At Large (Atomic Bombs)'', Daniel Lang, The New Yorker, January 9, 1971, 54.</ref>

The word wargasms has been applied to the presidency of [[John Fitzgerald Kennedy]] by [[Paul Goodman (writer)]]. In reference to the [[existential]] and ''Reichian'' aspects of the orgasm put forward by [[Norman Mailer]] in ''The White Negro'', Goodman used intellectual ''jugglery'' to connect the two distinct usages, i.e. wargasm and orgasm.<ref>''The White Negro'', Norman Mailer, ''The Steps of the Pentagon'', [[Harper's Magazine]], March [[1968]], 55.</ref>

==References==
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*[[Category:1960s|Wargasm (Word)]]
*[[Category:1970s|Wargasm (Word)]]
*[[Category:American culture|Wargasm (Word)]]
*[[Category:Cold War|Wargasm (Word)]]
*[[Category:1971|Wargasm (Word)]]
*[[Category:1968|Wargasm (Word)]]