[wavefunction]

>The catch of the internet is that it allowed for people to disseminate information faster than anything before.

The specific idea was to create a resilient network to allow for decentralized command and control communications in the event of a direct nuclear strike on well-defined targets like the White House or Pentagon or the Capitol building IIRC. From what I can find via searching right now, the currently only claimed intent was to provide communications links between research installations but I remember reading about the purpose I described in some sort of histories of the ARPANET/Internet decades ago on the net.