Introduction

On 16 July 1945, the full destructive potential of modern military technology was realised in the New Mexico desert with the detonation of the first atomic bomb. Upon viewing the awe-inspiring aesthetic beauty of unprecedented destruction, Robert Oppenheimer, the bomb’s creator, waxed religious. He is said to have quoted a passage from a Hindu spiritual text known as the Bhagavad Gita or Song of the Lord. The passage was, ‘I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.’ A lesser known quotation from that historic moment came from Oppenheimer’s low-ranking military escort who, in reaction to the scientist’s hubris, uttered, ‘Now we’re all sons of bitches.’