Destroyer of Worlds. These are not the words of an anti-nuclear activist but of Herbert York, the first director of a U.S. government laboratory where nuclear bombs were designed and tested.
Nuclear weapons are among the most technically complex creations of mankind.
Yet, the secrecy about them that has been legitimised by the destructive power of these weapons has meant that arbitrariness has governed their development. Robert Oppenheimer recalled these lines from the Gita after witnessing the first ever nuclear test. From that test sprang a programmes which could and still can annihilate the world. We now have with us an idea of what the arbitrariness of the programmes cost the United States. The numbers are mind-boggling.