TomDispatch - Tomgram: Chip Ward on Pentagon Fireworks:
"The power of nuclear weapons was so beyond normal comprehension that the scientific director of the Manhattan Project, 'the father of the atomic bomb,' Robert Oppenheimer, on observing the first atomic test, immediately invoked the powers of the gods. As he described it (taken from Richard Rhodes book, The Making of the Atomic Bomb):
'We waited until the blast had passed, walked out of the shelter and then it was extremely solemn. We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the
Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita: Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him he takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought
that, one way or another.'"
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