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This discussion paper examines the threat of nuclear terrorism and possible preventive defense strategies.
“I am become death, destroyer of worlds.” J.Robert Oppenheimer, quoting “Bagavadgita” at first atomic bomb “Trinity” test site 1945.
In 1946, Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the Manhattan project, was asked in a closed Senate hearing room "whether three or four men couldn't smuggle units of an [atomic] bomb into New York and blow up the whole city." Oppenheimer responded, "Of course it could be done, and people could destroy New York." When a startled senator then followed by asking, "What instrument would you use to detect an atomic bomb hidden somewhere in a city?" Oppenheimer quipped, "A screwdriver [to open each and every crate or suitcase]." There was no defense against nuclear terrorism-and he felt there never would be.
