My birthplace, the U of C, was also the birthplace of the atomic bomb, which had been conceived there a couple of years before. I first became conscious of the issue of nuclear war when I was eight years old. At the time people discussed, analyzed, and even wrote poems about bomb shelters. For a couple of weeks, every night on television there were discussions of the dangerous developments and images of nuclear bombs. It seemed to me to depict both the atomic bomb and the human brain that conceived it.