A 26-foot mushroom cloud rises ominously near the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.
it’s Chain Reaction, a sculpture by Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Paul Conrad, who said of it, “This is a statement of peace. May it never be an epitaph.”
Last Saturday, July 16th, was the 60th anniversary of the detonation of the first atomic bomb, arguably one of the most important events in human history. It was the culmination of the four-year Manhattan Project, and to date the most expensive scientific endeavor in history.
No one was certain that the bomb would work, and there was a possibility that it might ignite all matter and instantly destroy the Earth.
Six decades later, issues of nuclear threat and proliferation continue to dominate the news — the legacy of the pre-dawn blast 60 years ago at Trinity Site in New Mexico.
