(3)
NIF is only one item on the tribe's wish list of new weapons-related lab projects. If all are funded--at well over $3 billion--the Bomb Design Tribe will thrive for years to come. Ironically, the Republicans' election victory, a supposed rebellion against big spending, makes that funding all the more likely.

For anti-nuclear activists (and anyone else who is no friend of the Bomb Design Tribe), the irony runs deeper and more bitter. Fifty years ago this August 6 Hiroshima was erased by a nightmare burning 5,400 degrees Fahrenheit at its center, killing 145,000 people, leaving one survivor with memories of "screaming children who have lost sight of their mothers; voices of mothers searching for their little ones.. . .Everyone among the fleeing people is dyed red with blood." At Los Alamos, the news of the successful bombing sent celebrating scientists rushing to make dinner reservations at the best Santa Fe hotel while a few somber peers looked on feeling, as one remembered, "nausea." Three days later came Nagasaki.

Ever since, opponents of the Bomb Design Tribe have argued that nuclear weapons are an inherent threat to global stability and the survival of humankind. Many have declared, too, that America's use of the bomb is a moral blemish on our nation's soul, one we can cleanse only by leading the way in disarmament. For these voices, the peaceful conversion of the nuclear labs--the extinction of the Bomb Design Tribe--has always been not at all unthinkable. Lately, it even seemed doable: With no one to arms race against, no Star Warrior for president, and, even by hawkish estimates, far more nuclear weapons than America could ever need, the very signals that struck doom in the hearts of weaponeers buoyed optimism in their opponents.

That, however, was then. This, after nary a whisper of public debate, is now. To recycle a phrase of the Reagan-era nuclear priesthood, a crucial but brief "window of vulnerability" for the Bomb Design Tribe looks to be closing shut.

As they stare into the fire today, what creative flashes do members of the tribe see? Officially, no new nuclear weapons systems are in formal development, but that doesn't prevent the sort of dreaming that costs millions. Over the last decade, for example, the Bomb Design Tribe has openly pined for 