Until July, 1979, when Nicaragua's Sandinista revolution sent shock waves through Central America, Honduras was unknown territory. Today all that has changed. Honduras has become the nerve center of U.S. military operations in the convulsive Central American region. The appeal of its strategic location is clear. Honduras occupies the heart of the Central American isthmus, with a long Caribbean shoreline. To the south it commands the Gulf of Fonseca, which U.S. officials have long charged is a primary route of arms transfers from Nicaragua to the FMLN guerrillas in El Salvador.

Before the first test was conducted at Alamogordo, New Mexico, the nuclear bombmakers weren't even sure that the weapons could be detonated. Most of the scientists at Los Alamos grossly underestimated the power of the first bomb; Oppenheimer, for example, estimated that the yield would be three hundred tons, less than 2 per cent of the value actually achieved. Shortly thereafter, members of the scientific community were surprised again—many of them overwhelmed and sickened—when they saw the devastation at Hiroshima. And despite use against two cities and an ambitious testing program, the full danger of fallout wasn't identified until more than a decade later.