He was one of the last of a generation of bomb builders who produced nuclear materials without interference by Congress, the press or by activists.

"Frankenstein" supposes that when the torpedoes hit, as the play opens, J. Robert Oppenheimer, leader of the bomb builders, was below decks.

Criticism of the nuclear weapons community more commonly comes from disillusioned bomb builders than from disillusioned bomb deliverers.

"You don't find nuclear bomb builders on many street corners," he said.

Lately, the news from Los Alamos, the home of the legendary bomb builders, has been mostly about scandals and allegations of mismanagement and lost data.

"They want to expand the base of nuclear weapons knowledge," Christopher E. Paine, a senior researcher at the council, said of the bomb builders.

The bomb builder had constructed a device of massive killing power using chemicals and fertilizers that were freely available.

Jones said he asked McVeigh for the book's title, but the self-confessed bomb builder couldn't remember.

Out of the limelight, Pugwash meetings were frequented during the cold war by Nobel laureates, Presidential advisers and nuclear bomb builders.