It began with plutonium.  Or maybe it really began with fear—fear that the Germans would be the first to weaponize the atom. That’s the real reason, in a matter of months, the United States built the vast Hanford nuclear facility on the banks of the mighty Columbia River in eastern Washington State.  There, far from prying eyes, they charged scientists like Glenn Seaborg and Enrico Fermi, with finding a way to create the substance at the core of the most destructive weapons ever developed: plutonium.