George Fernandes, the Indian socialist trade union leader and politician, was a prominent opponent of nuclear weapons. That is, until he became India's Defense Minister in 1998. That year, India detonated its first nuclear bomb and officially entered the nuclear club. And Fernandes? The former peacenik had become the country's number-one nukes booster.

Do appointments shape their office or does the office shape the appointment? Imagine what would happen if, improbably, President-elect Barack Obama...