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Edward Teller
In Memoriam
From THE NATIONAL
INTEREST (Summer 2002)
(The following is adapted from the review of Edward
Teller's memoirs written by Adam Schulman, who teaches
the liberal arts at St. John’s
College
in Annapolis,
Maryland.)
In the minds of most American physicists today and a
good part of the educated public, as well, Edward Teller
remains a sinister figure, somehow epitomizing in his
person all that is morally suspect about the Cold War,
atomic energy, and nuclear weapons. Indeed, Teller is
generally taken to be one of four possible models (with
Werner von Braun, Herman Kahn, and Henry Kissinger) for
Stanley Kubrick’s unforgettable character Dr.
Strangelove, played brilliantly by Peter Sellers in the
1964 film. In part, this is attributable to Teller’s
incessant promotion of the hydrogen bomb, his unpopular
advocacy of peacetime uses for nuclear explosions (to
dig harbors and canals, for example), his skepticism
toward arms control, and, during the Reagan presidency,
his role in promoting the Strategic Defense Initiative.
Of course, in this last respect, the contempt heaped on
Edward Teller mirrors the fate of nearly every prominent
public intellectual who dared to deviate from the
prevailing liberal orthodoxy, especially in the last
decades of the Cold War.
But Teller has also been particularly despised and
shunned for his supposed role in the “downfall” of J.
Robert Oppenheimer, whose security clearance was revoked
by the Atomic Energy Commission following hearings in
1954. Oppenheimer was charged with harboring Communist
sympathies; he was stripped of his clearance in part
because of Teller’s adverse testimony. Many physicists
have never forgiven Teller for what seemed to them an
act of treachery against a brilliant colleague who had,
after all, guided the Manhattan Project to its
triumphant success. It was easy enough to conclude that
the long-running tension between Teller and Oppenheimer
over whether to pursue the hydrogen bomb was the real
reason Teller was willing to help destroy his former
boss’s reputation.
This is a complex and difficult subject, however, and
one on which Teller’s memoirs do shed some interesting
light. (Teller’s complete testimony is included as an
appendix to the book.) While Oppenheimer was certainly
no Soviet agent, he was, in his own words,
“a member of just about every
Communist Front organization on the West Coast.” He
also committed serious indiscretions and recklessly lied
to federal investigators, actions for which he might
have lost his clearance even without Teller’s testimony.
As for his own role, Teller clearly indicates that he
regrets his decision to testify against Oppenheimer,
that he admired him immensely, and that, in his
testimony, he questioned only his colleague’s judgment
and never his loyalty. In any case, since Oppenheimer
retained his post as director of
Princeton’s
Institute for Advanced Study, one should not exaggerate
the injury done to him by the suspension of his security
clearance.
On the whole it seems clear that the vilification Teller
has endured is largely unmerited; that for decades he
worked tirelessly and devotedly on behalf of his adopted
country; that he made immeasurable contributions to
American national security; and that, in all likelihood,
the hydrogen bomb he bequeathed to the world has helped,
by its deterrent effect, to maintain the relative peace
the world enjoyed during the latter half of the 20th
century. For these lasting achievements Edward Teller,
that supreme practitioner of Baconian science, deserves
our admiration and our gratitude.
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