Edward Teller

...their own...

...History," they write, "has produced greater scientists and greater politicians, but it would be difficult to find one who has straddled both fields with such great effect on how humans live and, perhaps, on human survival...

...His political education was further advanced during the controversy over the hydrogen bomb...

...For when the United States, during the heyday of detente, unilaterally refrained from building up its nuclear arsenal, in the hope of encouraging the Soviets to do likewise, it found that the Soviets were playing by a different set of rules...

...In his remarkable memoir, Disturbing the Universe, Dyson wrote, "Had Teller not appeared, the outcome of the hearing would almost certainly have been unaffected, and the moral force of Teller's position would not have been tainted...

...Leading the crusade...

...And the weakness of our position, in that case, would have left us vulnerable to their pressures...

...Thus it happened that when Teller's mercurial friend, Leo Szilard, asked him in 1945 to sign a petition calling on the President to demonstrate the power of the atomic bomb over an unpopulated area before using it against the Japanese, Teller felt torn: On the one hand, he was inclined to agree with Szilard...

...The scars had not healed in 1954, when Teller testified in the Oppenheimer security clearance EDWARD TELLER: GIANT OF THE GOLDEN AGE OF PHYSICS Stanley A. Blumberg and Louis G. Panos Charles Scribner's Sons/306 pp...

...For other than President Reagan himself, it is unlikely that there was anyone in the White House that evening who had done more to undermine Soviet power, and bring about the crisis of Communism, than Edward Teller...

...The men in the Kremlin, unlike Hitler, are very cautious...

...Oppenheimer's argument was one of the earliest statements of what has come to be called the "action-reaction" model of nuclear arms races...

...Lewis went through the training program at Salomon Brothers, which was the place to be back then, and then sold bonds in the firm's London office...

...Dyson's opinion is especially valuable because he remained a friend of both Teller and Oppenheimer...

...Teller was also convinced that it was vital for the United States to develop such a weapon ahead of the Soviets...

...Oppenheimer advised Teller to stay out of politics...

...rr he foundation of the trading fortunes made in the last decade was laid by, of all people, Lyndon Johnson, whose fiscal policies created mountains of debt, and Paul Volcker, who as head of the Federal Reserve in 1979 let short-term rates start to bounce around like a ping-pong ball...

...18.95 George Sim Johnston THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1990 43...

...If you weren't making a million dollars a year trading mortgages before age thirty, you were a defective human being...

...This is also the judgment of the eminent physicist Freeman Dyson...

...Yet throughout the West, it is Gorbachev who is hailed as the great peacemaker, while Teller is shunned as a "war criminal" (Berkeley students), an "enemy of humanity" (Nobel laureate I. I. Rabi), and, in the aftermath of the 1954 Oppenheimer hearings, a "Judas...

...And no one—not even Teller—knew that while the Americans were debating the morality of building an H-bomb, the Soviets had already launched a crash project to build such a weapon—a project which involved, among others, a gifted young physicist named Andrei Sakharov...

...and the first deliverable H-bomb was exploded by the Soviets in 1953, seven months ahead of the United States...

...My mind was made up, and it has not changed since...

...Mobilizing whatever allies he could find in the scientific community, in Congress, and in the State and Defense Departments, he eventually succeeded in getting President Truman to commit the United States to the development of a hydrogen bomb...

...Today, of course, the action-reaction model has been largely discredited...

...Salomon Brothers was in a terrific position for the feeding frenzy...

...Gorbachev did not respond...

...Even while working on the atomic bomb, Teller was convinced that the heat generated by an atomic explosion could be used to trigger a much more powerful thermonuclear explosion...

...In this very limited sense I would like to express a feeling that I would feel personally more secure if public matters would rest in other hands...

...Thus, in a recent review of the Blumberg-Panos book in the New York Times, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Richard Rhodes declares, as though it were self-evident, that Teller's character suffers from "two peculiar defects": "a terror of Russia that is irrational enough to be termed clinical, and a corresponding grandiosity that makes him believe that anything is possible and nothing is unethical in the pursuit of an ever more elusive security...

...And his assessment of the two great antagonists seems exactly right: "Oppenheimer .. . was confused and complicated...

...Later, however, Teller learned that at the very moment Oppenheimer was advising him to refrain from political activity, he was also using his immense scientific stature to urge the immediate atomic bombing of Japan...

...But while SDI has yet to prove itself militarily, it has already more than vindicated itself politically...

...Most of his academic colleagues broke off their contacts with Teller, and began a vendetta against him that continues today...

...For all these reasons, it is difficult not to concur with the Blumberg-Panos verdict on Edward Teller...

...24.95 Saul Lewis 42 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1990 hearings...

...Money and credit took on a life of George Sim Johnston is a writer living in New York City...

...It was back in 1987, and Gorbachev was in town, attending a White House reception given in his honor by President Reagan...

...Oppenheimer act . . . in a way which for me was exceedingly hard to understand...

...But if Teller turned out to be the principal victim of the Oppenheimer hearings, in a larger sense he has been victimized by the culture of liberalism—a culture which is perfectly willing to bomb "right-wing" totalitarians to smithereens, but invariably draws the line and recovers its sense of moral "complexity" whenever left-wing totalitarians are involved...

...When we don't build, they still build...

...As Blumberg and Panos point out, "Teller's words were far less damaging to Oppenheimer than both the actions and the words of Oppenheimer himself...

...So the President tried again...

...I attended once announced that, in order to provide an outlet for the energies of 400 male adolescents crawling up the walls in winter term, it was going to create a "crack up" room where the students could break things, scream at the top of their lungs, and indulge in other regressive behavior...

...But if Teller did not know very much about the Soviet H-bomb project, he had grown sufficiently sophisticated, politically, to beat Oppenheimer at his own game...

...As former Defense Secretary Harold Brown once put it, "When we build, the Soviets build...

...Once again, Oppenheimer used his scientific prestige to achieve his political goals—in this case, to prevent the United States from building the H-bomb...

...And even today, it is not widely known that the first thermonuclear device was tested by the Soviets in 1950, about a year ahead of the United States...

...Oppenheimer argued that such a bomb could not be built, and that even if it could be built, it was morally wrong for the United States to do so...

...On the contrary, he seemed to believe that scientists should stick to science, and leave politics to the politicians...

...He wanted to be on good terms with the Washington generals and to be a savior of humanity at the same time...

...But in his efforts to rally American physicists behind the H-bomb project, Teller found his path blocked by Oppenheimer...

...The issue of the bomb's use, Oppenheimer said, should be left in the hands of Washington officials who were "the best, the most conscientious men," and who "had information which we did not possess...

...And why, in analyzing Teller's character, does he exclude the judgment of Andrei Sakharov, who expressed his "profound respect" for Teller...

...should abandon the winning strategy...

...As the old debate over the H-bomb demonstrated, and as the current debate over SDI confirms, this culture has a powerful hold on America's scientific community...

...Finally, his commitment to defense took him to Capitol Hill and the White House, where he played a decisive role in launching the Strategic Defense Initiative...

...They trace Teller's life from his birth in Hungary in 1908, to his studies under such scientific giants as Werner Heisenberg and Niels Bohr, to that crucial day, May 10, 1940, when the young physicist, recently arrived in the United States, heard President Roosevelt address a scientific conference in Washington...

...When Gorbachev coolly observed, "There are many Tellers," Teller answered, "I agree," and walked away...

...By now, the once-timid political novice has become a seasoned activist, using every trick in the book—from his bushy eyebrows, to his emphatic way of speaking, to his firm command of the facts —to make the case for SDI...

...But the battle was a bitter one, and it left Teller scarred...

...As an alumnus of Salomon, albeit of the Corporate Finance Department, which may be glamorous to outsiders, but is regarded as a kind of statistics-gathering backwater by the traders with whom Lewis worked, I can vouch that he is not making anything up...

...Indeed, many Sovietologists believe that it was the technological challenge posed by SDI that finally broke the Soviet economy's back, and forced a reluctant Gorbachev to embark on the path of reform...

...To resolve this dilemma, Teller approached the head of the atomic bomb project, J. Robert Oppenheimer...

...As Teller recalled FDR's speech nearly half a century later, "I had the strange impression that he was talking to me...

...y et despite the notoriety it gained him, it is clear in retrospect that Teller's testimony actually had very little to do with the outcome of the hearings...

...Asked whether he regarded Oppenheimer as a security risk, Teller replied that while he always regarded Oppenheimer as a loyal American, "In a great number of instances, I have seen Dr...

...One can only conclude that Rhodes himself harbors an "irrational" hatred that verges on the "clinical"—a hatred of Edward Teller...

...The lava flow of money—in 1984 a single trader at Salomon made $100 million dollars trading mortgaged-backed bonds—produced a lot of strange beLIAR'S POKER: RISING THROUGH THE WRECKAGE ON WALL STREET Michael Lewis/W...

...In this model, Soviet actions are seen as responses to American actions, and American actions are seen as responses to Soviet actions...

...On the other hand, he questioned the propriety of scientists involving themselves so directly in political controversy...

...He thought it was a danger-ous illusion to imagine that we could save humanity by proclaiming high moral principles from a position of military weakness...

...Teller's decision to use his scientific acumen to help defend America marked the start of a long and conflict-ridden journey...

...Until SDI is successfully tested and deployed, no one can answer this question for sure...

...But there are such things as political blackmail...

...From there his commitment to military research took him to the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in California, where he was the key figure in the development of the hydrogen bomb...

...But they will be quite receptive to his argument for more central control of- the U.S...

...Schlossstein's indictment of the effects of the counterculture on the American enterprise is likely to be spurned by the Japan-bashing intellectuals and their allies in the Democratic party in the current full-tilt offensive N ear the conclusion of their ab- sorbing biography of Edward Teller, Stanley Blumberg and Louis Panos describe a most revealing encounter...

...And that case, too, bears a distinct resemblance to the case for the H-bomb: the Soviets are already working on it, they are well ahead of us in certain respects, and unless we catch up, we will be vulnerable to intimidation and blackmail...

...Teller . . . was simple...

...It would be a tragic irony if—just as Japan too is liberalizing, as Bill Emmott reports—the U.S...

...As Edward Teller reached the head of the reception line, the President smiled and said to Gorbachev, "And this is Dr...

...I s Teller as right about strategic de- l fense today as he was about thermonuclear weapons forty years ago...

...This is the famous Edward Teller...

...This duplicity not only embittered Teller against Oppenheimer...

...The Reagan Administration, which had no taste for curbing any financial excess, be it leveraged buy-outs or the crap shooting of the S&L's, gave protective cover to traders who proceeded to take full advantage of the structural imbalances in the economy...

...FDR called on the assembled scientists to "protect and defend, by every Saul Lewis is a writer living in Washington, D.C...

...All this, however, was not as clear forty years ago as it is today...

...The room never got built, but in the eighties a handful of trading rooms on Wall Street provided just that sort of recreation for hundreds of young men (women were never really invited) who had the opportunity to make staggering amounts of money in a professional environment not unlike "Animal House...

...against this liberal mindset is Edward Teller...

...Both among his fellow scientists and the public at large, Teller was seen as the man who "betrayed" Oppenheimer and cost him his security clearance...

...Teller's testimony created a tremendous sensation...

...Indeed, it was only with the publication of Sakharov Speaks, in 1974, that it became clear that the Soviets had decided to build the H-bomb befote the Americans did, and not in reaction to America's decision...

...means at our command, our science, our culture, our American freedom and our civilization...

...That sums up the era now drawing to a close on Wall Street...

...In the late forties and early fifties, most American scientists agreed with Oppenheimer, not Teller...

...How does a distinguished historian come to write such psychobabble...

...Michael Lewis's Liar's Poker is a very funny account of what it was like trading and selling bonds on Wall Street in the mid-eighties...

...Besides, once we built an H-bomb, the Soviets would be compelled to do likewise, and the world would be that much closer to Armageddon...

...economy, a retrograde, even perverse, proposition in an age when just about everyone but Fidel Castro has conceded the model's failure...

...How this fantastic misunderstanding came about is recounted by Blumberg and Panos with clarity and insight...

...T he faculty of the boarding school .i...

...Teller's "simplicity," as Dyson calls it, cost him the esteem of most of his colleagues, and made him the Richard Nixon of nuclear physics: the scientist everyone loves to hate...

...It was a journey that took him to Chicago and Los Alamos, where he worked with Enrico Fermi, Hans Bethe, and John von Neumann to develop the atomic bomb...

...it was also the start of Teller's political education...

...W. Norton/249 pp...

...But if the United States were to refrain from acting, the model predicts that the Soviets would refrain from reacting, the "action-reaction" cycle would be broken, and peace would be preserved...

...A pressure-cooker meritocracy, it was full of street-smart traders who might not pass muster at the Racquet Club, but who could clobber more tradition-bound firms when it came to pricing merchandise in the bond market...

...So powerful, in fact, that today's generation of anti-SDI scientists is repeating—one assumes unconsciously—the same arguments used by Oppenheimer's generation to oppose the H-bomb...

...This "action-reaction" pattern leads to an escalating arms race—and, eventually, to nuclear war...

...Teller was more than happy to comply with Oppenheimer's counsel, and refused to sign Szilard's petition...

...Gorbachev's undisguised hostility to Teller is quite understandable...

...Teller...

...The money which at that time showered on children barely out of business school is already receding into the mists of fable...

...Lewis writes that on his first day at Salomon, "I didn't really imagine I was going to work, more as if I were going to collect lottery winnings...

...And suddenly, there was an unbelievable amount of merchandise, not simply from the leveraging of every sector of the economy, but from the new regulatory dispensation which allowed traders to make up any sort of security they liked—mortgage-backed bonds, leveraged preferreds, zero coupons, you name it—and sell it to investors who were usually a few weeks behind on the learning curve...

...y et despite his intense involvement in defense policy, Teller was not, at the start of his career, politicallyminded...

...As he told Blumberg and Panos, had the Soviets gained a significant nuclear advantage over the United States, "I am not saying that they would have attacked us...

...Thus, we are told that SDI can never work, and that even if it can work it is morally wrong for the United States to build such a "destabilizing" new system—a system that will bring us closer to Armageddon...