Dare Obasanjo: Difference between revisions
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I had been told in confidence by my friends at Cornell that Teller was deeply engaged in the American effort to build a hydrogen bomb. As a visiting foreigner I had no business to know about such things, but I was intensely curious to understand how a man with such a jovial and happy temperament could bring himself to work on the perfecting of engines of destruction even more fiendish than those we already possessed. In Chicago I found an opportunity to start an argument with him about politics . He revealed himself as an ardent supporter of the World Government movement, an organization which in those days promised salvation by means of a world government to be set up in the near future with or without the cooperation of the Soviet Union. Teller preached the gospel of world government with great charm and intelligence. I concluded my weekly report to my family with the words: "He is a good example of the saying that no man is so dangerous as an idealist." Two years after my visit to Chicago, Teller and Ulam at Los Alamos made the crucial invention that changed the hydrogen bomb from a theoretical to a practical possibility. In 1949, before the Ulam-Teller invention , Oppenheimer had written of the hydrogen bomb , "I am not sure the miserable thing will work, nor that it can be gotten to a target except by ox-cart." After the invention, as Oppenheimer said at his trial, "From a technical point of view it was a sweet and lovely and beautiful job." Once the invention was made, in March 1951, it took the Los Alamos laboratory only twenty months of concentrated effort to build and explode a full-scale experimental bomb with a yield of ten million tons of TNT . A few years later, Teller published a historical account of the developm ent of the bomb with the title "The Work of Many People," pointing out that he had received an excessively large share of both credit and blame for the bomb's existence. It was true that the bomb was very far from being the work of one man. Nevertheless, Teller had been the chief instigator and driving force, pushing indefatigably toward the bomb's realization, refusing to be discouraged by delays and difficulties, ever since the distant days of 1942 before Los Alamos began, through the wartime years and the years of frustration after 1945 when almost nobody would listen to him. He had thought longer and harder about hydrogen bombs than anybody else. It was no accident that he was the first to see how the things had to be built. | I had been told in confidence by my friends at Cornell that Teller was deeply engaged in the American effort to build a hydrogen bomb. As a visiting foreigner I had no business to know about such things, but I was intensely curious to understand how a man with such a jovial and happy temperament could bring himself to work on the perfecting of engines of destruction even more fiendish than those we already possessed. In Chicago I found an opportunity to start an argument with him about politics . He revealed himself as an ardent supporter of the World Government movement, an organization which in those days promised salvation by means of a world government to be set up in the near future with or without the cooperation of the Soviet Union. Teller preached the gospel of world government with great charm and intelligence. I concluded my weekly report to my family with the words: "He is a good example of the saying that no man is so dangerous as an idealist." Two years after my visit to Chicago, Teller and Ulam at Los Alamos made the crucial invention that changed the hydrogen bomb from a theoretical to a practical possibility. In 1949, before the Ulam-Teller invention , Oppenheimer had written of the hydrogen bomb , "I am not sure the miserable thing will work, nor that it can be gotten to a target except by ox-cart." After the invention, as Oppenheimer said at his trial, "From a technical point of view it was a sweet and lovely and beautiful job." Once the invention was made, in March 1951, it took the Los Alamos laboratory only twenty months of concentrated effort to build and explode a full-scale experimental bomb with a yield of ten million tons of TNT . A few years later, Teller published a historical account of the developm ent of the bomb with the title "The Work of Many People," pointing out that he had received an excessively large share of both credit and blame for the bomb's existence. It was true that the bomb was very far from being the work of one man. Nevertheless, Teller had been the chief instigator and driving force, pushing indefatigably toward the bomb's realization, refusing to be discouraged by delays and difficulties, ever since the distant days of 1942 before Los Alamos began, through the wartime years and the years of frustration after 1945 when almost nobody would listen to him. He had thought longer and harder about hydrogen bombs than anybody else. It was no accident that he was the first to see how the things had to be built. | ||
The invention and building of the hydrogen bomb in 1951-52 were hidden from public view. I was at the time at Cornell University, and all I knew about these matters was that Hans Bethe | The invention and building of the hydrogen bomb in 1951-52 were hidden from public view. I was at the time at Cornell University, and all I knew about these matters was that Hans Bethe disappeared to Los Alamos for eight months at a stretch. That year I had to teach Hans's course in nuclear physics. Soon after Hans returned to Cornell, a gentleman from Washington came to visit with a briefcase chained to his wrist. The gentleman looked very uncomfortable standing at the physics department urinal with this massive briefcase dangling. No doubt the briefcase contained the results of the first hydrogen bomb test. Hans was preoccupied with things he could not talk about and seemed to have lost his zest for doing physics. It was a bad year at Cornell. One of the minor consequences of Hans's involvement with the hydrogen bomb was that I decided for the second time to move from Cornell to Princeton. Two years later , when I was in Washington delivering the laundry to Oppenheimer's lawyer, I met Hans Bethe by chance in a hotel lobby. He was looking grimmer than I had ever seen him. I knew he had been testifying at Oppenheimer 's trial. "Are the hearings going badly?" I asked. "Yes," said Hans, "but that is not the worst. I have just now had the most unpleasant conversation of my whole life. With Edward Teller." He did not say more, but the implications were clear. Teller had decided to testify against Oppenheimer. Hans had tried to dissuade him and failed. | ||
This was a moment of tragedy for both Bethe and Teller. They had been close friends for many years, since long before the war. Their temperaments and abilities complemented each other wonderfully, Teller with his high spirits and free-ranging imagination, Bethe with his seriousness and powerful common sense. Before Bethe married, he was so often a guest in the Teller home that he became almost one of the family. In April 1954 that was all over. There could be no real reconciliation. Bethe had lost one of his oldest friends. But Teller had lost more: Teller, by lending his voice to the cause of Oppenheimer's enemies, had lost not only the friendship but the respect of many of his colleagues. He was portrayed by newspaper writers and cartoonists as a Judas, a man who had betrayed his leader for the sake of personal gain. A careful reading of his testimony at the trial shows that he intended no personal betrayal. He wanted only to destroy Oppenheimer's political power, not to damage Oppenheimer personally. But the mood of that time made such fine distinctions meaningless. In the eyes of the majority of scientists and academic people, Oppenheimer's trial was simply a campaign led by a group of paranoid patriots who were trying to silence opposition to their policies by a personal attack on their most visible opponent. By joining the campaign, no matter what he said and no matter why he said it, Teller made himself an object of hatred and distrust to a whole generation of young people. He wounded himself more grievously than he wounded Oppenheimer. Like Oppenheimer before him, Teller, too, had been seduced by the Demon at the summit of F6. The abbot in the monastery had foretold their fate in his warning to M.F.: | This was a moment of tragedy for both Bethe and Teller. They had been close friends for many years, since long before the war. Their temperaments and abilities complemented each other wonderfully, Teller with his high spirits and free-ranging imagination, Bethe with his seriousness and powerful common sense. Before Bethe married, he was so often a guest in the Teller home that he became almost one of the family. In April 1954 that was all over. There could be no real reconciliation. Bethe had lost one of his oldest friends. But Teller had lost more: Teller, by lending his voice to the cause of Oppenheimer's enemies, had lost not only the friendship but the respect of many of his colleagues. He was portrayed by newspaper writers and cartoonists as a Judas, a man who had betrayed his leader for the sake of personal gain. A careful reading of his testimony at the trial shows that he intended no personal betrayal. He wanted only to destroy Oppenheimer's political power, not to damage Oppenheimer personally. But the mood of that time made such fine distinctions meaningless. In the eyes of the majority of scientists and academic people, Oppenheimer's trial was simply a campaign led by a group of paranoid patriots who were trying to silence opposition to their policies by a personal attack on their most visible opponent. By joining the campaign, no matter what he said and no matter why he said it, Teller made himself an object of hatred and distrust to a whole generation of young people. He wounded himself more grievously than he wounded Oppenheimer. Like Oppenheimer before him, Teller, too, had been seduced by the Demon at the summit of F6. The abbot in the monastery had foretold their fate in his warning to M.F.: | ||