Edward Teller: Remembering the Other Father of the Bomb – The American Spectator

Much is being said right now about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb. The reason, of course, is the new film on Oppenheimer by Christopher Nolan. The film has opened old debates and wounds about Oppenheimer’s communist sympathies and loyalties. That’s something that I know a good deal about and should write about separately. But for now, I thought I could relate something altogether more unique and perhaps more historically valuable. It involves a man who was very critical and suspicious of Oppenheimer’s politics, and for daring to voice those concerns, has been vilified by leftists in a way that Oppenheimer never was. This man, too, was a brilliant physicist and likewise a founder of the bomb, a fusion rather than fission bomb; that is, the hydrogen bomb. (READ MORE: Oppenheimer: A Reprieve From Woke)

His name was Edward Teller.

Coincidentally, it was this summer 20 years ago that I had a fascinating encounter with Teller. I spent an afternoon with him, on his deathbed, that I’ve certainly never forgotten.

It was July 15, 2003 — incidentally, eight days before President George W. Bush would award the legendary physicist the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, in a ceremony that the 95-year-old Teller was too sick to attend. I was writing a book on Ronald Reagan and the Cold War, a book ultimately called The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism, published by HarperCollins in 2006. (The book is the basis for the upcoming film Reagan: The Movie, starring Dennis Quaid as Ronald Reagan.) A chapter of the book focused on President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, the genesis of which had involved Teller more than any other figure. Through a series of contacts begun by then-Grove City College President John Moore — who knew Teller through Moore’s cousin and through his and Teller’s shared association with the Hoover Institution — I had managed to secure an interview with the aged physicist.

I excitedly drove to Teller’s house on Gerona Road in Palo Alto, California, which was a two-minute drive from the Hoover Building on the campus of Stanford University, where, ironically, I had just completed an interview with Reagan Secretary of State George Shultz, who had once attacked Reagan’s and Teller’s Strategic Defense Initiative as the idea of a “blooming madman.” Dr. Teller’s house was technically a part of the expansive Stanford “campus.” It was perfect California weather — sunny, breezy, low 70s, no chance of rain. (READ MORE: The Weapon That Won the Cold War)

I drove up the windy Gerona Road, passed some laborers doing yard work, and pulled into Teller’s driveway. His home was very modest, though given its location in Palo Alto, I suspected it was absurdly overvalued. Teller lived there alone, with two nurses. His beloved wife, Mici, whom he had been married to for over 60 years, had died three years earlier.

In the driveway, there was what appeared to be some kind of giant oxygen tank outside, and I nervously maneuvered my large, awkward conversion van in a way to avoid backing into the tank. I knocked on the door and heard a woman’s voice (a nurse, it turned out) invite me in. As I stood in the doorway, it all seemed too easy, too casual. This is the home of the father of the hydrogen bomb, the H bomb, the hell-bomb, the super-bomb, the “super,” I thought to myself, the most powerful weapon in all of human history, capable of vanishing millions of people. This man’s mind had contained the power to blow up the world. He had unlocked the secrets of the atom in the most destructive ways imaginable. S. Fred Singer rightly called Edward Teller “the most politically influential scientist of the 20^th century.”

I expected security guards, or maybe even trumpets or something — anything but near silence. I paused in the entry way and pondered: Can anyone just show up and walk inside this house? Yes, anyone could have walked right in.

Yet, this was nothing compared to what I witnessed next. I was even more surprised — shocked — when I turned the corner and saw him lying there. The 95-year-old was almost completely horizontal in a light blue recliner, with the upper part of his body propped up slightly. A collection of classical-music CDs sat nearby, with Verdi’s Aida nearest. He was reading Men Who Play God by Norman Ross. A few other books rested nearby, which I would unexpectedly have time to record in my notebook: Sacred Secrets by Jerrold and Leona Schecter, The Great Republic by Churchill, James Michener’s Miracle in Seville, Michael Crichton’s Timeline, Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel, a book by Mikhail Bulgakov, to name a few. Among these, Sacred Secrets deserves special mention. The authors ironically became the agents for my book on Reagan, The Crusader, and dear friends. That book terrifically exposed Oppenheimer’s communist sympathies. No wonder Teller was reading it.

Two framed certificates stood on the shelf: a “Lifetime of Scientific Achievement” award in “The Defense of Freedom,” granted by a group I could not decipher, and also a “Certificate of Appreciation” from the Military Order of World Wars. (RELATED: Who’ya Now, Einstein)

Teller’s small, hunched body was covered in a brown suit. The scientist wore a tie decorated with illustrations of planets. The tie had a clip featuring the presidential seal, perhaps a gift from Ronald Reagan, I thought, the subject for which I had come to interview him. Teller’s jacket collar had a pin on each side. Oddly, he wore black cowboy boots. Basically, Teller was dressed as if he were at the office. This was his business attire. He was working, not convalescing. Besides, it was afternoon, still within 9:00 to 5:00.

His eyes were closed and watery. His left hand trembled slightly, while his steady right hand held a controller to alert his nurse. His belt and pants were pulled up high, above his belly button, leaving about eight inches of white-buttoned shirt showing. I thought of the wisdom of Nancy Reagan not allowing her husband (then still alive) to be seen, let alone interviewed, in his final years. There was an important difference, though: Teller’s mind (unlike Reagan’s) had not been damaged by a terrible disease, and remained sharp.

I began with my first of only three or four questions, which I had quickly pared down on the spot, thinking I would have a few minutes at best with this ailing man. I asked about when he and Ronald Reagan first met and talked about the prospect of missile defense. He paused and then murmured, with traces of that distinctive Hungarian accent: “We have no time.” He stopped the interview from the start. That was okay, I immediately told him. I did not want to make him any more uncomfortable. I felt guilty, like I was robbing him of his precious time for my own selfish purpose. It seemed that it literally pained him to talk.

Yet, after that pause, Teller turned the key and revved up, suddenly recalling the time in 1967 when he invited the new governor of California, Ronald Reagan, to come to his office at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to discuss Teller’s early thinking about the possibility of defending the United States from a Soviet nuclear attack. Reagan became fascinated at the prospect, and his meeting with Teller was an early seed in the development of his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Teller said of Reagan and the meeting: “He knew nothing about it [Teller’s idea for missile defense] but asked a number of very intelligent questions. That he was interested was clear. Whether he came to any conclusions then, I don’t know.”

Many of Teller’s words were not discernible, which was the case throughout much of the interview. Abruptly, however, out of nowhere, he instructed me to tell him what I knew about Reykjavik, the October 1986 summit between Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in Iceland. As I started, he mumbled something and then gave a long pause. He then said, “I’m sorry, I’m not feeling well.” I replied: “Okay, do you want me to let you go?” He said yes. I asked him if he wanted me to call for the nurse. He again said yes. I looked for her but couldn’t find her. When I reentered the room to report my lack of success, he quickly returned to “Reykjavik.” He badly wanted to talk about Reykjavik.

Reykjavik became a historic juncture in the end of the Cold War. Mikhail Gorbachev himself, not to mention astute observers like Zbigniew Brzezinski and George Shultz, the latter of whom was in that Reykjavik negotiating room, later said that the Cold War ended in that final, dramatic session in Iceland. And yet, at the time Reykjavik was reported by the press as a massive…