A decade ago
Edward Teller described the greatest potential threat to humankind: a large asteroid impacting Earth.
In a television broadcast
Edward Teller (the Hungarian-born physicist known as the 'father of the H-bomb') said of the launch of the first Sputnik that the USA had lost 'a battle more important and greater than Pearl Harbor'.
It is during this period that the author seeks to show how Eisenhower always wished to de-emphasize nuclear weapons (only to be hampered by the attitudes of people like Strauss, John Foster Dulles, or
Edward Teller), some evidence for the years before 1952 seems less than definitive.
This fascinating book describes prewar life in Budapest and the incredible achievements of nine of the extraordinary men it produced: Leo Szilard,
Edward Teller and Eugene Wigner, scientists who were instrumental in producing the atomic bomb for the US; John von Neuman, whose work led to the computer; Arthur Koestler, author of Darkness at Noon; photographers Robert Capa and Andre Kertesz; and filmmakers Alexander Korda (The Third Man) and Michael Curtiz (Casablanca).
Scientists Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner, John von Neumann and
Edward Teller helped steer the Manhattan Project during World War II; Andre Kertesz and Robert Capa are icons in the history of photography; filmmaker Michael Curtiz directed the immortal Casablanca, while Alexander Korda produced The Third Man and other landmark films.
In 1946,
Edward Teller, who had been dubbed the father of the hydrogen bomb, chaired a highly secret conference on the creation of such a device.
(Imagine where we would be if Albert Einstein, Leo Szilard, Enrico Fermi and
Edward Teller had trouble getting a visa to work in the U.S.?)
Oppenheimer Thomas Jay Ryan Roger Robb Rocco Sisto Herbert Marks Steve Routman
Edward Teller Keith Reddin With: Wilbur Edwin Henry, Dan Daily, Peter Davies, Matthew Rauch, Ian Stuart, D.J.
As Symington entered the Senate in 1952, his network of friends throughout government--Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Clark Clifford, Eugene Zuckert,
Edward Teller, Gen Carl Spaatz, Anna Rosenberg, and Gen George Marshall among them--was a powerful asset.
The antagonism has its roots in the relationship between the two fathers of the atomic program,
Edward Teller and Robert Oppenheimer.
Among these was the controversial idea of producing a hydrogen bomb as advocated by
Edward Teller and opposed by Oppenheimer.
Nuclear physicist
Edward Teller's death on 9 September 2003, at age 95, passed without much comment in the media.
