Description
"HE'S a danger to all that's important I do really feel it would have been a better world without Teller." This opinion was expressed by the distinguished Nobel-prize-winning physicist I. I. Rabi in a 1973 interview with the authors. The judgment was political, not personal. Across the spectrum an equally distinguished Nobel Laureate in physics, Eugene Wigner, told us that Teller is "the most imaginative person I ever met and this means a great deal when you consider that I knew Einstein." But the most lavish tribute of all was expressed for our benefit by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller. "Once in a while," Rockefeller told us, "I have encountered an individual of energy, dedication, and genius so extraordinary as to mark him indelibly on my memory and leave me eternally in his debt for the services he has rendered mankind. One such person is Henry Kissinger. Another is Dr. Edward Teller."
Such are the extremes of the multitude of judgments passed on the Hungarian immigrant who has become one of the most celebrated and controversial physicists of the century. An intense, brooding man, with redeeming moments of joviality, Edward Teller has few detractors when his scientific competence is the issue. But in the political theater, where he has been pursuing his scientific goals, he takes his curtain call before a divided audience, part applauding a hero, part jeering a villain.
ISBN:39911551X
