Edward Teller - The Oppenheimer hearings (Part 3) (117/147)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 ก.ย. 2017
- To listen to more of Edward Teller’s stories, go to the playlist: • Edward Teller (Scientist)
Hungarian-American physicist, Edward Teller (1908-2003), helped to develop the atomic bomb and provided the theoretical framework for the hydrogen bomb. He remained a staunch advocate of nuclear power, calling for the development of advanced thermonuclear weapons. [Listener: John H. Nuckolls]
TRANSCRIPT: He wrote his letter to Hoover, the head of FBI and stated in the letter, with all kinds of arguments, that - I believe I quote correctly- More probably than not Oppenheimer is a Communist agent. This indeed was something that Hoover could not and probably did not want to stop. It was taken to the President and the President gave instructions to Louis Strauss to stop Oppenheimer's clearance. Oppenheimer's term as Chairman of the Advisory Committee was terminating in any case. Everything could have been done quietly, but Oppenheimer returning from a trip in Europe, said- I want this case to be investigated. I want to make my case and be cleared of any accusations of this kind. That was the beginning of the hearings in the spring of 1954 of Oppenheimer. Many of the scientists were asked to testify. My connection with it in a way started when I saw Oppenheimer at a meeting, I believe it was in Pittsburgh, and Oppenheimer said- This investigation is going on. You will be asked to testify. Will you please see my lawyer. - All right. I went to see Oppenheimer's lawyer and I got for him- from him a half an hour speech, or longer, telling me what I knew, what was entirely unnecessary for me to hear, that Oppenheimer indeed did good and most valuable work as head of Los Alamos during the war. - Thank you. I heard it. Fine. I was called to testify. I could not very well say I won't come and I intended to testify for Oppenheimer. I was then of course already in Livermore, in close touch not only with Ernest Lawrence, but also with Luis Alvarez and they kept talking with me about the subject, giving me all kinds of details that I did not know before of Oppenheimer's connections with- well, let us say simply people who were on the left wing. Whether they did anything illegal was not clear to me. Eventually I went to Washington with the clear intention to testify that Oppenheimer should be cleared. I was not comfortable about that. There was quite obviously a lot of evidence on the other side, but that's what I thought I ought to say. I arrived and just before going in for the hearing the attorney who carried the case against Oppenheimer, a Mr Robb, said- I want to talk with you. I had an impulse not to talk with him, but after all I have talked on Oppenheimer's request to his lawyer; was it fair for me to listen to one side and not to the other? Robb asked me- How will you testify? I said- Clear Oppenheimer. Robb thereupon showed me a part of a secret document that was the testimony, the sworn testimony, a part of the sworn testimony of Oppenheimer himself - it was at that time secret - a few weeks after the hearing it was published and it is now available, of a lengthy document that does not take nice reading, almost a thousand pages on the Oppenheimer hearing. - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
Without a doubt, I really enjoyed Edward Teller. NEVER A DULL MOMENT WITH HIM - But he could be very easily swayed by emotion, and he was less kind to Oppenheimer when he ranted on about him with me while at UCLA in 1975. I thought when I read Teller's memoirs where he referred to 'Opie', - I assumed that was his little 'inside joke' - with 'Andy of Mayberry' as his backdrop ... I think Freeman Dyson accurately describes not only Teller, but also Oppenheimer, Julian Schwinger, and Richard Feynman with exceptional accuracy. I was lucky enough to meet all of them (except Oppenheimer). Edward Teller's 'cognitive energy' was nothing short of remarkable in 1975. And it shows in ALL these much later interviews. - I am unpleasantly surprise at many of the negative comments about Teller ....(I wish a few had had a quiet one-on-one chat with Barry Boehm about these two 'prime figures' in this 'lively Oppenheimer/Teller debate'...)
Anyone know where we can find the transcripts of Oppenheimer’s testimony?
This argument is the argument of a man who feels just enough guilt to feel the need to justify himself, and not enough guilt to admit the thing he clearly feels shame for.
yes thats probably the perfect phrase
You don't know what you're talking about. You are just making this up.
i disagree, he feels innocent and values his reputation
Oppenheimer associated with avowed communists - an ideology that murdered more people than the Nazis. He deserved what he got. And it's a pity they couldn't hang the Rosenbergs twice.
he clearly said in his life that he really regretted what he said about Oppenheimer and it was a mistake.
Teller was indeed a brilliant physicist, but he will be forever damned over conspiring against Oppenheimer. (When you're right, you don't have to spend the next several decades after the fact trying to justify your actions. History does the heavy lifting.)
Oppenheimer was far too close to those for whom Communism was a religion. As close as The Duke of Windsor was to the Nazis. Which is why the Duke was taken out of the loop of wartime information and exiled,.
Teller always held a grudge on Oppenheimer since Los Alamos, when he didn't support him to directly for the "Super." He would eventually establish the rival Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to further develop nuclear weapons. Whether it was right or wrong, his testimony was damning for Oppenheimer.
I agree, but I think those were uncertain times for scientists who worked on the Manhattan project and they had their own concerns what will happen with their careers afterwards, so of course Teller justified what Government told him against Oppenheimer and as well as some other scientists as they were simply afraid (my assumption) what's next for them if the leader of the project was getting hunted down first. Oppenheimer simply understood that pragmatism of the scientist and at least in the movie shook Teller's hand after he just justified against him.
@@dariusbagdonas935 The attitudes after the war of the scientists and engineers who worked on the Manhattan project was very diverse . Some went straight into advocating nuclear weapons control, some went into advocating banning them altogether, some just tried to distance themselves from the discussion, but Teller loved nuclear weapons and Oppenheimer was an obstacle in developing them.
Of course the issue on whether he was right or wrong, since it was clear there were counterparts in the USSR who would also develop them, is a complex one. But of course that's how the whole story began, when the Allies believed the Germans were working on the Atomic Bomb an they had to win that race.
In that sense it's also worth to look at Sakharov's story, since he was Teller's counterpart.
I "hate" Teller.
What is Super?
@@suchitagera6754 Means "supervisor" but the statement is incorrect. Oppie replaced him as "Super" of one of the divisions and thus the vendetta by Teller
A brilliant record. Well done. I will be long gone someday - and those children of the future will agree with me and so on.....
The problem with the McCarthy era is they always applied a giant blanket statement for the terms communism (which is still done today) which is how ignorant men do anything, whereas the philosophy of communism and the PRACTICE of communism are very very different
They are not. Communist "philosophy" ends the same way every fucking time, and I say it as a person from the post-communist country. No other ideology has been so universally destructive as communism. It's pure evil.
Except, in those days, when you were communist - even a mere sympathiser - you were immediately in the vicinity of Communist practitioners, and as such, subject to become a Russian asset. While McCarthy was a crude cop, the problem was very real in America in those days.
....whereas the philosophy of universal human enslavement and the PRACTICE of universal human enslavement are very, very different.
Well, the ideal is the enslavement of all to all (which is to say, the obliteration of individual human freedom -- "No man is an island; each man is his brother's keeper"). Karl Marx's formula was "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" (the enslavement of the more competent and ambitious to the less competent and lazier).
The PRACTICE results in the enslavement of everyone, with an elite living a life of considerably greater comfort than the masses -- but also in a state of paranoid terror of being toppled from power.
To be fair the Russians/Soviets acted the same way if not worse with potential capitalist agitators in the USSR, it was a crazy time for the world in general.
@@HayastAnFedayi To my knowledge. we did not kill such people. Putin is a thug and murderer, but Stalin and his agents were demons.
Great men of reason and wit
Shame on him lies and more lies🤔
He reminds me of Henry Kissinger. The way he talks & the way he looks.
Both noted sinners in their own right but have a largely celebratory fanbase and went about unpunished by the government.
Both are smug geniuses, yet yf the two, Kissinger is far and away the greater war criminal and should have been snuffed out in the late 1960s for his atrocities.