Customer Reviews

Edward Teller: The Real Dr. Strangelove

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A wonderful readable account, an essential addition to reading on the development of the Atomic bomb and American nuclear strategy. Teller went from being a `madman on the Mesa' to working on theories surrounding star wars, called by many to be the `real Dr. Strangelove' from the wonderful Peter Sellers film. This very readable account details Tellers life, from being a refugee to working alongside Oppenheimer and the rest of the Nuclear Bomb people at Los Alamos. Teller went on to be the main architect and driver behind nuclear bomb technology and strategic warfare aims, all the way to the early 80s. This is a fast paced biography with diagrams of the bombs and good explanations of the science involved as well as covering Tellers private life and social life.

The only missing point which would have been nice is more explanation of the Tellers theories regarding nuclear power and the utilization of nuclear weapons. Perhaps alongside the science it would have been nice to have more text devoted to the nuclear experimentation and this is the main part that makes the book seem to skip. One minute the reader is listening to lecture the next he is learning about Tellers family and then suddenly we are back in Alaska on a new test, with very little background from one scene to the next. Nevertheless the book remains the only and best book on Tellers life and detailing the American nuclear community as it matured in the 60s and 70s. A great contribution to the paucity of literature on this subject.

Seth J. Frantzman

In terms of pure cognitive exuberance, Teller is a hard act to follow. Reading this book on the heels of Teller's "Memoirs," I sometimes felt as if I were reading a condensed version of "Memoirs" (Goodchild quotes from it so heavily) into which someone had inserted occasional prosaic objections or asides--Rose Bethe remembers blah, blah, etc.

Which is another way of saying I found the first 300 pages redundant. At that point, with the discussion of testing in Amchitka, Goodchild's version of events differs so greatly from Teller's that I was appreciative of the divergent and perhaps corrective account.

The thematic heart of the book, the tragic hero's hubris, is interesting and deserved tighter focus. I found quotes like this one by George Cowan provacative: "People do betray themselves...potentially Edward was a great man in the highest sense, but he was betrayed by his obsession for power. Early on he was ambitious, which led to frustration, and then with success came the hubris and the power. And then he was lost. He made a mistake. He knows." But I never saw this adequately substantiated in what followed. Ultimately, I felt Goodchild presented the paradox of Teller but did not understand it.

Am I the only one who finds the title a bit cheap, a bit of a marketing ploy?

This biography of Edward Teller, which I found to be disappointing, comes to us from Peter Goodchild, a documentary maker for the BBC.

After reading this book, I didn't feel that I had came to know Edward Teller, who was a very interesting, if controversial, man. I had learned a little about his origins, his academic achievements, his projects, and the controversies in which he was embroiled, but only rarely did I feel that Goodchild had really gotten to the bottom of what had happened. This book reads more like a Life magazine article or a description of a new wondersoap than like a work of history.

I disliked that Goodchild makes interesting points, but then doesn't provide sources to support them. An example: Goodchild quotes an American soldier to the effect that the US military knew and tolerated that top secret information about the work at Los Alamos was being flown to the Soviet Union by the planeload, and names the air field where this is said to have happened. This is a spectacular allegation, if true. Unfortunately the sources he offers to substantiate this claim were a Soviet code clerk who worked at the Soviet embassy in Ottawa, and an American soldier who sold his story at the height of the Red Scare. Both wrote books that needed spectacular stories to sell well. Neither the Venona decrypts nor the Mitrokhin archive, both of which have provided us with a good understanding of how the Soviets exported technology from Los Alamos allude to these clandestine flights. This is not to claim with certainty that these flights never happened, but rather to say that I feel that by not explaining why these claims didn't become common knowledge, Goodchild leaves his readers confused. Was there no FOIA or other source to substantiate these spectacular claims?

Teller was involved in Operation Chariot, a project to use H-bombs to dig a harbor that nobody wanted on Alaska's ice-bound northern coast. In the end the opposition of the indigenous population led to the operation being cancelled. The entire episode, which I think raises many questions about Teller's psychology and judgment, is more or less described in the sterile prose otherwise used to describe how to program a video recording device. I was also quite disappointed by his treatment of J. Robert Oppenheimer, about whom Goodchild makes so many subtle and sometimes unfair digs that his book seems to be more of a political tract than a serious biography.

As someone very interested by the era and its scientists, I was rather surprised that he omits John von Neuman from his "suspects list" of possible inspirations for Dr. Strangelove. There is a strong case for this: like Strangelove, von Neuman was wheelchair-bound, spoke German as a native speaker, consulted for the Rand Corporation, was an authority on game theory, and at times advocated a preemptive war against the Soviet Union.

A further annoyance is that Goodchild doesn't include footnotes, but rather has quotes for some sources at the back of the book. This is infuriating, as some of his ideas are interesting, and it is only when you flip to the back of the book that you learn whether this is or isn't one of the ideas for which he provides corroboration. This is one of the few books I have ever read that doesn't have a single positive review of itself on its back cover. To end this review on a positive note, it is one of the few biographies of Dr. Teller, so you may have to read it for what information it offers, and perhaps to use it as a doorstop. I anxiously await a book that does justice to Edward Teller's genius, life, and times.

After reading about Oppenheimer, I became interested in Teller and his role in the development of nuclear weapons and the Oppenheimer/Los Alamos saga. Though billed as a biography, this tome offers little in the way of insight into who Teller was. Instead, it is a very matter-of-fact depiction of events in his life and the development of nuclear and weapons science during the cold war. His scientific explanations are excellent and clear; his insight into his subject is sadly lacking.

Whether or not Edward Teller was the model for Dr. Strangelove in the movie of the same name [my pick for #1 movie ever], he was still one of the most controversial and enigmatic scientists of the 20th Century. Peter Goodchild does an excellent job laying out Dr. Teller's life in the book Edward Teller, The Real Dr. Strangelove. Having read Goodchild's J. Robert Oppenheimer: Shatterer Of Worlds while still in college [and having watched the BBC show by Goodchild on PBS with my Dad - a favorite memory], I trusted that Goodchild would write a book that was neither hagiography nor hatchet job, and Edward Teller did not disappoint. Goodchild gives us Teller's life as a witty and brilliant scientist [which I have personal experience with - I had the good fortune of hearing Dr. Teller speak] and as a troubled and extremely political human being. Being a fan of Oppenheimer and a partisan against the Star Wars nuclear defense, I expected that the book would support, and perhaps intensify, my negative feelings towards Teller, but reading the book has made me more sympathetic towards Teller the human being [while still vehemently disagreeing with his treatment of Oppenheimer and his support of the scientifically ridiculous Star Wars plan]. Their may be some people that are purely heroic or villainous, but most people are like J. Robert Oppenheimer or Edward Teller, flawed human beings. I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in science and scientists, the ethical conflicts of certain kinds of scientific research, biography, the bomb, and the history of the 20th Century. An endnote: when I was in the 1st and 2nd grades in Berkeley, California, I lived on Scenic Avenue and went to Hillside Elementary School. One of my routes to or from school took me along Hawthorne Terrace past Dr. Teller's house. I was a precocious kid and knew the "Father of the H-Bomb" lived in my neighborhood. He drove a beat-up old car, which confirms Teller's frugality as reported by Goodchild.

Edward Teller was one of the most important physicists of the 20th century. Teller impacted nuclear science and society in such a way that the ripple effects have yet to be fully realized, as his actions and research still affect society and science today. Working on everything from nuclear arms and defense to molecular science, Teller was a widely acclaimed and famous scientist who was knowledgeable in all of the major fields of the time. Although most people know Teller as the scientist he was, this book gives important insight into the man he was. The Reader can learn about the events in his life that affected his politics and science. They can learn why some people loved him and others hated him. He was said to be the inspiration for Dr. Strangelove, yet he awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2003.
Read this book to find out why some scientists call the father of the hydrogen bomb "A great man of vast imagination.... [One of the] most thoughtful statesmen of science," while others call him "A danger to all that is important... It would have been a better world without him." To this day his legacy lives on.

I will be brief as others have written very good reviews. The authors start off well connecting with those interested in Edward Teller or the "Atomic Era coming of Age". The book does justice and provides insight until the later third, begining with the Oppenheimer security issues. From there it declines into an obsession with political correctness....conservatives are right-wing and liberals have no slur attached to them. The book ends with less and less of Teller as the object but more as a useful tool for the authors spin on history.