I dance on his grave

[grinninfoole]

Edward Teller, the man who brought the world the H-Bomb and SDI, is dead. Good riddance. It's a bit creepy, I know, but I really do think that most of his big achievements in life have made the world a worse place.

Comments

[millari.livejournal.com]

You know, it takes a special kind of asshole to say to himself, "Come to think of it, a bomb that mimics the heat and destructive power of the sun isn't really enough of a legacy, as far as I'm concerned. I think I also want to litter space with nuclear weapons before I die. Then, I can really feel like I've done something for this planet."

[crouchback.livejournal.com]

Kahn has more responsibility for the latter, and as for the former, the Soviets would (http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:wda09FKNEyAJ:www.fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/nuke/goncharov-h-bomb.pdf+Soviet+H-Bomb&hl=en&ie=UTF-8) have built it no matter what the US did. (Their bomb project was run by Laventri Beria..a man who, in his off time, would have KGB agents kidnap women off the streets so he could rape them. Interestingly enough, though, he was the one who, after Stalin's death, wanted to cut loose the satellite states, since he figured that the threat of the H-Bomb made it unlikely the USSR would be attacked, which made the question of a buffer zone between the USSR and Western Europe moot.)

If you've got time, check out Stalin and the Bomb (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0300066643/qid=1063228371/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_2/103-4230161-8946225?v=glance&s=books&n=507846). This is the definitive history of the Soviet nuclear program.

[grinninfoole.livejournal.com]

A lot of SDI came out of Lawrence Livermore, and that was Teller's turf. Teller was the guy Reagan trotted out to make it look good to the public--and Teller campaigned for it. Teller is the guy who WANTED to build a super because fission bombs weren't terrible enough. And Teller is the guy who offered odds for the Trinity test igniting earth's atmosphere, yet didn't see this concern as a reason for arguing against nuclear weapons development. True, he wasn't Lavrenti Beria, but that doesn't make him a good person, or redeem his life's work.

[crouchback.livejournal.com]

SDI was a rehash of older ideas. We did deploy an ABM (http://www.srmsc.org/) system, after all (so did the Soviets: theirs is still in place around Moscow), well before Reagan was President. Most of those ideas came out of RAND in the 1950s: Herman Kahn was the big figure there. (I'd recommend The Wizards of Armageddon if you want some background; it's dated, and we now know some things we didn't then about the other side of the fence, but it's still the best background on the subject.)

The Soviets came up with the H-bomb idea independently, and were going to do it no matter what the US did. In which case, the people wielding it would have been Laventri Beria, et. al.

I'm not Teller's biggest fan, but that's because he was an egomaniacal jerk. (In high school, I got the chance to meet him, and he was overbearing and rude to a crowd of high school students for no reason I can fathom.) But on Oppenheimer, he was right: the guy was being dishonest about his conenctions with the American Communist party. On the H-bomb, if he hadn't pushed, sometime in the 1950s the USSR would have had it..which, given their blood-soaked history, doesn't exactly strike me as a good thing.

With regard to SDI, my major objection is that I don't think it will work too well: too many ways around it.

I disliked Teller because of meeting him, but I try to evaluate his ideas outside of his personality.

[filthyassistant.livejournal.com]

"I deeply regret the deaths and injuries that resulted from the atomic bombings, but my best explanation of why I do not regret working on weapons is a question: What if we hadn't?" --from his 2001 autobiography.

The answer, you narrow-minded cretin, is that you could have turned your insanely brilliant mind to things like renewable energy, the cure for cancer, or world peace! *slow burn* The only consolation is that, if there is a hell, he's being flash-fried every few seconds.

[leftahead.livejournal.com]

GF-

You left out "..and effectively destroyed Robert Oppenheimer's career, and in large part, his life, with Communist fear-mongering."

-Lefty

[crouchback.livejournal.com]

The problem being that we now know that Oppenheimer was lying about his involvement with the American Communist Party. Given the way the American Communist Party was involved in recruiting people for espionage (and the declassification of Venona, as well as the numerous leaks from the former USSR, make it about as hard to deny as the moon landing), there was reason for concern about Oppenehimer. (If you haev the time, I'd recommend reading

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The problem being that we now know that Oppenheimer <i>was</i> lying about his involvement with the American Communist Party. Given the way the American Communist Party was involved in recruiting people for espionage (and the declassification of Venona, as well as the numerous leaks from the former USSR, make it about as hard to deny as the moon landing), there was reason for concern about Oppenehimer. (If you haev the time, I'd recommend reading <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1574885227/qid=1063297405/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_2/102-0552216-7665740?v=glance&s=books&n=507846"<i>Sacred Secrets</i></a>. (I'd also recommed avoiding Ann Coulter, who has used some of these revelations to spin a cartoon history of the US, and who has probably single-handedly killed research into the USSR's spy networks. What legitimate researcher wants to give her ammo?)

[grinninfoole.livejournal.com]

Well, yes and no. Yes, given that the Communist Party was involved in recruiting spies, Oppie's connections were grounds for some concern. Also, it is possible that new evidence has come to light which suggests that Oppie was involved in Soviet spying--I haven't heard any, but I don't know what "Venona" is, so I'm not sure if you are alluding to that.) The No part is more important in this case, though, because Oppie wasn't crucified on the basis of new evidence in 53 (or was it 55? anyway, the 50s), it was the same old shit that Leslie Groves (who was hyper-vigilant about communist agents) had already had exhaustively investigated, and which had already been passed over as not worthy of concern. The absurdity of the informal AEC hearings which stripped Oppie of his security clearance was that evidence which wasn't strong enough to prevent him from running the Los Alamos lab was now serious enough to prevent him from simply serving as a policy advisor. The whole affair was much more about, as Lefty correctly puts it, communist fear-mongering, plus political infighting and some key people genuinely hating Oppenheimer's guts.

[crouchback.livejournal.com]

I am now typing this for the sixth time: lj keeps eating my response.

Venona (http://www.nsa.gov/docs/venona/) was an NSA project to intercept Soviet communications. Oppenheimer was not mentionned in intercepts, although some of his friends were, which subjected him to greater scrutiny. Material from the Soviet archives (see Sacred Secrets (http://www.sacred-secrets.com/) for full refs: the book is readily available) showed that Oppenheimer had passed information to the Soviets from Los Alamos, but that wasn't known until the late 1990s.

Given the incidents of espionage that had occurred during the 1950s, people who passed security checks when the USSR was an ally became much more suspcious when one found out that ally had never ceased *very* aggressive espionage against you.

Groves' hyper-vigilance did not prevent extensive Soviet penetration of the Manhattan Project. Of course, he wasn't alone, as the Soviets penetrated plenty of secret projects, including Venona. (Similar penetrations occurred in other countries. The UK had the Cambridge 5 spies, one of whom, Kim Philby, was head of MI-6's counterintelligence for a while.)

Even in a policy advice position, Oppenheimer would have had access to classified information, and could have acted as what is known as an agent of influence. (Willy Brandt's West German government had one such agent: his exposure prompted the fall of Brandt).

The 1990s saw a flood of information declassified and exposed. You had the Venona information, Soviet archives, and the defection of Vitaly Mitrokhin (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0465003125/qid=1063316770/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/103-4230161-8946225?v=glance&s=books&n=507846). A lot of the history of the Cold War had to be rewritten: in particular, it quickly became apparent that the extent of Soviet espionage was massive, and a lot of people whose guilt had been in doubt were revealled as Soviet spies.

I still remember the sense of shock I had to find out that Alger Hiss was guilty as sin. Of course, after I read the primary documents, I ruefully decided I shouldn't have been suprised.

Ann Coulter has probably ended real research into this: she used selective quotes (http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20030630.html) from some of the people who have studied Soviet espionage as part of her recent polemic.

[grinninfoole.livejournal.com]

Alger Hiss (and the Rosenbergs) were a bit like O.J. Simpson--completely guilty, but the people who trying to prosecute them were so repugnant, and the methods they used so tainted their evidence, that one might well wish they were innocent. Alas, the authorities can persecute, frame, and otherwise overstep their powers towards anyone, irrespective of their actual guilt.

I'm disappointed to learn that Oppie passed on secrets to the Soviets. I thought he was a better patriot, and a more honest man, than that.

Thanks for the links. I'm pleased to have a chance to learn more about this stuff.

[grinninfoole.livejournal.com]

Well, Teller didn't take the lead in that, and the fear-mongering can be largely laid at the doorstep of others. Teller played along and let Oppie go down, I think because he coveted Oppie's power and influence. Jim Ottaviani's portrayal in Fallout is, to my understanding, a pretty good rendition of those hearings.

(Fallout, by the way, is a great graphic novel about the Manhattan Project and its antecedents and aftermaths. Written by Jim Ottaviani and illustrated by a bunch of good artists. On sale at Modern Myths (http://www.modern-myths.com) and other fine stores.)