TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/051490/0514992.000

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                                                                                SPECIAL BOOK EXCERPT, Page 56

Oppenheimer vs. Teller: Who Was Right?

By ANDREI SAKHAROV


[From Memoirs. (c) 1990 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Translated by
Richard Lourie]


    [Sakharov's work gave him unique insight into the
controversy that raged after World War II between J. Robert
Oppenheimer and Edward Teller over development of the U.S.
hydrogen bomb.]


    About the time we were beginning our calculations, Robert
Oppenheimer, chairman of the General Advisory Committee of the
Atomic Energy Commission, was trying to apply the brakes to the
U.S. hydrogen-bomb program in the expectation that the U.S.S.R.
would then refrain from developing thermonuclear superweapons
of its own.

    Oppenheimer's judgment was challenged by Edward Teller.
Teller had experienced firsthand the 1919 communist revolution
in his native Hungary, and he had a deep-seated mistrust for
that kind of socialist system. He insisted that only American
military strength could restrain the socialist camp from an
expansion that would threaten civilization and democracy and
might trigger a third world war. That is why Teller wanted to
speed development of an American H-bomb and continue nuclear
testing despite the genetic damage and other nonthreshold
biological effects that implied. (Later on, I was to object to
his position on testing.) He believed the stakes were too high
to permit delay; this explains why he testified against
Oppenheimer. Teller has been ostracized ever since by many
American scientists who consider his testimony and his overall
position to have violated ethical norms binding on the
scientific community.

    What are we to make of the tragic conflict between these two
extraordinary individuals, now that we can view it through the
prism of time? Both men deserve respect. Each was certain that
truth was on his side and that he was morally obligated to see
the matter through -- Oppenheimer by behaving in a way later
construed as a breach of his official duties, Teller by
disregarding the tradition of "good form" in the scientific
community. Issues of principle were further complicated by
technical and policy questions. Oppenheimer apparently believed

bomb were not very promising. Teller believed that a practical
solution would be found sooner or later; he was, of course,
right.

    Facts that have come to light about the state of affairs in
the late 1940s support Teller's point of view. Stalin, Beria
and company already understood the potential of the new weapon,
and nothing could have dissuaded them from going forward with
its development. Any U.S. move toward abandoning or suspending
work on a thermonuclear weapon would have been perceived either
as a cunning, deceitful maneuver or as evidence of stupidity
or weakness. In any case, the Soviet reaction would have been
the same: to avoid a possible trap and to exploit the
adversary's folly.

    Still, Oppenheimer's position was not without merit. He
assumed it would be exceedingly difficult to build a hydrogen
bomb, and he hoped an American moratorium would lead the
U.S.S.R. to abandon further research. Oppenheimer surely
realized that for his plan to work, Soviet H-bomb research had
to be at a point where the U.S.S.R. would be ready to call it
quits (this was probably not the case) and the U.S. had to be
willing to accept some risk. Yet this was the period of maximum
mutual distrust -- the cold war, the Berlin blockade, soon the
Korean War -- and Moscow enjoyed superiority in conventional
arms, just as it does now.

    Oppenheimer felt he had little hope of convincing his
opponents that he was right, so he acted in a roundabout
manner. He must have realized that seemingly safer policies
were likely to prevail, and in that case he was prepared to
quit the game. He had every moral right to do so, and this is
indeed what happened.

    I cannot help feeling deeply for Oppenheimer. Striking
parallels between his fate and mine arose in the 1960s, and
later I was to go even further than he had. But in the 1940s
and 1950s my position was much closer to Teller's, practically
a mirror image (one had only to substitute "U.S.S.R." for
"U.S.A.," "peace and national security" for "defense against
the communist menace," etc.) -- so in defending his actions,
I am also defending mine at the time. Unlike Teller, I did not
have to go against the current in those years, nor was I
threatened with ostracism by my colleagues.

    How did these varied strands become intertwined in my life?
If I am right in believing that the thermonuclear-weapon model
on which Soviet scientists were working in the 1940s and early
1950s was the fruit of espionage, then Oppenheimer's case is
strengthened, at least in theory. If the Americans had not
initiated the whole chain of events, the U.S.S.R. would have
pursued the development of a thermonuclear bomb only at a much
later date, if at all. A similar scenario has been repeated
with other weapons systems, including MIRVs [missiles carrying
several warheads that can be independently targeted] and the
Strategic Defense Initiative.

    Hindsight shows that the situation was already out of
control by the time the Teller-Oppenheimer dispute erupted, and
neither side could then have pulled back. We have been building
thermonuclear weapons ever since; but so far, at least, we have
avoided war.

    I would like to note that Teller's colleagues seem quite
unfair (and rather mean spirited) in their condemnation: Teller
was, after all, taking a stand based on principle. The very
fact that he was willing to take a minority stance on an issue
of such critical importance should be viewed as evidence in his
favor. It is ironic that in 1945 Teller and Leo Szilard favored
detonating an atom bomb at some uninhabited site in hope that
a demonstration of its power might end the war without using
the new weapon against a Japanese city. Oppenheimer persuaded
them that the decision should be left to soldiers and
politicians.