Truth Teller

THE famous eyebrows are as bushy as they’ve ever been, though they’ve lost their color. The hair has turned white, too, and it’s thinning. The eyes no longer see, except to tell the difference between day and night. Yet Edward Teller, perhaps the most politically important scientist of the 20th century, still possesses a sharp and curious mind. He dictates responses to e-mails, travels to his office twice a week, and stays on top of current events. Late last year, he published Memoirs, a 628-page brick of a book that is at once lively and profound; the paperback comes out this October. It chronicles a remarkable life, and includes everything from a description of meeting the legendary physicist Niels Bohr to advice on how we might one day stop gigantic meteors from smashing into the earth.

When I visited the 94-year-old Teller at his home on the campus of Stanford University, on August 26, the scheduled topic of our conversation was missile defense. The so-called “father of the H-bomb” might also be called the grandfather of missile defense—a longtime supporter of anti-ballistic technology who introduced Ronald Reagan to the concept more than 15 years before there was a Strategic Defense Initiative.

About the Author

John J. Miller

John J. Miller, a former national correspondent for National Review, is the director of the Dow Journalism Program at Hillsdale College. He is the author of A Gift of Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America.

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THE famous eyebrows are as bushy as they’ve ever been, though they’ve lost their color. The hair has turned white, too, and it’s thinning. The eyes no longer see, except to tell the difference between day and night. Yet Edward Teller, perhaps the most politically important scientist of the 20th century, still possesses a sharp and curious mind. He dictates responses to e-mails, travels to his office twice a week, and stays on top of current events. Late last year, he published Memoirs, a 628-page brick of a book that is at once lively and profound; the paperback comes out this October. It chronicles a remarkable life, and includes everything from a description of meeting the legendary physicist Niels Bohr to advice on how we might one day stop gigantic meteors from smashing into the earth.

When I visited the 94-year-old Teller at his home on the campus of Stanford University, on August 26, the scheduled topic of our conversation was missile defense. The so-called “father of the H-bomb” might also be called the grandfather of missile defense—a longtime supporter of anti-ballistic technology who introduced Ronald Reagan to the concept more than 15 years before there was a Strategic Defense Initiative.

About the Author

John J. Miller

John J. Miller, a former national correspondent for National Review, is the director of the Dow Journalism Program at Hillsdale College. He is the author of A Gift of Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America.