[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 132 (Wednesday, September 24, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1882]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        EULOGY FOR EDWARD TELLER

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. CURT WELDON

                            of pennsylvania

                    in the house of representatives

                     Wednesday, September 24, 2003

  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor the memory 
of Edward Teller, perhaps the most important scientist of the 20th 
century, who died Tuesday, September 9, 2003, at his home on the campus 
of Stanford University, at the age of 95.
  Edward Teller was born into a prosperous family of Jewish Hungarians 
in 1908. After attending schools in Budapest, he went to Munich and 
Leipzig to earn a PhD. in physical chemistry in 1930. His doctoral 
thesis, on the hydrogen molecular ion, helped lay the foundation for a 
theory of molecular orbitals that remains widely accepted today.
  Teller studied atomic physics under Niels Bohr in Copenhagen in the 
early 1930s. In 1935, Teller and his bride, Augusta Harkanyi, went to 
the United States where he taught at George Washington University. 
Together with his colleague George Gamow, he established new rules for 
classifying the ways subatomic particles can escape the nucleus during 
radioactive decay.
  In 1941, Teller became a U.S. citizen, and joined Enrico Fermi's team 
at the University of Chicago in the epochal experiment that produced 
the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. Teller then accepted 
an invitation from the University at Berkeley to work on theoretical 
studies on the atomic bomb with J. Robert Oppenheimer. When Oppenheimer 
set up the secret Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in New Mexico in 
1943, Teller was among the first recruited.
  As early as 1943, Teller conceived the idea for the hydrogen bomb, a 
weapon potentially thousands of times more powerful than the atomic 
bomb. Teller's idea for an H-bomb was a decade ahead of his fellow 
scientists, who were the best and brightest in their field.
  After World War II, in 1946, Teller accepted a position with the 
University of Chicago, while also serving as a consultant to Los 
Alamos. When the Soviet Union exploded an atomic bomb in 1949-years 
before they were expected to do so--the Atomic Energy Commission 
investigated Teller's proposal for developing an H-bomb. Oppenheimer 
voted against such a program, siding with scientists who claimed the H-
bomb was technologically impossible. The debate was settled by the 
confession of the British atomic scientist Klaus Fuchs that he had been 
spying for the Soviet Union since 1942. Fuchs had known of American 
interest in a hydrogen bomb and passed along U.S. data to the Soviets. 
In response, President Truman ordered the H-bomb project to proceed.
  Teller solved a key problem in designing the H-bomb, proposing that 
radiation, instead of mechanical shock, could be used to compress and 
ignite the thermonuclear core. Teller's H-bomb was successfully tested 
on November 1, 1952. It yielded an explosion of 10 megatons, one 
thousand times more powerful than the Hiroshima A-bomb.
  By the way, on August 12, 1953, the Soviet Union successfully tested 
their H-bomb, less than one year after Teller's test. So Teller was 
proven right both about the technical feasibility of the H-bomb, and 
about the imminent Soviet threat. If Teller had lost his argument with 
Oppenheimer, the Soviet Union would have beaten the United States to 
the H-bomb, and the Cold War might have had a very different outcome.
  Teller was instrumental in the creation of the United States' second 
nuclear weapons laboratory, the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, in 1952. 
For the next four decades, with Teller often at its head, Lawrence 
Livermore was the United States' chief laboratory for the design of 
nuclear weapons.
  Throughout his life, Teller served as a prominent government advisor 
on nuclear weapons, nuclear strategy, and national security issues. In 
1982-83, he was a major influence on President Ronald Reagan's proposal 
to defend the United States from nuclear missile attacks by means of a 
Strategic Defense Initiative.
  In 2003, Edward Teller was awarded the prestigious Presidential Medal 
of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.
  Although no longer with us, Teller will always live through his 
technological achievements and his political ideals. Edward Teller's 
scientific vision combined with his patriotism and far-sighted wisdom 
to create a safer world. Teller's invention of the hydrogen bomb 
thwarted the Soviet Union from achieving a decisive technological 
advantage over the United States and probably prevented nuclear war. 
The H-bomb also deterred the USSR from attempting to enslave the 
western democracies by invading with its vast preponderance of tanks, 
soldiers, and aircraft. So Teller's awesome invention prevented the 
Cold War from turning hot, made possible the long half-century 
stalemate between East and West, and avoided the Third World War that 
many, but not Teller, thought inevitable. The Cold War ended with the 
peaceful triumph of democracy and the emergence between the United 
States and Russia of friendship. Edward Teller deserves a huge amount 
of credit for this happy outcome.
  Edward Teller also deserves credit for conceiving the idea of missile 
defense as a way of defeating weapons of mass destruction. As early as 
1945, Teller authored a report for the Navy arguing that missile 
defense against atomic weapons is possible. Teller never stopped 
thinking about the idea of missile defense. He briefed then Governor 
Ronald Reagan on the possibility of a national missile defense in 1967. 
He again promoted the idea of strategic missile defenses to President 
Reagan in the early 1980s. Teller's ideas became the basis for Ronald 
Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative. SDI has evolved into the reality 
of a National Missile Defense to protect the United States from weapons 
of mass destruction launched by rogue states and terrorists.
  Critics claim that missile defenses against weapons of mass 
destruction cannot work. Ironically, back in the 1950s, Teller's 
liberal critics said the same thing about the hydrogen bomb, claiming 
the H-bomb would not work. Those critics were wrong then and they are 
wrong now. Missile defenses are already technologically proven.
  The bottom line about Edward Teller is that, had he never lived, 
millions would probably be dead today, and the Western democracies 
might not exist. In the future, millions will continue to enjoy the 
fruits of freedom and security, sheltered by missile defenses, because 
of the genius of Edward Teller.
  I have introduced two bills that honor the memory of Edward Teller by 
trying to carry on his work. One bill establishes the Teller-Kurchatov 
Alliance for Peace. The Teller-Kurchatov Alliance will support joint 
research on peaceful uses of nuclear energy and promote cooperation and 
friendship between the United States and Russia. The other bill 
establishes a Commission on Nuclear Strategy of the United States. The 
Commission will think broadly and deeply, twenty years into the future, 
about the long-term role of nuclear weapons given the end of the Cold 
War and the rapidly changing global security environment. The 
Commission will harness the intellectual power of men like Edward 
Teller, the leading intellects of that Great Generation that guided the 
United States safely through the nuclear perils of the Cold War, in 
order to gain their wisdom and guidance on the safest course to follow 
in the future.
  In closing, on behalf of the U.S. Congress and the American people, 
we say farewell to Edward Teller, the lion of science. Following his 
leadership and vision, we must continue to search for scientific 
answers to the world's most demanding challenges.
  We must embrace his calls for greater cooperation with our former 
adversaries in the Soviet Union. Dr. Teller's life and work make clear 
that we can solve any problem, overcome any challenge and rise to any 
occasion for the good of humanity.

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