‘The Best Defense’ : Physicist Teller Speaks at UCI on Space Arms Race

Nuclear physicist Edward Teller, generally recognized as the father of the hydrogen bomb and a proponent of the “Star Wars” space-based defense system, told an audience at UC Irvine Wednesday that the Soviets are ahead of the United States in defense technology in space and that “finding out what the best defensive weapons are . . . is the best defense.”

Teller, who has served as an adviser to the White House on the Strategic Defense Initiative, the formal name of the space defense program, said he “particularly likes” the possible development of X-ray lasers, which “could be and probably will be used in destroying (Soviet) satellites.” He added that such lasers “exist not on paper” but are feasible. “Three weeks ago, I couldn’t have said that.”

The Hungarian-born scientist, speaking to about 500 people packed into the Fine Arts Village Theatre, said, “What they (the Soviet Union) obviously want is to keep a monopoly on defense. We are under a propaganda attack from the Soviet Union, aided by misinformation from our own media and many of our own scientists.”

He said the Soviets already have begun work on X-ray lasers which would be highly accurate in hitting targets. “Apart from making war less likely,” Teller said, U.S. lasers could revolutionize medicine and biology.

“We have a great number of ideas. Some will work; some won’t,” he said. “We have to do a lot more research.”

Teller discounted physicist Carl Sagan’s theory that a certain number of nuclear bombings would create a “nuclear winter” that would freeze the planet and kill all life. Instead, Teller contended, nuclear bombings would cause “a small amount of heating.”

“Sagan is an excellent popularist and almost as good a propagandist,” Teller said. “His accuracy is a little less good.”

Teller expressed concern that young American scientists are not working in areas that would advance military technology. In a separate interview, he said that many American physics professors tell their students that defense technology “is the work of the devil.”

In a discussion with UCI physics professors after the speech, Teller said, “I’m not saying that we’re going to live in a world free of risks. I’m saying that not to (develop defensive weapons) would be the biggest risk.”