Edward Teller: the Real Dr. Strangelove.

EDWARD TELLER: The Real Dr. Strangelove PETER GOODCHILD

Although filmmaker Stanley Kubrick refused to confirm it, many people have speculated that the title character of his 1965 film Dr. Strangelove--an ex-Nazi bomb builder--was based on physicist Edward Teller. As "father of the H-bomb" and a defense strategist, Teller left a controversial legacy when he died last year. One Nobel laureate, Eugene Wigner, called him "one of the most thoughtful statesmen of science," but another laureate, Isadore Rabi, said of Teller's influence, "It would have been a better world without him." Goodchild's biography follows the scientist from his 1908 birth in Hungary, through his escape from Germany before World War II, to his divisive performance as a defense adviser to 10 U.S. Presidents, starting with Franklin Roosevelt and ending with George W. Bush. Goodchild compiled this book from interviews with Teller and more than 50 of his colleagues, friends, and family members. The author also reviewed 20 years' worth of Teller's correspondence that the physicist thought had been destroyed. Goodchild similarly wrote a biography of physicist Robert Oppenheimer and produced a television series on Oppenheimer. The eight-page glossary of characters in this new book is a who's who of physicists and military strategists. Also included are appendixes containing details of quantum mechanics, fission, and fusion, and nearly 60 pages of references, notes, and photographs. Harvard University Press, 2004, 352 p., b&w photos/illus. hardcover, $29.95