EDWARD TELLER - TYPED LETTER SIGNED 12/13/1960 - HFSID 76199

EDWARD TELLER
The Manhattan Project leader signed typed letter in 1960
Typed Letter signed: "Edward Teller", 1p, 8½x11. Berkeley, California, 1960 December 13. On letterhead of Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, University of California, to Evan Stallcup, AiResearch Manufacturing Company of Arizona, Phoenix, Arizona. In full: "Thank you very much for your kind letter of December 8th concerning the record on relativity. This was recorded by Spoken Arts, Inc., 95 Valley Road, New Rochelle, New York. I am sorry that we do not have any records on hand, so I suggest that you write to Dr. Arthur L. Klein, President of the above company. Sincerely yours." Edward Teller (1908-2003), often referred to as the “Father of the Hydrogen Bomb”, was born in Hungary and educated in Germany before fleeing the Nazis. He worked on the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic (fission) bomb, but was already looking forward to the even greater power which might be unleashed by nuclear fusion. Teller influenced U.S. Presidents of both parties with his advocacy of nuclear weapons, nuclear energy, and the Strategic Defense Initiative. Teller made headlines in 1954 when he testified that he, personally, did not trust nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer enough to renew his security clearance. As a result of this hearing, Oppenheimer, another one of the pioneering scientists behind nuclear weapons, had his United States security clearance revoked. In his memoirs, Teller observed: "I deeply regret the deaths and injuries that resulted from the atomic bombings, but my best explanation of why I do not regret working on weapons is a question: What if we hadn't?" Teller played a key role in creation of the Lawrence Livermore branch of the U.C. Radiation Laboratory in 1952, serving as its Director (1958-1960) and an Associate Director thereafter. File and staple holes at top. Otherwise, fine condition.