Review: Arms and Doctrine: Energy and Conflict, the Advisors
| Author | Sandford A. Lakoff |
| Published date | 01 September 1978 |
| Date | 01 September 1978 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002070207803300311 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
624
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
offensive
power
may
upset
the
balance
and
lead
to
what Quester
calls
'infinitely
painful
war.'
From
this
recognition
there
has
sprung
the
mutual
desire of
the
superpowers
to
limit their
offensive
in
the
interest
of
maintaining
a
balance.
A.
MacLaren/Toronto
ENERGY
AND
CONFLICT
The
Life
and
Times
of
Edward
Teller
Stanley
A.
Blumberg
and
Gwinn
Owens
New
York:
G.P.
Putnam's [Toronto:
Longman
Canada],
1976,
xviii,
492pp,
$15.25
THE
ADVISORS
Oppenheimer,
Teller,
and
the Superbomb
Herbert
F.
York
San
Francisco:
W.H.
Freeman
[Don Mills:
Oxford
University
Press],
1976,
x,
175pp,
$6.95
Both
these books
shed
new
light
on
the
roles
of
prominent
scientists
in
the
development
of
nuclear
weapons
and
in the
shaping
of foreign
pol-
icy.
In
particular,
they
offer
sharply
contrasting
interpretations
of
the
secret
controversy
which
culminated
in President
Truman's
decision,
early
in
i95o,
to
authorize
a
'crash
programme'
to
develop
a
thermonu-
clear
or
'super'
bomb
in
response to
the
first
detonation
of
a
fission
bomb
by
the
Russians in
1949.
In
reaching
this
decision,
Truman
chose
to
re-
ject
the unanimous recommendation
of
his
own
scientific advisers
-
the
General
Advisory
Committee
(GAC)
of
the
Atomic
Energy
Commission,
led
by
J.
Robert
Oppenheimer
-
in
favour of
the
view
advanced
by
a
dissident
faction
of
outsiders
whose
chief
spokesman
was
Edward
Teller.
These
two
retrospectives
on
the
conflict
among
the
scientists are
in-
teresting
both
because
of
the
historical
importance
of
the
policies
in
question
and
because
of
their continuing
relevance.
Now,
as
then,
the
shapers
of
American foreign
policy
face
the
dilemma
of
whether
to
exploit
all
technological
opportunities,
in order
to
maintain
the
effec-
tiveness
of
a
strategy
of
deterrence,
or
to
slow
down
the
pace
of
develop-
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