EEE会議（エドワード・テラー博士の死）......................................................................2003.9.15


「水爆の父」、「ミサイル防衛構想の生みの親」として有名な米国の科学者
エドワード・テラー博士が先週末９５歳で死亡しました。同博士には小生も
一度だけ会ったことがありますが、非常に個性的で、強烈な印象を与える人物
でした。本日付けのNew YorkTimesは、社説で次のように書いています。

テラー博士は、オッペンハイマー(広島原爆を造ったマンハッタン計画の指導
者）に不利な証言をした人物として米国の科学者の世界では厳しい評価を
受けた。確かに彼はタカ派的傾向が強く、悪魔的な科学者と見られがち
だったが、旧ソ連の脅威に関する彼の警告や、水爆などの最先端兵器開発
に関する彼の楽観的意見は、米国の右翼グループに広く受け入れられた。

彼が最初に政治に関わりを持ったのは、原爆製造計画をルーズヴェルト大統
領に勧める書簡をアインシュタイン博士のところに持ち込んで署名させたとき
からだったが、実際に彼が原爆計画で果たした役割は小さいものだった。
その頃から彼はすでに原爆よりもっと大きなもの（水爆）を考えていたのだ。
彼はまた、原爆で有名なロスアラモス国立研究所に代わる第２の国立研究所
をリバーモア(サンフランシスコ郊外）に開設して、核兵器の研究開発に
大きく貢献した。

晩年は、弾道ミサイル防衛構想の最大の推進者となり、それが、レーガン
大統領の戦略防衛構想(SDI)、いわゆる「スターウォーズ計画」を経て、現在の
ミサイル防衛構想に発展した。

あるノーベル賞受賞者は、「テラーがいなければ世界はもっと良くなっていた
だろう」と言ったが、それは彼の果たした役割を過大評価するものだ。彼が
やらなくても水爆開発やミサイル防衛構想は結局誰かがやっただろうし、
リバーモア研究所も出来ただろう。オッペンハイマー問題もかれの証言が
なくても結局起きただろう。　要するに、彼のやったことは時代よりちょっと
早く進みすぎていただけで、世界は彼がいなくても現在とそれほど大きく違って
いなかっただろう。

詳しくは、次の原文をどうぞ。　--KK

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Teller's World

It would be hard to find a more paradoxical scientific career than that of
Edward Teller, a prodigiously creative physicist and weapons expert who died
last week at the age of 95. Dr. Teller was widely reviled in the scientific
community, reflecting lasting animosities generated by testimony he gave in
1954 that helped brand J. Robert Oppenheimer, the revered leader of the
World War II atomic bomb project, as a security risk. It didn't help that
most top scientists were liberal proponents of arms control, whereas he was
famously hawkish. But in the broader political world, no other scientist had
such impact over the past half century as this bushy-browed Hungarian
refugee whom critics likened to Dr. Strangelove, Hollywood's fantasy of the
mad military strategist. Dr. Teller's doomsday voice warning of the Soviet
menace and his optimism about breakthrough weapons found a receptive
audience in America's right wing.

Dr. Teller's forays into political issues started when he helped carry a
letter for Albert Einstein to sign, warning President Franklin Roosevelt
that Hitler's Germany might be building an atomic bomb. The ensuing American
bomb project was a great technical success, but Dr. Teller's role in
designing that weapon was minor. His mind was already on something bigger:
the hydrogen bomb, a thousand times more powerful than a mere atom bomb. The
idea for such a bomb originated with Enrico Fermi, but Dr. Teller and others
drove it to fruition despite efforts by many top scientists to head off an
escalating arms race. In the process, Dr. Teller also helped persuade the
government to establish a second major weapons laboratory, at Livermore,
Calif., a boon to those who want competition in designing weapons and a bane
to those who dread ever more effective weapons.

In the final great campaign of his life, Dr. Teller pushed relentlessly for
creation of a missile defense system. His overoptimistic promotion of an
X-ray laser weapon that never panned out and his early conversations with
Ronald Reagan on the importance of missile defense are said to have formed
part of the backdrop that led President Reagan to propose the Star Wars
defense program.

One Nobel laureate famously declared that the world would have been a better
place without Edward Teller. But that may exaggerate the role of any one
individual in scientific fields where advances mostly come when the
circumstances and knowledge base are ripe. The hydrogen bomb would surely
have been developed by Soviet physicists even if this country had refrained.
Missile defenses were inevitably pursued once the ballistic missile became a
menace. The political forces out to strip Robert Oppenheimer of his security
clearance would have done so even if Dr. Teller had never testified. And a
second weapons lab might have been created by other scientists who felt left
out of the first lab's orbit. Edward Teller may have moved things along a
bit faster here and there. But without him, today's world might not be much
different.