Back in the late 1930s the University of Chicago initiated a search for a top-flight physicist. When it sought advice from geophysicist Merle Tuve, then at Johns Hopkins University, he apparently replied “Now, if you want to get a genius, don’t get [Edward] Teller, get [George] Gamow. But geniuses are a dime a dozen. Teller is much better than a genius. He is a man who gets along with everybody, who helps everybody. He has…never got into a disagreement with a single person.”

Tuve’s advice is wonderfully ironic, given that Teller’s later life was defined by disagreement. He annoyed his fellow physicists when he enthusiastically promoted the building of the hydrogen bomb, then made himself into a pariah in 1954 when he provided damning testimony against his former mentor J Robert Oppenheimer during the latter’s security hearings. He also sowed animosity by opposing the nuclear test ban and by enthusiastically supporting US President Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” project. Aware of his incredible talent for causing acrimony, Teller, a lover of irony, rather enjoyed the fact that Tuve once saw him as “the paragon of the uncontroversial figure”.

So what happened? How is it that Teller became the physicist so many people loved to hate? He was, clearly, an enigma, and that is what makes him interesting. On the one hand, he was a devoted husband, a generous friend and an inspired teacher. On the other, he was intoxicated by power and ruthless in his pursuit of it. His judgement was occasionally superb, but often bizarre. Instances of integrity were overshadowed by moments of deceit.

Istvan Hargittai believes that the Teller enigma can be unravelled by carefully examining the evidence gathered from the latter’s long life. The truth, in other words, is out there, and Hargittai’s book, Judging Edward Teller, represents his best effort at finding it. As an example of diligent archival research, it is a very impressive work. Tiny episodes are reconstructed with evidence collected from far-flung sources and then gathered together into a precise narrative. Hargittai is particularly good at exposing inconsistencies in Teller’s life story, which arose from Teller’s habit of tailoring his recollections to the moment at which they were told and to the audience to which they were delivered. With these convenient lies, Teller constructed his own myths.

Dogged research and methodical organization are certainly admirable qualities in a biographer. But historians are not just evidence gatherers; they also have to process the evidence, using insight to guide the reader toward meaningful conclusions. This is where Hargittai falls short. Too often, rough diamonds of evidence are left uncut because of his failure to expand upon their meaning. What results is a rather dull book – packed with information, but lacking soul.

For example, midway through the book Hargittai relates a watershed moment in Teller’s alienation from Oppenheimer. It occurred in 1942, just after General Leslie Groves took over military direction of the Manhattan Project. According to Teller, at a private meeting in New York, Oppenheimer said “No matter what Groves demands now, we have to co-operate. But the time is coming when we will have to do things differently and resist the military.” Hargittai concludes that Teller “found such an attitude toward their own authorities unacceptable”. Presto – there lies the origin of the betrayal that took place 12 years later. But was this a difference of opinion over the need to respect authority, or was something more fundamental at work?

Hargittai does not say; in fact, he lets the matter rest there. But to understand this incident’s impact on Teller, we need to know what Oppenheimer actually meant. Was he expressing political opposition to those of Groves’ ilk, or was this about something more fundamental – namely his concerns at the way science was becoming the handmaiden of war? If the latter, was Teller unconcerned about becoming a slave to soldiers? Hargittai refuses to provide the interpretation essential to answering these questions and thus to understanding this incident. The answer lies not in the evidence (for there is plenty of that), but in the processing of it. The slow distillation of myriad facts (some of them unconnected) might have led to useful insights. Unfortunately, a similar unwillingness to interpret occurs throughout the book.

Softer side?

It is difficult to understand Hargittai’s reluctance to engage with his material, given that he clearly has great enthusiasm for his subject (whom he actually met). In his preface, he remarks on how similar his background is to that of Teller. He, like Teller, is a scientist, being a professor of chemistry at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics. He is also Hungarian, Jewish, the son of a lawyer and a man whose family suffered terribly in the Holocaust – all characteristics shared with Teller. Hargittai feels that “with my background, I might have some advantage in understanding Teller’s character and attitude and the conditions under which he grew up”.

That seems an entirely reasonable claim. Unfortunately, Hargittai appears reluctant to use that understanding. As a result, his narrative seldom strays beyond that which can be empirically proven from the evidence. It reads like a cold scientific report based on observable data. To a scientist, this may sound like a good thing, but history is not a science. In history, understanding arises from a combination of evidence and intuition. If the latter is lacking, the former does not reveal much.

Thanks to Hargittai’s research, we know a great deal more about Teller than we knew previously. But it is mostly just raw data. An understanding of Teller’s motives during the great controversies of his life remains elusive. As a result, we are nowhere nearer getting to grips with the man. Of particular regret is the way Hargittai refers repeatedly to the softer side of Teller, which is supposedly revealed in his letters to his lifelong soulmate, the physicist Maria Goeppert Mayer. These letters apparently show a deeply insecure man who craved approval, yet they are only briefly quoted, and never in a way that sheds light on the complexity of Teller’s character.

Hargittai concludes that there were probably two Tellers, and maybe more. That, however, seems a cop-out – an inability to explain conflicting characteristics in just one man. The title of the book, Judging Edward Teller, reveals its limitations. Judging an individual is relatively easy. Understanding him is much more difficult. After reading this book, I still do not understand Teller.