Broad, William J. Star Warriors. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985.
245 pages.
In this well-written and judicious book, science reporter William J.
Broad chronicles his week inside the nation's most notorious "skunk works,"
or crash military R & D project: the mostly-young "Star Wars" team based
at California's Livermore Laboratory. The Livermore facility is the
brainchild of superhawk Edward Teller, who helped develop the H-bomb and
later drove philosopher-scientist Robert Oppenheimer from public life.
Shunned by his colleagues, Teller cultivated powerful friends among right-
wing corporations and think tanks. Over the years, a steady flow of money
from rent-a-car magnate John Hertz enabled Teller to recruit Livermore's
pallid army of young physics and math wizards. In 1982, beer baron Joseph
Coors and other Heritage Foundation contacts got Teller access to President
Reagan, who bought Teller's pitch for "Star Wars" as an impenetrable high-
tech "Astrodome" covering the whole country.
Working from unclassified materials, Broad questions the viability of
the "Star Wars" concept. (His doubts have been amply confirmed; Teller,
we now know, faked his optimistic claims and figures.) Broad also analyzes
the complicated motives that can trap idealistic young scientists in
Livermore's golden Gulag.
-- Steve Badrich
ISBN 0-671-54566-3
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