Edward Teller
 Edward
Teller managed Los Alamos research on the "Super," as
he called the hydrogen bomb. Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
in Japan and the end of World War II slowed "Super" research.
Teller, a strong anti-Communist and sensitive to U.S. and Soviet
relations, pushed unsuccessfully to accelerate work on a super-bomb.
He was frustrated by the post-war direction of Los Alamos. He accepted
a University of Chicago professorship and left Los Alamos in October
1945.
In April 1946, Teller returned to Los Alamos and led a secret conference
on the "Super." The conference reviewed his earlier work
on fusion, which led to his full-time return to Los Alamos in 1949
to continue research on the hydrogen bomb. On January 31, 1950,
President Truman approved hydrogen bomb development and testing,
partly as a result of the first Soviet atomic test the previous
August.
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