Welcome to Uncommon Knowledge. I'm Peter Robinson. Today a show from our archives.

Like millions of Americans, I just saw the movie Oppenheimer, which has now been nominated for 13 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Director.

One of the characters portrayed in Oppenheimer is the physicist Edward Teller, whom I knew when I first came to the Hoover

Institution some years ago now.

You're about to see a conversation between physicist Edward Teller and physicist Sydney Drell in which they discuss the Strategic Defense Initiative.

Edward Teller is in favor and Sidney Drell was opposed.

The year is 1996, candidate for president, Republican candidate Bob Dole wanted to proceed with a strategic defense initiative

also known as you may recall as Star Wars and President Bill Clinton opposed it.

From our archives Edward Teller and Sidney Drell in 1996. You're going to be here. Welcome to Uncommon Knowledge. I'm Peter Robinson, a fellow at the Hoover Institution. Our show today, Star Wars.

Here's the issue. Bob Dole and the Republicans in Congress want to begin deployment

of a national missile defense system and to do so quickly. President Clinton and other Democrats

say,

let's wait a few years.

The system would be designed to defend against a particular kind of missile.

Ballistic missiles, use your imagination,

these are missiles that are capable of traveling from one

continent to another, say from Asia to North America. Now why would we need a

missile defense system? Here's the situation today. A missile is fired. Our satellites

in space tell us immediately, but to protect our population, there's nothing we could do.

We could of course fire missiles back at the aggressor,

a bigger missile in this case because it's American after all,

but as I say there's nothing we can do to protect our own population

...