Remarks Upon Presenting the Enrico Fermi Award to Dr. Edward Teller

I PRESENT this medal, which is the sixth Enrico Fermi Medal. It has the words "Science and Progress" on it, "1901 to 1954," Dr. Teller, and then this check, which is for $50,000, which is part of the Fermi Award.

I just want to say that it's a great pleasure to honor Dr. Teller in this fashion on the unanimous recommendation of the Atomic Energy Commission. Dr. Teller was one of a number of Europeans who came to the United States and played a most significant role in World War II, and has contributed immeasurably to the security of the United States since that time.

I think we take a good deal of pride and satisfaction that our country was the magnet which attracted these free-ranging minds who, because of their great talent and ability to concentrate that talent on new horizons, were able to make some of the most remarkable breakthroughs in scientific history. And we are also glad to have him because he not only has been an innovator and an original researcher, but also a distinguished teacher, which occupies a good deal of his time. And I had the opportunity, in visiting the University of California recently, to talk to some of his colleagues and get a better idea of what he is doing in instilling in new scientists this human energy to carry on in new fields.

So I think it is most appropriate that Dr. Teller should be the sixth recipient, as a friend of Dr. Fermi's, as a participant in Dr. Fermi's work, and as a great researcher on his own part, and as a great contributor, though he was born abroad, to the security of the United States, and in a very real sense to the security of the whole free world, in which he strongly believes.