Three months after a congressman called for the General Accounting Office to retract its Inaccurate, misleading, and biased” investigation of Lawrence Livermore founder Edward Teller (see The Scientist, March 20,1989, page 1), the GAO has declined the offer. In a letter last month to Rep. Fortney (Pete) Stark (D-Calif.), who had led the quest for a retraction, the agency said that it stands by the conclusion of its June 1988 report that the letters Teller sent to the White House in 1983 and 1984 describing the glowing promise of the X-ray laser, a large Livermore project, were not unwarranted at the time. The three-page GAO memo informs Stark that ["while it could well be that some of (the Livermore scientists questioned in the investigation] have now changed theiropinions, we have... verified that we accurately reported what we were told at the time.”
The GAO letter is not likely to end ...
