Nuclear annihilation isn’t funny… but during my time in the Pentagon, I learned that sometimes the path to preventing nuclear annihilation could be quite amusing. I also discovered that the only way to cope with serious issues that could easily lead to the end of civilization was to maintain my sense of humor at all times.

Dr. Edward Teller was one of the leading characters in my quest to create a missile defense to protect the United States from the Soviet Union. Teller, the famous “Father of the H Bomb,” was on a mission of his own. His goal was to obtain funding for his pet projects at Lawrence Livermore National Labs and topping that list was the nuclear explosive pumped X-ray laser. Teller saw that the X-ray laser would become the third generation of nuclear weapons, following the atom bomb and the H bomb.

Rumor has it that the first nuclear pumped X-ray experiments relied on long very thin “noodles” made from a weed that grew nearby the lab, the elderberry plant. Perhaps Teller created the elderberry story to obscure the truth since President Ronald Reagan was adamantly against the use of a nuclear system to create his Star Wars defense. Teller aggressively marketed his X-ray laser program even though would require nuclear weapons deployed in space or “popped up” when needed. Caspar Weinberger, the then secretary of defense, referred to the concept as “nuclear powered” to somehow obfuscate its use of nuclear weapons. A single bomb could destroy dozens of Soviet boosters and thus hundreds of deadly nuclear warheads.

I sat in a meeting in the Pentagon in 1985 when Teller demanded another $100 million for the next year’s underground nuclear tests, arguing that Reagan, who hated nuclear weapons, had already promised the money. “Do you want me to go back and tell the President that you turned down his promise?” Teller asked. The guilt trip worked and the funds were made available.

Although I admired Teller’s chutzpah and his exceptional ability to obtain government funding, I never liked the X-ray laser approach. Rather than a solution to missile defense requirements, I saw it as a totally destructive anti-satellite weapon that would aid the attacker and not the defender. Teller and his team argued that the Soviets were already developing their own X-ray laser. No one could debunk that claim since no one really knew what technological breakthroughs the Soviets had achieved.

Meanwhile, back in the evil empire, Soviet scientists were asking their leaders for funding and sharing similar threats about the United States’ technical achievements. I guess the moral of the story is that when it comes to obtaining money, enthusiasm and exaggeration is to be expected, regardless of which country you call home.

Teller did not see his ploy as exaggerated or untrue. He once explained to me “that you cannot lie about the future.” His predictions may have been outlandish but he always spoke (his version) of the truth. And so it goes, the scenario of the advanced arms developers giving advice to technically uneducated decision makers will never end. Take a minute to reflect on the same storyline playing out today among our nation’s leaders, but while you are picturing that, be sure to keep your sense of humor. When you think things cannot possibly get any stranger, just wait… there’s more.