> There are many able and eminent physicists [...] Some of these persons are practical physicists--with a very thorough knowledge of creative as well as theoretical physics and of the scientific world--not mere mathematicians as is the case of theoretical physicists.
(these people, if one reads on, being considered by the author as better candidates than Feynman) I'd have guessed someone with a less theoretical background than Teller. It could just be an attempt to appear impartial, I guess.
I wasn't for an instant suggesting that the person who wrote that anti-Feynman screed was actually impartial, nor that they expected to be thought not hostile to Feynman.
But a theoretical physicist might have thought their attack would look less like a matter of professional jealousy if they couched part of it in terms of how much more appropriate an experimental physicist would be.
(I don't think that's very likely. I think the person who wrote this was probably not a theoretical physicist. That's why I think it was unlikely-ish to have been Edward Teller. I was simply pondering possible reasons why a theoretical physicist like Teller might have written those words about theoretical versus not-so-theoretical physics.)
