It is conceivable, as one of his colleagues has suggested, that Theodore Postol could be more effective "if he did not eventually accuse just about everybody of fraud or malfeasance or stupidity." Over the past two years, for instance, the MIT professor of science, technology and national security policy has publicly accused the defense technology corporation TRW of perpetrating a hoax on the U.S. government. He has charged the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency (formerly known as the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization) with committing an "elaborate scientific and technical blunder," compounded by fraud and misconduct. He has charged the authors of a report investigating those alleged frauds-who include two staff scientists at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory-with committing scientific fraud themselves to cover up the frauds they were allegedly investigating. He has charged the Pentagon's Defense Security Service, in a letter to John Podesta, who was then President Clinton's chief of staff, with "Soviet thuggish-style conduct." And he has even accused MIT president Charles M. Vest of doing little or nothing to clarify the matter or investigate.

This steady stream of indignation and accusation has led Postol's colleagues to describe him as not so much interested in building coalitions or playing politics as he is in pursuing the truth with a single-minded, laserlike focus. They also suggest that his passion and his capacity for outrage constitute his best and worst qualities. His volatility leads him into conflicts that detract from his main point, which happens to be one of extraordinary importance. Postol is asserting that the U.S. government is on the verge of deploying a $60 billion missile defense system that cannot possibly work-a move that would make the world a considerably less secure place to live.