"The second world war over, von Neumann accepted a string of commercial consultancies. But he was increasingly drawn into the defence establishment. An earnest

"The second world war over, von Neumann accepted a string of commercial consultancies. But he was increasingly drawn into the defence establishment. An earnest advocate of the development of the H-Bomb, he later described himself as "violently anti-communist, and a good deal more militaristic than most". After his death, Life magazine reported that he had said in 1950: "If you say why not bomb them [the Russians] tomorrow, I say why not bomb them today? If you say today at five o'clock, I say why not one o'clock?" Though frequently quoted as evidence that von Neumann favoured a first strike "preventive war" against the Soviet Union, this is a weak reed on which to build such a claim. It seems more likely it was characteristic - though tasteless and bloodthirsty - banter designed to emphasise his hawkishness. ... Von Neumann was not an unthinking militarist: he believed that the world's only chance of avoiding destructive conflict was world government, but - since he could not see any practical way of achieving this - he was determined to defend his adopted country with as much armed might as possible. " http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~hwolkowi//neumann1.html http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~hwolkowi//neumann1.html Unlike Teller, von Neumann is not renowned for what you describe as "persistent advocacy" of nuclear first strike. AFAIK, von Neumann was not especially politically active in promoting US gov't aggression of any kind, again, unlike Teller.