Here is the direct PDF link for anyone interested @ http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/366921/responsive-docu...
"An article appeared in the Los Angeles Times, a Los Angeles daily newspaper, dated 7/18/56, to the effect that the appointee's wife was granted a divorce from him because of appointee's constantly working calculus problems in his head as soon as awake, while driving car, sitting in living room, and so forth, and that his one hobby was playing his African drums. His ex-wife reportedly testified that on several occasions when she unwittingly disturbed either his calculus or his drums he flew into a violent rage, during which time he choked her, threw pieces of bric-a-brac about and smashed the furniture. This antic reflects that the court approved a $7500 cash settlement in favor of the appointee's ex-wife, giving her an automobile, furniture and objects of art, as well as $300 per month for two years and $250 a month for a third year"
It's doubtful anyone alive today could say definitively, but this could be an instance of that practice. I certainly hope it was.
Whilst not impossible it is likely our heroes have feet of clay.
> 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.
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.)