> John von Neumann's record illustrates why brilliant scientists may not be the best architects of foreign policy. In particular, von Neumann's belief in the inevitability of nuclear war led him to call for a first strike against Soviet cities before they could develop a nuclear arsenal. This is a rather difficult political-moral-ethical position to rehabilitate. One also gets the sense that a JvN was a bit stingy with sharing credit on major breakthroughs in computing.

I don't think it's a hard position to rehabilitate. What people find so outrageous are not von Neumann's views about geopolitics and nuclear weapons but his attitude. They object to the cheerful terms in which he advocated for the use of nuclear weapons.

And fair enough. But, attitude aside, there's nothing obviously wrong with arguing that the US should have used its nuclear monopoly to secure the independence of Eastern Europe or even to end the Soviet regime.