| Albert Einstein
Old Grove Road
Nassau Point
Peconic, Long Island
August 2nd, 1939 |
F.D. Roosevelt,
Presdient of the United States,
White House
Washington, D.C. | |
Sir:
Some recent work by E. Fermi and L.Szilard, which has been communicated to me in manuscript, leads me to expect that the element uranium may be turned into a new and important source of energy in the immediate future. Certain aspects of thesituation which has arisen seem to call for watchfulness and, if necessary, quick action on the part of the Administration. I believe therefore that it is my duty to bring to your attention the following facts and recommendations:
In the course of the last four months it has been made probable - through the work of Joliot in France as well as Fermi and Szilard in America - that it may be possible to set upa nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of uranium,by which vast amounts of power and large quantities of new radium-like elements would be generated. Now it appears almost certain that this could be achieved in the immediate future.
This new phnomenon would also lead to the construction of bombs, and it is concievable - though much less certain - that extremely powerful bombs of a new type may thus be constructed. A single bomb of this type, carried by a boat and exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory. However, such bombs might very well prove to be too heavy for transportation by air.
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The United States has only very poor ores of uranium in moderate quantities. There is some good ore in Canada and the former Czechoslovakia, while the most important source of uranium is Belgian Congo.
In view of this situation you may think it desireable to have some permanent contact maintained between the Administration and the group of physicists working on chain reaction in America. One possible way of achieving this might be for you to entrust with this task aperson who has your confidence and who could perhaps serve in an unofficial capacity. His task might comprise the following:
a) to approach Government Departments, keep them informed of the further development, andput forward recommendations for Government action, giving particular attention to the problem of securing a supply of uranium ore for the United States;
b) to speed up the experimental work,which is at present being carried on within the limits of the budgets of University laboratories, by providing funds, if such funds be required, through his contacts with private persons who are willing to make contributions for this cause, and perhaps also by obtaining the co-operation of industrial laboratories which have the necessary equipment.
I understand that Germany has actually stopped the sale of uranium from the Czechoslovakian mines which she has taken over. The she should have taken such early action might perhaps be understood on the ground that the son of the German Under-Secretary of State, Von Weizs�cker, is attached to the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut in Berlin where some of the American work on uranium is being repeated.
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| Yours very truly,
(Albert Einstein) |
| 1939.Aug.02 | | Physicist Albert Einstein signs a letter urging President Roosevelt to create an atomic weapons research program | | 1945.Jul.16 | | Underground detonation of the first atomic bomb at Alamo Gordo, New Mexico
The detonation put traces of the isotope Strontium 90 - unknown before in nature - into the bones of all vertibrates providing a forensic test | | 1945.Aug.06 | | First atomic bomb used in anger dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, by the USA during World War II
140,000 people are estimated to have been killed by the bomb | | 1945.Aug.09 | | USA drops the second atomic bomb of
World War II on Nagasaki
74,000 people are estimated to have been
killed | | 1950.Oct.27 | | MI5 brought into the hunt for Harwell atomic scientist Bruno Pontecorvo missing for about seven weeks | | 1954.Mar.01 | | US tests hydrogen bomb, 600 times as powerful as the bomb which destroyed Hiroshima, on Bikini Atol in the Pacific
| | 1995.Sep.06 | | France carry out an atomic bomb test in Mururoa Atols despite huge international protests |
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