JFK+50: Volume 7, No. 2468
FDR RECEIVES SZILARD-EINSTEIN LETTER ON ATOMIC BOMB
Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) Seventy-eight years ago, October 11, 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt received a letter written by Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard* and signed by Albert Einstein**.
The letter, dated August 2, 1939, was not presented to the president until an appointment could be set up with him. The letter includes the following statement...
"It may be possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of uranium...(which) would also lead to the construction of...extremely powerful bombs."
It was recommended that experimental work be sped up.
The President replied...
"I found this...of such import that I have convened a Board...to investigate the possibility of your suggestion."
Einstein was most concerned about Nazi Germany developing the atomic bomb first. He later regretted signing the letter because it led to the development and use of the atomic bomb. The Szilard-Einstein letter is considered pivotal in the establishment of the Manhattan Project (work of fission research assigned to the United States Army Corp of Engineers, East Manhattan District).
*Leo Szilard (1898-1964) was a Hungarian-born American physicist & inventor who patented the idea of a nuclear reactor with Enrico Fermi in 1934.
**Albert Einstein (1879-1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of relativity & received the Nobel Prize in physics in 1921.
SOURCE
"Einstein's letter to President Roosevelt-1939", www.atomicarchive.com/
FDR RECEIVES SZILARD-EINSTEIN LETTER ON ATOMIC BOMB
Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) Seventy-eight years ago, October 11, 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt received a letter written by Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard* and signed by Albert Einstein**.
The letter, dated August 2, 1939, was not presented to the president until an appointment could be set up with him. The letter includes the following statement...
"It may be possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of uranium...(which) would also lead to the construction of...extremely powerful bombs."
It was recommended that experimental work be sped up.
The President replied...
"I found this...of such import that I have convened a Board...to investigate the possibility of your suggestion."
Einstein was most concerned about Nazi Germany developing the atomic bomb first. He later regretted signing the letter because it led to the development and use of the atomic bomb. The Szilard-Einstein letter is considered pivotal in the establishment of the Manhattan Project (work of fission research assigned to the United States Army Corp of Engineers, East Manhattan District).
*Leo Szilard (1898-1964) was a Hungarian-born American physicist & inventor who patented the idea of a nuclear reactor with Enrico Fermi in 1934.
**Albert Einstein (1879-1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of relativity & received the Nobel Prize in physics in 1921.
SOURCE
"Einstein's letter to President Roosevelt-1939", www.atomicarchive.com/
Einstein Letter to FDR
