einstein

eactions, suggested that a new type of bomb could result, and urged the president to set up formal contact with physicists working on this topic.
Szilárd then prepared and sent back to Einstein a 45-line version and a 25-line one, both dated August 2, 1939, “and left it up to Einstein to choose
which he liked best.” Einstein signed them both in a small scrawl, rather than with the flourish he sometimes used. 8
The longer version, which is the one that eventually reached Roosevelt, read in part:
Sir:
Some recent work by E. Fermi and L. Szilárd, which has been communicated to me in a 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 this situation 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:
. . . It may become possible to set up a 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 phenomena would also lead to the construction of bombs, and it is conceivable—though much less certain—that extremely
powerful bombs of a new type may thus be constructed. A single bomb of this type, carried by boat and exploded in a port, might very well
destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory . . .
In view of this situation you may think it desirable to have some permanent contact maintained between the administration and the group of
physicists working on chain reactions in America.
It ended with a warning that German scientists might be pursuing a bomb. Once the letter had been written and signed, they still had to figure out
who could best get it into the hands of President Roosevelt. Einstein was unsure about Sachs. They considered, instead, financier Bernard Baruch
and MIT President Karl Compton.
More amazingly, when Szilárd sent back the typed version of the letter, he suggested that they use as their intermediary Charles Lindbergh,
whose solo transatlantic flight twelve years earlier had made him a celebrity. All three of the refugee Jews were apparently unaware that the aviator
had been spending time in Germany, was decorated the year before by the Nazi Hermann Göring with that nation’s medal of honor, and was
becoming an isolationist and Roosevelt antagonist.
Einstein had briefly met Lindbergh a few years earlier in New York, so he wrote a note of introduction, which he included when he returned the
signed letters to Szilárd. “I would like to ask you to do me a favor of receiving my friend Dr. Szilárd and think very carefully about what he will tell
you,” Einstein wrote to Lindbergh. “To one who is outside of science the matter he will bring up may seem fantastic. However, you will certainly
become convinced that a possibility is presented here which has to be very carefully watched in the public interest.” 9
Lindbergh did not respond, so Szilárd wrote him a reminder letter on September 13, again asking for a meeting. Two days later, they realized
how clueless they had been when Lindbergh gave a nationwide radio address. It was a clarion call for isolationism. “The destiny of this country
does not call for our involvement in European wars,” Lindbergh began. Interwoven were hints of Lindbergh’s pro-German sympathies and even
some anti-Semitic implications about Jewish ownership of the media. “We must ask who owns and influences the newspaper, the news picture,
and the radio station,” he said. “If our people know the truth, our country is not likely to enter the war.” 10
Szilárd’s next letter to Einstein stated the obvious: “Lindbergh is not our man.” 11
Their other hope was Alexander Sachs, who had been given the formal letter to Roosevelt that Einstein signed. Even though it was obviously of
enormous importance, Sachs was not able to find the opportunity to deliver it for almost two months.
By then, events had turned what was an important letter into an urgent one. At the end of August 1939, the Nazis and Soviets stunned the world
by signing their war alliance pact and proceeded to carve up Poland. That prompted Britain and France to declare war, starting the century’s
second World War. For the time being, America stayed neutral, or at least did not declare war. The country did, however, begin to rearm and to
develop whatever new weapons might be necessary for its future involvement.
Szilárd went to see Sachs in late September and was horrified to discover that he still had not been able to schedule an appointment with
Roosevelt. “There is a distinct possibility Sachs will be of no use to us,” Szilárd wrote Einstein. “Wigner and I have decided to accord him ten days
grace.” 12 Sachs barely made the deadline. On the afternoon of Wednesday, October 11, he was ushered into the Oval Office carrying Einstein’s
letter, Szilárd’s memo, and an eight-hundred-word summary he had written on his own.
The president greeted him jovially. “Alex, what are you up to?” Sachs could be loquacious, which may be why the president’s handlers made it
hard for him to get an appointment, and he tended to tell the president parables. This time it was a tale about an inventor who told Napoleon that he
would build him a new type of ship that could travel using steam rather than sails. Napoleon dismissed him as crazy. Sachs then revealed that the
visitor was Robert Fulton and, so went the lesson, the emperor should have listened. 13
Roosevelt responded by scribbling a note to an aide, who hurried off and soon returned with a bottle of very old and rare Napoleon brandy that
Roosevelt said had been in his family for a while. He poured two glasses.
Sachs worried that if he left the memos and papers with Roosevelt, they might be glanced at and then pushed aside. The only reliable way to
deliver them, he decided, was to read them aloud. Standing in front of the president’s desk, he read his summation of Einstein’s letter, parts of
Szilárd’s memo, and some other paragraphs from assorted historical documents.
“Alex, what you are after is to see that the Nazis don’t blow us up,” the president said.
“Precisely,” Sachs replied.
Roosevelt called in his personal assistant. “This requires action,” he declared. 14
That evening, plans were drawn up for an ad hoc committee, coordinated by Dr. Lyman Briggs, director of the Bureau of Standards, the nation’s
physics laboratory. It met informally for the first time in Washington on October 21. Einstein was not there, nor did he want to be. He was neither a
nuclear physicist nor someone who enjoyed proximity to political or military leaders. But his Hungarian émigré trio—Szilárd, Wigner, and Teller—
were there to launch the effort.
The following week, Einstein received a polite and formal thank-you letter from the president. “I have convened a board,” Roosevelt wrote, “to
thoroughly investigate the possibilities of your suggestion regarding the element of uranium.” 15
Work on the atomic project proceeded slowly. Over the next few months, the Roosevelt administration approved only $6,000 for graphite and
uranium experiments. Szilárd became impatient. He was becoming more convinced of the feasibility of chain reaction and more worried about
reports he was getting from fellow refugees on the activity in Germany.
So in March 1940, he went to Princeton to see Einstein again. They composed another letter for Einstein to sign, which was addressed to
Alexander Sachs but intended for him to convey to the president. It warned of all the work on uranium they heard was being done in Berlin. Given