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EINSTEIN'S LETTER (1939)
Events >
Early Government Support, 1939-1942
On October 11, 1939, Alexander Sachs, Wall Street
economist and longtime friend and unofficial advisor to
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, met
with the President to discuss a letter written by
Albert Einstein the previous August
(right). Einstein had written to inform Roosevelt
that recent research on
fission chain reactions utilizing uranium
made it probable that large amounts of power could be
produced by a chain reaction and that, by harnessing this
power, the construction of "extremely powerful bombs" was
conceivable. Einstein believed the German government
was actively supporting research in this area and urged
the United States government to do likewise. Sachs
read from a cover letter he had prepared and briefed
Roosevelt on the main points contained in Einstein's
letter. Initially the President was noncommittal and
expressed concern over locating the necessary funds, but
at a second meeting over breakfast the next morning
Roosevelt became convinced of the value of exploring
atomic energy.
Einstein drafted his famous letter with the help of the
Hungarian émigré physicist
Leo Szilard, one of a number of European
scientists who had fled to the United States in the 1930s
to escape Nazi and Fascist repression. Szilard was
among the most vocal of those advocating a program to
develop bombs based on recent findings in nuclear physics
and chemistry. Those like Szilard and fellow
Hungarian refugee physicists Edward Teller and Eugene
Wigner regarded it as their responsibility to alert
Americans to the possibility that German scientists might
win the race to build an atomic bomb and to warn that
Hitler would be more than willing to resort to such a
weapon. But Roosevelt, preoccupied with events in
Europe, took over two months to meet with Sachs after
receiving Einstein's letter. Szilard and his
colleagues interpreted Roosevelt's inaction as unwelcome
evidence that the President did not take the threat of
nuclear warfare seriously.
Roosevelt (right) wrote Einstein back on October 19,
1939, informing the physicist that he had set up a
committee consisting of civilian and
military representatives to study uranium. Events
proved that the President was a man of considerable action
once he had chosen a direction. In fact, Roosevelt's
approval of uranium research in October 1939, based on his
belief that the United States could not take the risk of
allowing Hitler to achieve unilateral possession of
"extremely powerful bombs," was merely the first decision
among many that ultimately led to the establishment of the
Manhattan Project.
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Sources and notes for this page.
The text for this page was adapted from, and portions
were taken directly from the
Office of History and Heritage Resources, publication:
F. G. Gosling,
The Manhattan Project: Making the Atomic Bomb
(DOE/MA-0001; Washington: History Division, Department
of Energy, January 1999), vii. Click
here for more information on the photograph of the
letter. The photograph of
Albert Einstein with
Leo Szilard is courtesy the
Federation of American Scientists. The portrait of
Franklin Roosevelt is courtesy the
Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency.
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