My Science School

Roosevelt’s economic advisor Alexander Sachs delivered the Einstein- Leo Szilard letter to the President on 11 October 1939. Sachs also stressed the importance of the letter he was delivering. Roosevelt reacted immediately and set in motion the top-secret Manhattan Project to develop an atom bomb.

On 6 August 1945, the first U.S. atomic bomb struck the city of Hiroshima, Japan killing over 1,40,000 people. Three days later, on 9 August, a second bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki killing 70,000 people. Japan surrendered within a few days, marking the end of the Second World War.

Einstein was very upset when the bombs were actually dropped. This was not quite what he had in mind when he sent that letter. On hearing that the atom bomb had been used in Japan, Einstein said “Woe is me.” He later told American chemist and activist Linus Pauling that if he had known the Germans would not succeed in developing an atomic bomb, he would have done nothing for the bomb. Einstein later issued a collective warning for the world on atom bombs.

In the same year, he wrote an article in The Atlantic Monthly saying that the U.S. should not try to be the only nation with this technology. Other than sending that fateful letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt, Einstein personally had no role in developing the atom bomb.