By 1939, the United States had acquired a large group of expatriate Euro­pean scientists, each associated with a university and engaged in research. All were unusually busy in the fast-breaking world of nuclear physics, exchanging papers, sharing experimental results, absorbing unsubstanti­ated rumors from Germany, and generally conspiring to somehow involve the government of their adopted country in large-scale nuclear research. It was not an easy quest, and there would be obstacles. In 1939, the U. S. military establishment was hardly the innovative powerhouse that it would later become, and a plea by a group of heavily accented theoreti­cians was unlikely to move mountains even if it promised a quick victory over potential enemies. The United States was not at war, and it intended to remain in that posture as long as possible.

Still, it was an effort that had to be made, as the European group became seriously concerned that the German Third Reich would develop nuclear weaponry. Leo Szilard was particularly shrill in his activities, and at Columbia University he was doing what he could with limited research resources to find sustainable fission in uranium. Being naturally persuasive, Szilard was able to borrow 500 pounds of black, dirty uranium oxide from the Eldorado Radium Corporation at Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories of Canada. Experiments showed him the value of crystalline carbon as a neutron moderator, and he managed to persuade the National Carbon Company of New York to make him some high — purity synthetic graphite. This specially made material was uncontami­nated by the traces of boron that made most industrial graphite unusable for nuclear work. Even Szilard’s impressive skills at scrounging materials were far short of what was necessary, but he used his talents to persuade Enrico Fermi to stop in at the Navy Department on Constitution Avenue in Washington, D. C., on March 17, 1939, and talk to somebody about the urgent need and the great potential of nuclear power. The undersecretary of the navy was unavailable, but an appointment was made to see the technical assistant to the chief of naval operations, Admiral Stanford C. Hooper (1884-1955), the “Father of Naval Radio,” and convince him of

the importance of nuclear fission. This would be the first contact between scientists pursuing nuclear fission and the U. S. government.

The meeting did not go well. Although it was attended by an impres­sive audience of naval officers, men from the Bureau of Ordnance, and two scientists from the Naval Research Laboratory, Fermi’s hourlong lec­ture on nuclear physics went over their heads. They seemed interested in a power source that required no oxygen, as they were thinking of subma­rine propulsion, but Fermi was too vague and unwilling to speculate. The navy was receptive to being included in announcements of success but not in participation. On July 10, Szilard got the formal letter, thanking the scientists for the interesting presentation but denying any funding.

Helping and encouraging Szilard in his sales efforts were two fellow Hungarians, Eugene Wigner and Edward Teller. Wigner was born in Budapest, Hungary, and in 1921 he became best friends with Leo Szi­lard at the Technische Hochschule in Berlin, Germany. In the 1920s, he became deeply involved in quantum mechanics research and in 1929 was recruited by Princeton University, in New Jersey. Fellow scientists called him the “Silent Genius,” and his work in nuclear reactor theory would be foundational.

Edward Teller was also born in Budapest, and as a child of 11 years he developed a powerful aversion to both fascist and communist govern­ments. As a Hungarian nuclear physicist working in Germany in 1933, it was almost inevitable that he would wind up in the United States working on the atomic bomb program of World War II. He would be of immense value to the further development of nuclear weapons following the war. His strong political views and an insistence on making weapons large enough to evaporate an entire Pacific island would make him perhaps the most controversial scientist in the country.

Fermi gave up early and went back to his laboratory research, but the Hungarian team thought it was worth trying again. Thinking that they should try to approach this problem from an entirely different angle, they decided to draft a letter to Queen Elizabeth of Belgium. The rumors were that the Germans were buying uranium ore stockpiles from the rich lode of pitchblende in the Belgian Congo in equatorial Africa. The right word to the queen might persuade her to discourage her countrymen from ura­nium commerce with the Third Reich, and stopping German research was as important as starting research in the United States. Unfortunately, none of them knew the queen of Belgium, but they knew someone who did. Albert Einstein had met her in 1929, and they were in regular com-

munication. Einstein was a world-famous scientist, who had left his native Germany for a position at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study. It was his lofty theories of mass and energy that gave credence to this hypotheti­cal nuclear weapon.

Wigner and Szilard made an appointment to see Einstein and then drove to his summer home on Nassau Point in Long Island, New York, on Sunday, July 16. Szilard had never learned to drive, so Wigner controlled the car as they strategized and plotted all the way there, carrying a draft of the letter. Einstein was all for the letter, but he hesitated to burden the queen of Belgium with the problem of sales with Germany. He coun — terproposed a note to the Belgian ambassador, and Wigner, having an inkling of knowledge of diplomatic protocol, suggested a cover letter to the State Department. They worked all day on several drafts. When Szi­lard got home, he found a message from a Dr. Alexander Sachs.

Alexander Sachs (1893-1973) of the Lehman Corporation was an economist, a banker, and a personal friend of the president of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt. He had learned of Szilard’s letter mission from a mutual friend, and he had a suggestion for improvement. The let­ter should be rewritten as a mandate for the United States, and it must be delivered directly to the president. Szilard eagerly went to work on a new draft, and he made another appointment with Einstein.

Wigner had gone to California for a vacation, but Szilard recruited Teller to drive to Long Island in his trusty 1935 Plymouth on Sunday, July 30. After careful rewriting and editing, the three scientists had crafted a longer, two-page version. It begins with the following:

Sir:

Some recent work by E. Fermi and L. Szilard, 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 the situation which has arisen seem to call for watchfulness and, if necessary, quick action on the part of the Administration. . . .

The letter continues, advising that a nuclear chain reaction can possibly be used to generate vast amounts of energy and for extremely powerful bombs. Further suggested is governmental funding of research, under an appointed administrator, coordinating university-based work with indus­trial laboratories, and the letter ends with a hint that Germany may