Decision To Fund The Atomic Bomb :: essays research papers

"No man-made phenomenon of such tremendous power had ever occurred before. The lighting effects beggared description. The whole country was lighted by a searing light with the intensity many times greater than that of the midday sun. It was golden, purple, violet, gray, and blue..."( Groueff 355). The words of Brigadier General Thomas F. Farrell describe the onset of the atomic age, which began on July 16, 1945 in Alamogordo, New Mexico. This was the site of the first large-scale atomic test, which utilized the tool of destruction that would soon decimate the populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki less than a month afterwards. This test consummated the years spent developing the bomb, and was the end result of the efforts of nuclear scientists who constructed it, and those of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who made the decision to fund the so-called Manhattan Project. In a letter dated August 2nd, 1939, Albert Einstein first informed President Roosevelt of the research that had been done by Enrico Fermi and Leo Szilard with unstable Uranium which could generate large amounts of power and energy (Einstein1 PSF Safe Files). Einstein also included another possible use for the uranium- the construction of extremely powerful bombs, which were capable of destroying a seaport and the surrounding territory. This information may have come precisely at the right time, for in October of 1938 Roosevelt asked Congress for a $300 million military appropriation, and in November instructed the Army Air Corps to plan for an annual production of twenty thousand planes. Later, in 1939, Roosevelt called for actions against "aggressor nations," and in the same year submitted to Congress a $1.3 billion defense budget (Boyer 861). In an accompanying memorandum that was sent with the Einstein letter, scientist Leo Szilard explained the technical science of nuclear fission and stressing the importance of chain reactions (Walls 1 PFS Safe Files). Both documents, the Einstein letter and the Szilard memorandum, were to be delivered by Alexander Sachs, an adviser to Roosevelt’s New Deal since 1933 who would know how to approach Roosevelt and the government (Lanouette 200). It was not until mid-October 1939 that Sachs wangled an invitation to get in to see the President over breakfast (Burns 250). Though Roosevelt found the documents interesting, he seemed hesitant about committing government funds to such speculative research. But after Sachs reminded him of Napoleon’s skepticism of Robert Fulton’s idea of a steamship, Roosevelt agreed to proceed. Regarding the steamship issue, Sachs went on to comment, "This is an example of how England was saved by the shortsightedness of an adversary,"; this insight made Roosevelt greatly consider the creation of the bomb. President Roosevelt authorized a study, but the decision to