Einstein: Ban the Bomb
Genius was horrified by the weapons he had helped create
POWERFUL letters by Albert Einstein pleading for the atom bomb never to be used again are for sale.
The genius physicist whose theories were crucial in creating the A-bomb, was horrified by the destruction when the US dropped two on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
In four previously unseen letters, which have a guide price of £12,000, he said atomic weapons must be scrapped “to prevent future tragedies”.
After the Second World War he helped to set up the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists to oppose their use.
He wrote in October 1946: “At stake is the fate of our civilisation.
“In these fateful years let us preserve and hand on to those who come after us the civilisation which generations of mankind have builded.”
In the second letter in December, he added: “Through the release of atomic energy, our generation has brought into the world the most revolutionary force since prehistoric man’s discovery of fire.
“We scientists recognise our inescapable responsibility to carry to our fellow
citizens an understanding of the simple facts of atomic energy and its implications for society.”
He sent the letters to businessman Cleveland E Dodge one of the campaign’s supporters. Einstein, a pacifist who had fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s, was seeking funding for the committee.
Although Einstein never worked on the US atomic bomb efforts - the Manhattan Project - his name, much to his dismay, became linked with it.
In July 1946 his face featured on the cover of Time Magazine with a mushroom cloud that contained his famous equation E = mc2 which he formulated in 1905.
Einstein withheld public comment on the use of the bomb until a year after it had been used on Japan.
He had originally been in favour of the US creating such a weapon for use against Hitler.
But In 1954 Einstein wrote that a letter he signed recommending atomic bombs be created was a “‘great mistake”.
The letters are up for auction at Bonhams, New York, tomorrow.