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References and Notes
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It was Albert Einstein’s letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt which led to the Manhattan Project and the atomic bomb. Here is part of what the letter said (J. Ziman, The Force of Knowledge, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1976, p. 128): “Some recent work by E. Fermi and L. Szilard, which has been communicated to me in 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. I believe therefore that it is my duty to bring to your attention the following facts and recommendations:-In the course of the last four months it has been made possible — through the work of Joliot in France as well as Fermi and Szilard in America — that it may become possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of uranium, by which vast amounts of power and large quantities of new radium-like elements would be generated. Now it appears almost certain that this could be achieved in the immediate future.-This new phenomenon would also lead to the construction of bombs, and it is conceivable — though much less certain — that extremely powerful bombs of a new type may thus be constructed. A single bomb of this type, carried by boat and exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory….” By most accounts, the famous letter was written by Leo Szilard and Eugene Wigner who then convinced Einstein to sign it. However, according to David Sundberg (The Oak Ridger, March 11, 1986, Oak Ridge, TN), Wigner’s account is different. Here is how Sundberg described Wigner’s account in an interview with him: “Leo Szilard who, like Wigner, was born in Hungary, and Wigner made unsuccessful attempts, following the discovery of fission in Germany in 1939, to interest the U.S. government to undertake an atomic ‘chain reaction’ program. Their initial appeals fell on deaf ears. Then Szilard suggested that the two of them approach Einstein, perhaps the only scientist in America whose reputation was sufficient to convince the President to pursue nuclear weapons development. Wigner and Szilard went to Einstein’s summer home on Long Island and spoke to him in German because of the famed mathematician’s poor grasp of English. Einstein may have heard about the announcement of the fissioning of the uranium nucleus shortly before the conversation, but clearly had not heard of the principles involved. Wigner said, that, within 15 minutes, Einstein’ understood it, saw the danger, and dictated a letter which I took down in German, took it back to Princeton, translated it, and had it typed and he signed it.”
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The world came close to experiencing a nuclear exchange during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. M. Moore (The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, November/December 1995, p. 16) states that “In the Korean War, Eisenhower hinted broadly that he might use nuclear weapons to bring the war to an end.” Similarly, E. R. May, (“Lessons” of the Past, Oxford University Press, New York, 1973, p. 107) refers to a meeting on the planning of the Vietnam War where the representative of the Joint Chiefs is quoted as having said “Possibly even the use of nuclear weapons at some point is of course why we spend billions to have them.” The United States would have seriously considered using nuclear weapons against Iraq, if Iraq used biological weapons of mass destruction, according to former USA Secretary of Defense R. B. Cheney (CNN with B. Shaw, February 27, 1996). Nuclear weapons can be made to be purpose specific (e.g., the neutron bomb) and thus make “easier” the decision to use them. The possibility also exists that such terror weapons may go off accidentally, or that they may find themselves in the hands of terrorists, or that they may be under the loose control of states not equipped to secure their custody.
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Although nuclear weapons are not easy to be used by terrorists, safeguarding fissile material in the post-cold-war era is worrisome (see, for example, F. von Hippel, Physics Today, June 1995, p. 26).
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(2002). Modern People and the State of Their Societies. In: Place of Science in a World of Values and Facts. Innovations in Science Education and Technology, vol 10. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-47623-1_2
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