Review of “American Scientists and Nuclear Weapons Policy”

Abstract

Ever since Einstein’s now famous memorandum to President Roosevelt advocating the initiation of the atomic bomb effort, scientists have played an important role in U.S. politics, in particular in determining the nuclear weapons policy. American Scientists and Nuclear Weapons Policy is an effort to record and to assess this role, and as far as this reviewer knows it is the first comprehensive effort in this direction. It is a well documented book—it contains a great many more references than pages—and the author sincerely, and I believe successfully, endeavors to be impartial in the many controversies that have arisen. He tells such a fascinating narrative that this reviewer, although he already had considerable knowledge of the political activities of his scientist colleagues, found it difficult to lay the book aside once he was well started on it. The book contains very few errors and none of them appear very significant. One must hope, nevertheless, that the subject mill be dealt with by others also, both because it has great importance and because no single volume can view it from all angles.