Decision To Fund The Atomic Bomb

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"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

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