Yes, I had success searching for the interview with Tom Evans. He said that Szilard is working with an Italian by the name of Fermi, who is a very trustworthy man. All the resources of the United States, moral and material, may have to be mobilized to prevent the advent of such a world situation. He was also chief physicist at the Chicago Met Lab from 1942 to 1946. Today, with the defeat of Germany, this danger is averted and we feel impelled to say what follows:The war has to be brought speedily to a successful conclusion and attacks by atomic bombs may very well be an effective method of warfare. He said that Szilard is as anti-Nazi as he himself is and that Szilard is an outspoken Democrat. Thus a nation which sets the precedent of using these newly liberated forces of nature for purposes of destruction may have to bear the responsibility of opening the door to an era of devastation on an unimaginable scale.If after the war a situation is allowed to develop in the world which permits rival powers to be in uncontrolled possession of these new means of destruction, the cities of the United States as well as the cities of other nations will be in continuous danger of sudden annihilation. All rights reserved. Primary Sources Leo Szilard. Leo Szilard drafted the petition below to the President in the summer of 1945 attempting to avert the U.S.'s use of the atomic bomb against Japan. He is inclined to be rather absent minded and eccentric, and will start out a door, turn around and come back . In 1919 he began studyingelectrical engineering and physics in Budapest before moving to Berlin to study under Szilard was appointed a lecturer in physics in 1929. A friend of President Truman. Professor Einstein said that he sees Szilard quite frequently as Szilard visits him to inform him as to his work on the uranium experiment. He said that the last time he had seen Szilard was a week or ten days ago, at which time Szilard had visited him, together with Professor Eugene Wigner, of Princeton University.Professor Einstein advised that Szilard is a theoretical physicist. Leo Szilard was a Hungarian-American physicist and inventor who developed the idea of the nuclear chain reaction in 1933. The Szilard Petition. Primary Source Sets / World War II: America's Motivation and Impact / Petition from Leo Szilard and Other Scientists to President Harry S. Truman, July 17, 1945 He was instrumental in the beginning of the Manhattan Project, writing the letter for Albert Einstein’s signature in 1939 encouraging the US to begin building the atomic bomb.
The Atomic Bomb: Hiroshima and Nagasaki Leo Szilard, the son of a Jewish civil engineer, was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1898. In 1947 he wrote Szilard helped organize the first of the Pugwash conferences in 1957.
He also published a book on the misuse of scientific knowledge entitled Professor Albert Einstein was contacted at his home 112 Mercer Street, and he advised that he has known Leo Szilard since about the year 1920. He stated that this work is on a private scale but that it is financed by the University. Professor Einstein further related that Szilard had made several trips to the United States in recent years.He advised that Szilard, while in Berlin, had been assistant to Professor Max von Laue at the University of Berlin. He further advised that he believed the U.S. Government could trust Szilard in any respect without any fear whatever that Szilard might disclose confidential information to a foreign power.The surveillance reports indicate that Subject is of Jewish extraction, has a fondness for delicacies and frequently makes purchases in delicatessen stores, usually eats his breakfast in drug stores and other meals inrestaurants, walks a great deal when he cannot secure a taxi, usually is shaved in a barber shop, speaks occasionally in a foreign tongue, and associates mostly with people of Jewish extraction. In the First World War he fought in the the Austro-Hungarian Army.. It would then be more difficult for us to live up to our responsibility of bringing the unloosened forces of destruction under control.In view of the foregoing, we, the undersigned, respectfully petition: first, that you exercise your power as Commander-in-Chief, to rule that the United States shall not resort to the use of atomic bombs in this war unless the terms which will be imposed upon Japan have been made public in detail and Japan knowing these terms has refused to surrender; second, that in such an event the question whether or not to use atomic bombs be decided by you in the light of the consideration presented in this petition as well as all the other moral responsibilities which are involved.