80 years ago yesterday, Albert Einstein signed a letter written by him and Leo Szilard to FDR recommending that the US government pay more attention to new developments in atomic energy.pic.twitter.com/fAyfQT3sb4
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I would just note that US gov't propaganda since 1945 has pushed the importance of Einstein, even including copies of the letter with the Smyth Report. The argument, I think, is pretty clear: if Einstein (a pacifist and genius) was supportive of the A-bomb, who could disagree?
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Einstein himself was happy to take up that sense of importance and responsibility, to push his own political agenda — which included (ironically? maybe not) the abolition of nuclear weapons. http://umich.edu/~pugwash/Manifesto.html …
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There’s also a powerful narrative about outsiders prodding the gov’t to imaginative action, which was powerful in UK too, leading to some big wastes of resources. My favorite:https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/operation-habbakuk-at-patricia-lake …
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British science adviser Henry Tizard self-consciously opposed that kind of thinking and not coincidentally was pessimistic about the usefulness of fission to he war.
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