Szilárd petition

Leó Szilárd.

The Szilárd petition, drafted by scientist Leo Szilard, was signed by 70 scientists working on the Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and the Metallurgical Laboratory in Chicago, Illinois. It was circulated in July 1945 and asked President Harry S. Truman to consider an observed demonstration of the power of the atomic bomb first, before using it against people. However, the petition never made it through the chain of command to President Truman. It also was not declassified and made public until 1961.

Later, in 1946, Szilard jointly with Albert Einstein, created the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists that counted among its board, Linus Pauling (Nobel Peace Prize in 1962).

Petition excerpt

[W]e, 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 considerations presented in this petition as well as all the other moral responsibilities which are involved.^[1]

Reaction

In the spring of 1945, Szilard took the petition to the man who was soon to be named Secretary of State, James F. Byrnes, hoping to find someone who would pass on to President Truman the message from scientists that the bomb should not be used on a civilian population in Japan, and that after the war it should be put under international control in order to avoid a post-war arms race. Byrnes was not sympathetic to the idea at all. Szilard regretted that such a man was so influential in politics, and he appeared to also be despondent at having become a physicist, because in his career he had contributed to the creation of the bomb. After the meeting with Byrnes, he is quoted as having said, "How much better off the world might be had I been born in America and become influential in American politics, and had Byrnes been born in Hungary and studied physics."^[2] In reaction to the petition, General Leslie Groves, the director of the Manhattan Project, sought evidence of unlawful behavior against Szilard.^[3] Most of the signers lost their jobs in weapons work.

Signatories

The 70 signers at the Manhattan Project's Metallurgical Laboratory in Chicago, in alphabetical order, with their positions, were:^[1]

1. David S. Anthony, Associate Chemist
2. Larned B. Asprey, Junior Chemist, S.E.D.
3. Walter Bartky, Assistant Director
4. Austin M. Brues, Director, Biology Division
5. Mary Burke, Research Assistant
6. Albert Cahn, Jr., Junior Physicist
7. George R. Carlson, Research Assistant-Physics
8. Kenneth Stewart Cole, Principal Bio-Physicist
9. Ethaline Hartge Cortelyou, Junior Chemist
10. John Crawford, Physicist
11. Mary M. Dailey, Research Assistant
12. Miriam Posner Finkel, Associate Biologist
13. Frank G. Foote, Metallurgist
14. Horace Owen France, Associate Biologist
15. Mark S. Fred, Research Associate-Chemistry
16. Sherman Fried, Chemist
17. Francis Lee Friedman, Physicist
18. Melvin S. Friedman, Associate Chemist
19. Mildred C. Ginsberg, Computer
20. Norman Goldstein, Junior Physicist
21. Sheffield Gordon, Associate Chemist
22. Walter J. Grundhauser, Research Assistant
23. Charles W. Hagen, Research Assistant
24. David B. Hall, position not identified
25. David L. Hill, Associate Physicist, Argonne
26. John Perry Howe, Jr., Associate Division Director, Chemistry
27. Earl K. Hyde, Associate Chemist
28. Jasper B. Jeffries, Junior Physicist, Junior Chemist
29. William Karush, Associate Physicist
30. Truman P. Kohman, Chemist-Research
31. Herbert E. Kubitschek, Junior Physicist
32. Alexander Langsdorf, Jr., Research Associate
33. Ralph E. Lapp, Assistant To Division Director
34. Lawrence B. Magnusson, Junior Chemist
35. Robert Joseph Maurer, Physicist
36. Norman Frederick Modine, Research Assistant
37. George S. Monk, Physicist
38. Robert James Moon, Physicist
39. Marietta Catherine Moore, Technician
40. Robert Sanderson Mulliken, Coordinator of Information
41. J. J. Nickson, [Medical Doctor, Biology Division]
42. William Penrod Norris, Associate Biochemist
43. Paul Radell O'Connor, Junior Chemist
44. Leo Arthur Ohlinger, Senior Engineer
45. Alfred Pfanstiehl, Junior Physicist
46. Robert Leroy Platzman, Chemist
47. C. Ladd Prosser, Biologist
48. Robert Lamburn Purbrick, Junior Physicist
49. Wilfred Rall, Research Assistant-Physics
50. Margaret H. Rand, Research Assistant, Health Section
51. William Rubinson, Chemist
52. B. Roswell Russell, position not identified
53. George Alan Sacher, Associate Biologist
54. Francis R. Shonka, Physicist
55. Eric L. Simmons, Associate Biologist, Health Group
56. John A. Simpson, Jr., Physicist
57. Ellis P. Steinberg, Junior Chemist
58. D. C. Stewart, S/Sgt S.E.D.
59. George Svihla, position not identified [Health Group]
60. Marguerite N. Swift, Associate Physiologist, Health Group
61. Leo Szilard, Chief Physicist
62. Ralph E. Telford, position not identified
63. Joseph D. Teresi, Associate Chemist
64. Albert Wattenberg, Physicist
65. Katharine Way, Research Assistant
66. Edgar Francis Westrum, Jr., Chemist
67. Eugene Paul Wigner, Physicist
68. Ernest J. Wilkins, Jr., Associate Physicist
69. Hoylande Young, Senior Chemist
70. William Houlder Zachariasen, Consultant

See also

• Einstein–Szilárd letter

References

1. "A Petition to the President of the United States". Atomic Bomb: Decision, section of Leo Szilard Online.
2. Goodman, Roger (director) (1995). Hiroshima: Why the Bomb Was Dropped. ABC News. 00:28:00~00:31:00.
3. "Groves Seeks Evidence Against Szilard, July 4, 1945". Atomic Bomb: Decision, section of Leo Szilard Online.

External links

• Full text of the petition.
• "The Scientists' Petition:" A Forgotten Wartime Protest
• Howard Gest, "The July 1945 Szilard Petition on the Atomic Bomb: Memoir by a signer in Oak Ridge"