ড. শিলার্ড বর্তমানে যে ধরনের কাজ করছেন সেখানকার গোপনীয়তা রক্ষার শর্তাবলীর জন্য তিনি তাঁর কাজের বিশদ আমাকে জানাতে পারেন না। যাইহোক, তার কথাবার্তা থেকে আমার মনে হয়েছে, আপনার ক্যাবিনেটের নীতি নির্ধারণ সংস্থা এবং বিজ্ঞানের এই বিশেষ বিষয়ের ওপর যারা কাজ করছেন সেই সমস্ত বৈজ্ঞানিকদের মধ্যে একটা যোগাযোগের একটা বড় ধরনের ট্র্যাক থেকে যাচ্ছে। এই অবস্থাতে আমার মনে হয়েছে ড. শিলার্ড-কে সরাসরি আপনার সঙ্গে পরিচিত করিয়ে দেওয়া উচিত। এবং আমি নিশ্চিতভাবে আশা ব্যক্ত করতে পারি আপনি তার প্রস্তাবনাতে আপনার নিজস্ব মনসংযোগ দিতে পারবেন।
আপনার বিশ্বস্ত
(এ. আইনস্টাইন)
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পরিশিষ্ট জ
হিরোশিমা ধ্বংসের সংবাদ জানিয়ে প্রেসিডেন্ট ট্রুম্যানের জয়োল্লাস—
বিশ্বশান্তির এই নাকি প্রথম পদক্ষেপ!!
White House Press Release Announcing the Bombing of Hiroshima, August 6, 1945
THE WHITE HOUSE
Washington, D.C.
STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
Sixteen hours ago an American airplace dropped one bomb on Hiroshima and destroyed its usefulness to the enemy. That bomb has more power than 20,000 tons of TNT. It had more that two thousand times the blast power of the British “Grand Slam” which is the largest bomb every yet used in the history of warfare.
The Japanese began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor. They have been repaid many fold. And the end is not yet. With this bomb we have now added a new and revoluntionary increase in destruction to supplement the growing power of our armed forces. In their present form these bombs are now in production and even more powerful forms are in development.
It is an atomic bomb. It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East.
Before 1939, it was the accepted belief of scientists that it was theoretically possible to release atomic energy. But no one knew any practical method of doing it. By 1942, however, we knew that the Germans were working feverishly to find a way to add atomic energy to the other engines of was with which they hoped to enslave the world. But they failed. We may be grateful to Providence that the Germans got the V-l’s and V-2’s late and in limited quantities and even more grateful that did not get the atomic bomb at all.
The battle of the laboratories held fateful risks for us as well as the battles of the air, land, and sea, and we have now won the battle of the laboratories as we have now the other battles.
Beginning in 1940, before Pearl Harbor, scientific knowledge useful in was pooled between the United States and Great Britain, and many priceless helps to our victories have come from that arrangement. Under that general policy the research on the atomic bomb was begun. With American and British scientists working together we entered the race of discovery against the Germans.
The United States had available the large number of scientists of distinction in the many needed areas of knowledge. It has the tremendous industrial and financial resources necessary for the project and they could be deveoted to it without under impairment of other vital was work. In the United States the laboratory work and the production plants, on which a substantial start had already been made, would be out of reach of enemy bombing, while at that time Britain was exposed to constant air attack and was still threatened with the possibility of invasion. For these reasons Prime Minister Churchill and President Roosevelt agreed that it was wise to carry on the project here. We now have two great plants and may lessar works devoted to the production of atomic power. Employment during peak construction numbered 125,000 and over 65,000 individuals are even now engaged in operating the plants. Many have worked there for two and a half years. Few know that they have been producing. They see great quantities of material going in and they see nothing coming out of these plants, for the physical size of the explosive charge is exceedingly amall. We have spent two billion dollars on the greatest scientific gamble in history–and won.
