Dr. Lyman J. Briggs, Director of the Bureau of Standards, was placed in charge of this Advisory Committee on Uranium. Dr. Briggs, who had entered the Government serv-

IN THE DRAMA OF THE EINSTEIN LETTER ice in 1896 as a soil scientist, convened the committee on Saturday morning, Oct. 21. Two military representatives were present, Lieut. Col. Keith F. Adamson of the Army and Comdr. Gilbert C. Hoover of the Navy. Szilard, Teller and Wigner attended along with several other scientists. The physicists wanted money to buy graphite for Fermi's experiments on the chain reaction. They mentioned a sum of $6,000. One scientist pointed out that if a single kilogram of uranium were fully fissioned, it would be the equivalent of 20,000 tons of TNT.

COLONEL ADAMSON, an ordnance man, was definitely not impressed. He commented that he had once been outside an ordnance depot when it blew up and that “it didn’t even knock me down.” He then gave the committee a lecture on how wars are won by men and morale, not by weapons. This tried the patience of Dr. Wigner and he retorted: “Perhaps, it would be better if we did away with the War Department and spread the mili- tary funds among the civilian population. That would raise a lot of morale.” Adamson backed down: “Well, we do have money for this purpose.” Thus the atomic project was launched. Looking back at these early days of the embryonic atomic era, it is easy to see with the clarity of hindsight that things could have been speeded up considerably in the 1939-42 period. For example, the first official action of the Government to’ok place on Oct. 21, 1939. with a go‐ahead for $6,000 for the uranium research. This figure seems so pitifully small compared with the $2 billion that was spent of the whole A‐project that it might seem the initial action was meaningless.

AFTER Oct. 21, events were sometimes stalled for months as decisions were delayed and deferred. During this period Szilard became so perturbed that he complained bitterly about lack of progress. Secrecy around the atomic research became so tight that he was moved to protest. After the war he tes- tified before Congress that over a year's time had been wasted in the A‐project. Wigner concedes that the United States could have had the Abomb much sooner.

On the other hand, the atomic scientists looked rather narrowly at their own specialty. Men like Vannevar Bush and James Conant, who master‐minded the United States wartime research program, had to consider a host of other projects and allocate critical manpower to them. They could not in their own minds be sure that the bomb would work, and if it did not, then effort would have been wasted that could have produced or accelerated radar, proximity fuse bombs and missiles.

Had the A‐project produced its progeny in 1944 rather than in 1945, President Roosevelt would have had to decide whether or not the A‐bomb would be used against Germany. Actually, it became clear in the winter of 1944-45 that the bomb would not be used against Germany; it wouldn’t be ready in time.

Harry S. Truman learned about the A‐bomb shortly after Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945. Truman made the decision to use the bomb against Japan. Scientists working within the secret A‐project, especially men like Szilard. raised strenuous objections to such use of the weapon. They had been racing against time to beat Germany to the bomb. There was no danger of Japan making one.