Einstein’s Nuclear Warning Letter to President Roosevelt to Auction with $4m – $6m Estimate

An unsent version of the 1939 letter from Albert Einstein to President Franklin Roosevelt warning that Germany could be assembling nuclear weaponry comes to auction on September 10 at Christie's.

Einstein wrote in his short note that "Recent work in nuclear physics made it probable that uranium may be turned into a new and important source of energy... for the construction of extremely powerful bombs." Einstein encouraged the US government to do similar work on nuclear fission.

"This has been described as one of the most influential letters in history," said Peter Klarnet, Senior Specialist for Americana, Books and Manuscripts at Christie’s. 

The signed but unsent version of Einstein’s letter will be offered at Christie’s in New York as part of Pushing Boundaries: Ingenuity from the Paul G. Allen Collection - the other longer version delivered to the President is held in the permanent collection of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library at Hyde Park, New York.

Einstein dictated the letter in German to his former student, the Hungarian-born physicist Leo Szilard who had already patented the idea of nuclear chain reaction and understood its military potential. Szilard translated it into English and then produced two typed versions of slightly different lengths which he then sent to Einstein for his approval. The one going under the hammer at Christie's includes the note in pencil by Szilard at the top "Original, not sent!".

Ironically, the pacifist Einstein came to regret the influence his letter came to have on the development of the American Manhattan Project nuclear bomb program and became an advocate for nuclear disarmament.