Einstein’s letter warning FDR about threat of Nazi nuclear bomb may sell for $4 million

A letter written by Albert Einstein in 1939 to then-United States President Franklin D Roosevelt warning that Nazi Germany might harness nuclear research to invent an atomic bomb, which encouraged the US to develop the world’s first nuclear bombs, is going up for auction.

Auction to be held in September

The two-page message co-authored by Einstein was sent to FDR warning him about the progress that Nazi Germany was making in nuclear research which the country could potentially use to make “extremely powerful bombs”.

The US president, spooked by the information, formed a committee which served as a precursor to the J Robert Oppenheimer-headed Manhattan Project which eventually led to the creation and first-ever use of atomic weapons, against Japan, in 1945, during World War II.

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The pivotal letter dated August 2, 1939, is now going up for sale at Christie’s auctioneers in September and is estimated to fetch as much as $4 million.

The letter is being sold as a part of the Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s estate who died in 2018 at the age of 65.

About the letter

The letter was written by the renowned physicist along with a fellow scientist, Leo Szilard, in a cabin in Long Island, New York.

Notably, Einstein’s original letter to FDR is being kept at the Franklin D Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, New York.

However, the physicist also wrote and signed a second, slightly shorter version of the letter which was held on to by Szilard for safekeeping and that is the one that will be up for auction in the upcoming months.

The two-page typed letter, as per the Wall Street Journal, starts bluntly and states, “Sir: Recent work in nuclear physics made it probable that uranium may be turned into a new and important source of energy.”

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The letter could reportedly attract quality bidders amid concerns about a three-way nuclear race between the US, China, and Russia and the success of the Oscar-winning Oppenheimer biopic, which was released last year.

Marc Porter, chairman of Christie’s Americas, told the WSJ that the Microsoft co-founder “undoubtedly knew it was one of the most important documents in the history of the 20th century, and that’s not the kind of thing you just hang in your office.”

(With inputs from agencies)