One of the most important letters by physicist Albert Einstein, in which he warned then-U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt about the possible development of the atomic bomb, was sold at auction for $3.9 million.
This is stated on the website of the Christie’s auction house.
Einstein wrote this letter to Roosevelt on August 2, 1939, a month before the Third Reich started World War II. In it, the physicist warned the 32nd president of the United States that Adolf Hitler wanted to build a nuclear bomb.
The physicist urged the US government to do the same. And after the letter, Roosevelt formed a committee, the precursor to the Robert Oppenheimer-led Manhattan Project, which created the bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. This ended World War II and ushered in the nuclear age.
Christie’s notes that Einstein dictated the letter in German to his student and assistant Leo Szilard, who then translated it into English.
The original letter is kept at the Roosevelt Library and Museum in Hyde Park, New York. But Szilard kept the second version of the letter, which is a bit shorter, throughout his life, and it was this version that was sold at auction.