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The first atomic bomb heralded the dawn of a troubling new era.
In a single stroke, the Japanese city of Hiroshima and some 70,000 men,
women, and children were annihilated.
In the years since, that momentous event has come under increasing scrutiny.
Was the bomb a price worth paying for pea--
The physicists who participated in forging the most formidable
and dangerous weapon of all time
are harassed by an equal feeling of responsibility,
not to say guilt.
Dr. Albert Einstein, one of the world's greatest scientists.
A scientific giant who sometimes generated political controversy,
as well as brilliant equations.
Called the father of the atomic age,
Einstein's great contribution to human knowledge
was his theory of relativity.
The key to the atom secrets was first given to the world when the genius,
Albert Einstein, defined the relation between all matter and energy.
E is equal to MC squared.
Had I known
that the Germans would not succeed in producing an atomic bomb,
I would not have taken part in opening that Pandora's box.
Hail to victory!
Order! Motion under the ten-minute rule,
bill to promote and extend opportunities of citizenship for Jews
resident outside the British Empire.
- Commander Locker-Lampson. - Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I am not personally a Jew,
but I hope that I do not require to be a Jew
to hate tyranny anywhere in the world.
Germany has selected the cream of her culture
and suppressed it.
She has even turned upon her most glorious citizen.
Einstein.
The road hog and racketeer of Europe have plundered his place.
They've even taken away his violin.
Today, Einstein is without a home.
He had to write his name in a visitor's book in England.
And when he came to write his address, he put...
"Without any."
Here we are, Professor.
Welcome to Roughton Heath.
Isn't it wonderful?
Let's get you settled in, eh?
I know it's rudimentary for a man of your importance
but, under your current circumstances...
I believe that a simple and unassuming life
is best for body and mind.
Couldn't agree more.
What I like best is a tent on a heath,
plain viands, a glass of beer,
and the sweet communion of... friends.
For you.
To replace the one the Hun stole from you.
I'll let you unpack in peace.
The present state of affairs in Germany
is a state of psychic distemper in the masses.
Hitler picked up human flotsam on the streets and in the taverns
and organized them around himself.
The worst outcrop of herd life,
the military system, which I abhor.
German fascism has been particularly violent
in its attack upon my Jewish brothers.
BE CAREFUL. JEWS.
I AM THE BIGGEST PIG IN TOWN
Our friends in Germany need not do anything to protect me.
In fact, such action would needlessly endanger them.
I cannot tell you yet, whether I shall make England my home.
How is he?
As you'd imagine.
Poor fellow's lost everything, his home, his money.
And now, I hear the Nazis have placed a price of 20,000 marks on his head.
I really had no idea that my head was worth all that.
I assure you, Professor.
You're perfectly safe from the long arm of fascism here.
Uh, may I introduce Barbara Goodall.
Hello, Professor.
And Margery Howard.
Hello, Professor.
Delighted.
These ladies are your bodyguards.
If any unauthorized person comes near, believe me, Professor...
They will most certainly get a charge or two of buckshot.
Sorry, Professor, I know you're not one for bearing arms,
but really we can't be too careful.
Hope you understand?
Marvelous.
Keep a close eye out, ladies. I'm relying on you both.
A precious possession in this world, however,
is one’s own people
and we want to lead
and fight for these people.
And never flag, never tire, never despair.
As long as I have any choice in the matter...
...I shall live only in a country where civil liberty,
tolerance, and equality of all citizens before the law prevail.
These conditions do not exist in Germany at the present time.
This breeding ground of disease will soon pose a grave danger
for the rest of the world.
We have one aim,
and we will follow it fanatically and ruthlessly to the grave.
Hail to victory!
To stay in Germany
would have been impossible for me as a pacifist.
I'm not only a pacifist, but a militant pacifist.
I am willing to fight for peace.
My great friend has invited me here.
I can live quietly, working out my mathematical problems.
All I want is peace,
and could I have found a more peaceful retreat
than here in England?
No one will know where I am.
Indeed not!
Shall we get some pictures?
The Observer diary, 17th September 1933.
England is not a very good place to hide in.
Dr. Einstein, who has come here to escape Nazi persecution,
finds his wooden hut photographed in the papers
with full indications of locality,
and Cromer Council considers the question of presenting an address.
Germany, I suppose, is presumed to be looking the other way.
When did you start thinking about time and space and all those things, Professor?
Ah!
As a child of four or five,
my father showed me a compass.
This experience made a deep and lasting impression on me.
That this needle behaved in such a determined way.
Something deeply hidden had to be behind things.
When I was four or five,
I couldn't tie my own shoelaces.
The most beautiful thing we can experience
is the mysterious.
I can still remember my first childish experiments in thinking
that had a direct bearing on the theory of relativity.
What if one were to run after a ray of light?
If one were to run fast enough,
would it no longer move at all?
Of course, such a thing is impossible.
- Your teachers must have loved you.
"You'll never amount to anything, Einstein."
"You're an extremely clever boy, but you have one great fault."
"You'll never let yourself be told anything."
"Your mere presence spoils the respect in the class for me."
The teachers had the characters of drill sergeants.
Mistrust of every kind of authority grew.
An attitude that has never again left me.
It is only men who are free,
who create the inventions and intellectual works,
which make life worthwhile.
Out yonder there was this huge world,
which stands before us like a great, eternal riddle.
I became convinced that nature could be understood
as a relatively simple mathematical structure.
A storm broke loose in my mind.
Einstein's great theory of relativity.
Two towers flash signals at the same time
to a balloonist and to a man on the ground.
The observer on the ground says the signals were given from both towers
at the same time.
Light rays from both towers are the same length.
But the motion of the balloonist means one signal takes more time to reach him
and he insists that one tower signaled before the other.
My solution actually had to do with the concept of time.
Two observers moving at different speeds
experience time at different rates.
Time cannot be absolutely defined.
Time is relative. It stretches and shrinks.
Or, in our Earth language, an hour for us
may be a century on another planet,
and vice versa.
There is no audible ticktock everywhere in the world.
Past, present, and future is only an illusion.
But one more consequence also occurred to me.
According to the theory of relativity,
there is no essential distinction between mass and energy.
Energy is put equal to mass
multiplied by the square of the velocity of light.
So, a very small amount of mass
may be converted into a very large amount of energy.
Kind fate allowed me to find a couple of nice ideas
after years of feverish labor.
Mr. Einstein.
Einstein! Einstein! Einstein!
Professor Einstein. Professor.
Professor Einstein.
Times of London.
Um, you have caused a revolution in science,
and Newtonian ideas are overthrown.
New York Times. Our headline today,
"Lights all askew in the heavens!"
"Men of science more or less agog!"
"Einstein's theory triumphs!" How do you feel?
My faculties have been quite overrated.
Professor, could you possibly explain your theory to the man,
or possibly the woman, in the street?
An hour sitting with a pretty girl on a park bench passes like a minute,
but a minute sitting on a hot stove seems like an hour.
That's relativity.
Very funny. Very funny indeed.
Like the man in the fairy tale who turned everything into gold,
so with me,
everything is turned into newspaper clamor.
To punish me for my contempt of authority,
fate made me an authority myself.
It turned out that the inertia of a system
necessarily depends on its energy content,
and this led straight to the notion that inert mass is simply latent energy.
Mass and energy are both different manifestations of the same thing.
So, a small amount of mass
may be converted into a very large amount of energy.
Sorry, Professor, but are you saying it could be possible
to, well, somehow release that energy?
Science in its present state makes it appear almost impossible
that we should ever succeed in so doing.
It would be like, uh, shooting birds in the dark
in a country where there are very few birds.
Still, energy released on that scale sounds... rather worrying.
Concern for man himself and his fate must always be the chief objective,
in order that the creations of our minds
should be a blessing and not a curse to mankind.
Stand down, ladies!
I'm expecting someone. Friend, not foe.
I think you'll very much enjoy meeting this gentleman, Professor.
Been spending some more time chatting with the professor, Margery?
- Oh, listening mainly.
He's been explaining the finer points of his theory of relativity to us.
And?
And I'm quite certain that he understands it.
Epstein.
No, no. Einstein.
Professor, this is Jacob Epstein. The sculptor.
Oh!
Professor, I'm very interested in your head.
I understand you're none too popular in Germany, Professor.
I read recently that 100 Nazi professors have condemned your theories as incorrect.
Were I wrong, one professor would have been quite enough.
I thought I was a physicist.
I did not bother being a non-Aryan
until Hitler made me conscious of it.
Only those of German blood,
whatever their creed, may be members of the Nation.
All non-German immigration must be prevented.
No Jew may be a member of the Nation.
Leaders of the party promise to work ruthlessly,
if need be, to sacrifice their very life to translate this program into action.
At present, every coachman and every waiter is debating
whether relativity theory is correct.
Here is yet another application of the principle of relativity
for the delectation of the reader.
Today, you are described in Germany as a "German savant,"
and in England as a "Swiss Jew."
Should it ever be my fate to be represented as a bête noire,
I should, on the contrary, become a "Swiss Jew" for the Germans
and the "German savant" for the English.
"This event has been organized
by the 'Working Society of German Scientists
for the Preservation of Pure Science.'"
Their conviction is determined
by the political party to which they belong.
"First speaker, Paul Weyland."
Our theme this evening,
to protect the German people from being misled
by highly acclaimed scientists,
who set the scientifically-interested world
in disarray with half-baked opinions.
He doesn't seem to be an expert at all.
Doctor? Engineer? Politician?
We present observations on Einstein's theory of relativity
and the manner of its introduction.
Rarely in science
has a postulated scientific system
been promoted as extravagantly as the general principle of relativity,
which at a closer glance,
is revealed to be severely lacking in proof.
Einstein engages in a businesslike booming of his theory and his name.
In short,
Einstein's theory of relativity is nothing less than scientific Dadaism.
It is the product of an intellectually-confused time,
and plagiarized to boot.
It is, in fact, a hoax
promoted by the clique of his academic supporters.
All of this is a consequence of the intellectual
and moral decay of German society,
which is being exploited and promoted
by a certain press.
My answer to the Anti-Relativity Theory Company Limited.
I have reason to believe
that motives other than the striving for truth
are at the bottom of this enterprise.
Were I a German nationalist,
whether bearing a swastika or not,
rather than a Jew of liberal international bent...
I am neither a German citizen
nor do I believe in a Jewish faith.
But I am a Jew,
and I am glad to belong to the Jewish people.
Professor,
do you think you might put out your pipe?
I would rather view the individual
in a fog and semi-darkness than in the light.
It's just I can barely see you through the smoke.
Gentlemen. Shall we?
Someone to see you, Professor.
Walter Adams.
I think you should listen to what he has to say.
Uh, Professor, I'm here in my role as secretary
of the Academic Assistance Council.
We formed earlier this year with the explicit intention
of helping displaced academics who might need to flee Germany
in light of the, um... current appalling circumstances
for Jews there.
I have been promoted to an evil monster in Germany,
and all my money has been taken away from me.
Yes, I'm so sorry.
Professor, we're organizing an event in support of academic refugees
and, uh... well, we wonder whether you would agree to speak?
Mr. Adams,
if I were to appear in public
as a prosecutor of the German government,
it would have terrifying consequences for the German Jews.
Yes, perhaps.
But the circumstances are already terrifying for them
even without your intervention.
Professor, you are the most renowned physicist of the age.
Your voice would echo around the world and help to reveal the scale
of the Jewish academic purge in Germany.
I assure you, it will only be a modest meeting
where a small number of well-known people will speak.
Would you at least consider it?
Few Germans were alert to the threat that Hitler and the Nazis posed.
A failed coup attempt did little to dispel their image
as a tin pot army of political no-hopers.
Yet, in the wake of World War I,
Hitler courted the many disillusioned team of soldiers
to swell the party's ranks and set him on the road to power.
Humanity is suffering in Germany.
The present wave of nationalism is a severe sickness.
It takes but the slightest provocation,
or at times no provocation at all,
to be transformed into chauvinism.
My feelings for Rathenau were ones of thanks
for the hope and consolation he gave me during Europe's presently bleak situation.
He was the first victim of Nazi propaganda.
Professor, just a few questions.
Professor, there are rumors you are not returning to Germany.
In view of the attitude that large numbers of educated Germans have towards Jews,
I have been warned against making any kind of public appearances in Germany.
For I am supposedly among the group of people
being targeted by nationalist assassins.
But you deny you are fleeing Germany?
I am going to Japan because that means 12 weeks of peace on the open sea.
I am glad to just disappear for six months.
The voyage is wonderful,
even though Japan is quite exhausting.
Here, I have already given 13 lectures
and been photographed for the 10,000th time.
No living person deserves this sort of reception.
An enthralling walk along the coast.
In the afternoon, a tour to the peak of the mountain.
In Berlin and throughout Germany,
people are suffering from hunger,
an absence of the bare necessities of life.
Unemployment and mounting inflation
are bringing the country to the edge of ruin.
Money means almost nothing.
300 billion marks for a half-pound of apples,
and the mark's value continues to fall
lower and lower.
The middle class is wiped out.
The Reichsbank works overtime printing more and more paper money
that buys less and less.
The Nazi ranks now begin to swell,
aimless, jobless young men fed on promises of power and gold.
The Berlin adherents of the Nazi party
spent yesterday at Nuremberg
and formed part of a body of 12,000, mostly Bavarians,
who paraded before the famous Hitler.
The globe-trotting Professor Einstein arrives back
in New York to be met by a mob of reporters.
The greatest scientist of Germany
in the greatest city of the world.
I'm delighted.
The reporters asked exquisitely inane questions,
to which I replied with cheap jokes.
What do you think of prohibition, Professor?
I don’t drink, so I couldn’t care less.
Germany and election day,
Herr Hitler stuns the world as his vote soars.
Now, 6 million of his countrymen back the Nazis,
making them the second-largest party in the Reichstag.
Is there no stopping the self-styled Führer's onward march?
Professor Einstein suddenly became grave
and almost vehement when asked about the Nazi party's recent election success.
"I do not enjoy Mr. Hitler's acquaintance," he said.
"Hitler is living on the empty stomach of Germany."
"As soon as economic conditions in Germany improve,
he will cease to be important."
Beyond this statement, Dr. Einstein would not discuss politics.
The struggle between the people
and the hatred amongst them
is being nurtured by very specific interested parties.
It is a small, rootless, international clique
that is turning people against each other.
They are the only ones who can really be regarded as international elements
because they conduct their business everywhere.
Einstein!
Mere words do not get pacifists anywhere.
They must initiate action.
Deeds are needed.
Even if only 2% of those supposed to perform military service
should declare themselves war resisters and assert,
"We are not going to fight,"
the governments would be powerless.
More than one million Jews throughout the United States
will join protest meetings today against the persecution of Jews
in Germany by the Hitler government.
Brownshirts are marching in triumph,
for Adolf Hitler rules Germany at last.
Great crowds assembled when the announcement came
that Hitler had accepted command.
What now,
for 50 million Germans give allegiance to the Hitler flag,
the famous swastika.
On this evening, I call on our people
every hour
of every day
to think only of Germany, the Reich,
and our German nation,
our German people.
Hail to victory!
In Pasadena,
Mr. and Mrs. Albert Einstein bid friends farewell.
The professor has spent the best part of a decade
darting between his homeland and the rest of the world.
But the Germany he's returning to this time
is a far cry from the one he left.
Now, Herr Hitler reigns supreme.
Germany was a land of devilry by night.
That in which you did not believe must be destroyed.
And in the burning,
liberty, tolerance, and gentleness
vanished from the land.
German men and women.
The age of an exaggerated Jewish intellectualism
has now come to an end.
The Einsteins' transatlantic voyage is rudely interrupted
with the news that their summer home has been raided.
My summer home has often in the past
been honored by the presence of guests.
They were always welcome.
No one had any reason to break in.
These acts are the result of a rabid mob of the Nazi militia.
I think it is quite possible that the political circus at home
will go on for some time,
and that I will not return.
What is the real attitude of the new German dictator?
Is it Hitler's plan to continue to maintain Germany
under his National Socialist rule,
or does he plan to restore a semblance of the former monarchy
with himself as the power behind the throne?
Whatever Hitler's plans may be,
it is certain that in his scheme of things,
no one but himself will be allowed to play the principal role.
There is Professor's picture.
"Was greatly honored by the Jewish press
and the unsuspecting German people."
"Showed his gratitude
by lying atrocity propaganda against Adolf Hitler."
And below that, it says...
It says...
It says--
"Not yet hanged."
When I was young,
all I wanted from life was to sit quietly in a corner somewhere,
doing my work without the public paying attention to me.
Now look what has become of me.
I'm so very sorry, Professor.
I cannot understand the passive response of the whole civilized world
to this modern barbarism.
Doesn't the world see that Hitler is aiming for war?
It would seem not.
This must be difficult for you.
I mean, as a committed pacifist.
Yes, but I have little need to tell you that I am an unconditional anti-fascist.
The entire German population is being poisoned with nationalism
and drilled for war.
I loathe all armies.
And any kind of violence.
Yet, I am firmly convinced that in the present state of the world,
organized force can be opposed only by organized force.
There is no other way.
No other way.
The world is in greater peril from those who tolerate or encourage evil
than from those who actually commit it.
Silence would have made me feel guilty of complicity.
Einstein will speak. Stop.
Forget the "modest meeting."
You want to raise money to help the German Jews, don't you?
Stop.
Leave the venue to me. Stop.
I've already booked a bigger hall.
You have?
The biggest.
Locker-Lampson. Stop.
To Walter Adams. Urgent delivery.
October 2nd, 1933.
Daily Mail editorial. London.
There is due to take place at the Albert Hall a mass meeting,
nominally to appeal for funds on behalf of the exiles from Germany.
Actually, it will everywhere be regarded
as a demonstration against the Hitler regime.
And Nazi policy.
We have every sympathy with the German Jews as such,
but their treatment will not be improved...
GERMANS, DON'T BUY IN JEWISH SHOPS
...by Albert Hall denunciations of Nazis.
We venture to put it to Dr. Einstein
that he would be wise to stop this injudicious agitation
in this country against the Nazi regime.
The first thing is my gratitude
as a man...
as a good European...
as a Jew.
I've just spoken to Mr. Adams.
Every ticket has been sold.
Ten thousand people.
You've got the speech prepared?
Proud of you.
The car's ready. Ready when you are.
Ladies and gentlemen, Professor Einstein.
"I am glad you have given me the opportunity--
an opportunity--"
"I am glad you have given me the opportunity...
...of expressing to you here
my deep sense of gratitude as a man,
as a good European,
and as a Jew."
"It cannot be my task
to sit in judgment over the conduct of a nation
which for many years counted me among its citizens."
"It is perhaps futile
even to try to evaluate its policies at a time
when it is so necessary to act."
"The crucial questions today are
how can we save mankind
and its cultural heritage?"
"How can we guard Europe
from further disaster?"
"Discontent breeds hatred."
"And hatred leads to acts of violence,
revolution,
and even war."
"Thus, we see how distress
and evil beget new distress and evil."
"If we are to resist the powers that threaten
intellectual and individual freedom,
we must be very conscious of the fact that freedom itself is at stake."
"We must realize how much we owe to that freedom
which our forefathers won through bitter struggle."
"Without such freedom,
there would have been no Shakespeare,
no Goethe,
no Newton,
no Faraday,
no Pasteur,
and no Lister."
Should we merely lament the fact
that we live in a time of tension, danger, and want?
I think not.
Only when subjected to peril and social upheaval,
do nations feel induced to adopt progressive measures.
One can only hope that the present crisis will lead to a better world.
One can only hope
that the present crisis will lead to a better world.
The Institute will be located in Princeton
and will begin in the fall of 1933, the School of Mathematics
headed by Professor Einstein.
I found Princeton lovely.
A wondrous little spot.
I consider that we are extraordinarily fortunate
in being able to begin with a man like Professor Einstein,
who is one of the ranking scientists of all time.
Into this small university town,
the chaotic voices of human strife barely penetrate.
I am almost ashamed to be living in such a place
whilst all the rest struggle and suffer.
Hitler continues to arm,
while suppressing the rights of all whose ideas do not agree with his.
Jews, Catholics, liberals, Protestants,
and women who, under his regime, have been reduced to medieval slavery,
all stand aghast as the threat of war again appears.
When asked why I have given up my position in Germany,
I made this statement.
As long as I have any choice,
I will only stay in a country
where political liberty, toleration, and equality is the rule.
I do feel that in America,
the most valuable thing in life is possible.
The development of the individual and his creative power.
The night of the broken glass.
Two hundred synagogues and 7,500 shops are put to the torch.
Ninety Jews are murdered, hundreds injured,
thousands demeaned and spat upon.
BE CAREFUL, JEWS
26,000 Jewish men are arrested and sent to concentration camps.
The visible destruction matches the violence
that has been done Germany's 250,000 remaining Jews.
And never flag, never tire, never despair...
Desperate and destitute,
they are pushed to the edge of existence.
Long live the German people...
Germany has turned down
a dark and sinister path
from which there is no return.
Scientists at George Washington University
heard a report of startling significance.
Word has just come through from Germany
that uranium atom, under neutron bombardment,
actually splits into two parts.
To the scientists,
this dramatic news brought a great sense of urgency.
A very small amount of mass
may be converted into a very large amount of energy.
Military intelligence fear
that Hitler may have already taken the first steps toward an atomic bomb.
Energy released on that scale sounds... rather worrying.
Science in its present state makes it appear almost impossible
that we should ever succeed in so doing.
Conscious of the disaster, which would inevitably follow
if Nazi Germany should be the first to succeed in releasing atomic energy,
Dr. Einstein decided to write a personal letter to the president
and stressed the urgent need for action by the US government.
Sir,
some recent work, which has been communicated to me,
leads me to expect that the element uranium
may be turned into a new and important source of energy.
This new phenomena would also lead to the construction of bombs,
extremely powerful bombs of a new type.
In view of this situation,
you may think it desirable to speed up the experimental work,
which is at present being carried on.
Yours, very truly, A. Einstein.
Organized force can be opposed only by organized force.
Nazi troops have invaded Poland
by land and by air in undeclared war.
Hitler's war machine sweeps through Europe,
conquering the old enemy France.
We shall break up and derange every effort which Hitler makes.
We shall strive to resist him by land and sea.
He will find no peace, no rest, no parley.
Mr. Churchill may be convinced
that Great Britain will win.
I doubt not for a second that Germany will be the victor.
With the fall of Belgium,
her stockpiles of the nuclear material uranium
are seized by the Nazis.
Pearl Harbor,
our great Pacific outpost in the Hawaiian islands,
is ruthlessly bombed as Japan's perfidious declaration of war.
No matter how long it may take us,
the American people in their righteous might
will win through to absolute victory.
E is equal MC squared.
The basic formula that unlocked the secrets of the atom.
It is important that we be vividly aware
of the mass murders which the Germans have committed
against the civilian populations of the occupied countries.
The Germans are intent everywhere
on exterminating those which represent a nation's independent spirit.
In Norway,
Allied Forces deliver a devastating blow to the Nazi nuclear program.
A series of raids on a hydroelectric power plant
cuts off their source to vital chemical supplies.
D-Day. Over 150,000 troops, carried by more than 5,000 vessels.
The largest amphibious invasion in history.
The tide of the war is turning on Germany.
Allied Forces recover a cache of secret Nazi files
that show that their atomic weapon program
has failed.
As the Allies advance deeper into the European mainland,
the true horror of Hitler's plan is revealed.
Pictorial evidence of the almost unprecedented crimes
perpetrated by the Nazis at the Buchenwald concentration camp.
These bones were men, women, and children
sent to be exterminated.
The crime of the Germans is truly the most abominable ever
to be recorded in the history of so-called civilized nations.
In the official report,
the Buchenwald Camp is termed an extermination factory.
They elected Hitler
after he made his shameful intentions clear
beyond the possibility of misunderstanding.
Hail to victory!
Since they massacred my Jewish brethren,
I will have nothing further to do with Germans.
April 1945.
The Soviet Army launches its final assault on Hitler's forces,
encircling Berlin and closing in on the Führer's bunker.
Hopelessly defeated, Hitler takes his own life
with a single gunshot to the head.
The war in Europe is won,
but US-led forces continue their search for a decisive end
to the war with Japan.
- Five, four, three, two, one.
After years of scientific endeavor,
the Manhattan Project has delivered an atomic bomb.
Alamogordo in the New Mexico desert.
The first atomic test.
It's a terrifying prelude to the onslaught that awaits
the unsuspecting citizens of Hiroshima.
Height approximately 32,000 feet.
Course, 265 degrees magnetic. Air speed, 250 knots.
Am approaching target area.
Cloud cover less than three-tens at all altitudes.
Immediate target area clear.
A short time ago,
an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima.
What has been done is the greatest achievement
of organized science in history.
The first atomic bomb heralded the dawn of a troubling new era.
In a single stroke,
the Japanese city of Hiroshima and some 70,000 men, women, and children
were annihilated.
In the years since,
that momentous event has come under increasing scrutiny.
Was the bomb a price worth paying for peace?
My dear Professor.
At present, the Japanese people are keenly conscious
of their own responsibility for the last war.
And are showing sincere repentance for their crime.
Recently, years since the termination of the war,
the Japanese people have come for the first time
face-to-face with the annihilating effects
of an atomic bomb.
And now, we ask you, Professor Einstein,
why science,
whose primary aim is but to serve the welfare and happiness of mankind,
should have been instrumental in producing such horrible results?
I do not consider myself the father of the release of atomic energy.
My part in it was quite indirect.
In view of the fact that you played an important role
in the production of the atomic bombs?
My sole contribution was that in 1905,
I established the relationship between mass and energy.
I believed only that atomic energy was theoretically possible.
I did not, in fact, foresee that atomic energy
would be released in my time.
I made one great mistake in my life.
When I signed that letter to President Roosevelt.
The likelihood that the Germans were working on the same problem
with every prospect of success forced me to take this step.
Had I known that the Germans would not succeed
in producing an atomic bomb,
I would not have taken part in opening that Pandora's box.
I never would have lifted a finger.
Before the raid on Hiroshima,
leading physicists urged the War Department
not to use the bomb against defenseless women and children.
Had we shown other nations the test explosion of New Mexico,
we could have used it to make proposals for world order.
To end war.
The physicists who participated in forging
the most formidable and dangerous weapon of all time
are harassed by an equal feeling of responsibility,
not to say guilt.
We delivered this weapon into the hands of the Americans and the British people
as trustees of the whole mankind,
as fighters for peace and liberty.
But so far,
we fail to see any guarantee of peace
or the freedoms that were promised to the nations.
The situation calls for a courageous effort.
For a radical change in our whole attitude
in the entire political concept.
Otherwise,
human civilization will be doomed.
The war is won.
The peace is not.
President Truman's dramatic announcement
that Russia has created an atomic explosion
sends reporters racing for Flushing Meadow,
where Russia's Vyshinsky arrives to address the United Nations.
Mr. Vyshinsky, have you got any statement...
- Please, excuse me. - Does Russia have the atomic bomb?
A crack, a blast.
The release of deadly radioactive rain.
And in a matter of seconds, downtown New York would be a massive ruin.
Our country is at war.
A war declared against us by the rulers of international communism.
This constitutes the greatest crisis
in the history of America.
There are signs that the Kremlin is already intensifying
its use of another weapon.
Communist propaganda.
We are in the midst of a continuing struggle
for the minds of men.
The German calamity of years ago repeats itself.
People act fierce without resistance
and align themselves with the forces of evil.
How long should we tolerate politicians
hungry for power or trying to gain political advantage in such a way?
It is strange that science, which in the old days seemed harmless,
should have evolved into a nightmare that causes everyone to tremble.
One thing I have learned in a long life
is that all our science measured against reality is childlike.
And yet, it is the most precious thing we have.
Science is not, and never will be, a closed book.
Every important advance brings new questions.
But the years of anxious searching in the dark
and the final emergence into the light,
only those who have experienced it can understand.
We must not condemn man
because his conquest of the forces of nature
are being exploited for destructive purposes.
Rather, the fate of mankind
hinges entirely upon man's moral development.
Dear posterity,
if you have not become more just
or peaceful and generally more rational
than we are or were,
then may the devil take you.
I am, or was,
your Albert Einstein.