Enola Gay: Mission to Hiroshima

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On August 2, 1939, a month before World War II began in Europe, Albert Einstein signed a letter addressed to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Couched in careful terms, the letter stated that recent nuclear research indicated “extremely powerful bombs of a new type,” based on uranium, might soon be possible. Einstein warned that secret work with uranium was going on in Nazi Germany. He urged that similar American research be accelerated.

Alexander Sachs, economist, financier, and friend of Roosevelt, agreed to deliver the letter to the president. Before he could do so, war in Europe broke out, and Roosevelt was unable to see him until mid-October. Then, after much persuasion by Sachs, Roosevelt marked Einstein’s letter for action.

The first result of the president’s decision was the expenditure of just six thousand dollars. It bought graphite, essential for one of the early experiments that would, in time, lead to the atomic bomb. Substantial funds for the specific purpose of producing such a bomb were first authorized by Roosevelt on December 6, 1941.

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