A one-page letter from renowned Jewish physicist Albert Einstein, offering his "most thorough and direct statement" regarding his involvement in the atomic bomb's development, is slated for auction on June 24 by global auctioneer Bonhams and is expected to fetch between $100,000 and $150,000, JNS reported on Thursday.
The handwritten-signed letter clarifies Einstein's limited role, explicitly refuting a deeper association with the bomb's creation despite widespread linkage since 1945. Bonhams states that Einstein "clearly refutes that association while acknowledging the letter he sent to Roosevelt, explaining he had no other choice."
In the letter, Einstein refers to his 1939 correspondence with then-US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, noting that using "uranium made it probable that large amounts of power could be produced by a chain reaction and that, by harnessing this power, the construction of ‘extremely powerful bombs’ was conceivable,” according to the US Department of Energy.
The letter being offered by Bonhams belongs to the heirs of Herbert Jehle, a physicist and editor of the Society for Social Responsibility in Science newsletter, where an English translation of a prior Einstein statement on the matter was first published.
“My participation in the production of the atom bomb consisted in a single act,” Einstein wrote in the letter. “I signed a letter to President Roosevelt.”
He continued, “I was well aware of the dreadful danger for all mankind if these experiments would succeed. But the probability that the Germans might work on that very problem with good chance of success prompted me to take that step. I did not see any other way out, although I always was a convinced pacifist.”
Reflecting on his pacifist convictions, Einstein added, “To kill in war time, it seems to me, is in no ways better than common murder.” However, he acknowledged the grim reality of international relations: “as long, however, as nations are not ready to abolish war by common action and to solve their conflicts in a peaceful way on a legal basis, they feel compelled to prepare for war.”
Letters and other items associated with the famed Jewish scientist have been auctioned in recent years.
In June of 2017, Winners sold letters written by Einstein about God, Israel and physics for nearly $210,000, with the highest bid going to a missive about God's creation of the world.
In June of 2018, a letter co-written by Einstein and his wife on the day he renounced his German citizenship, after realizing he could not return due to the rise of the Nazis, was sold at an auction in Los Angeles.
In December that year, a handwritten letter by Einstein on religion, his Jewish identity and his search for meaning in life was sold at an auction for nearly $3 million.
In 2019, a handwritten letter by Einstein expressing fictitious support for anti-Semitic policies enacted by Austria went on the auction block.
A year later, a violin once owned by the legendary physicist sold for $516,500 at the New York-based Bonhams auction house.
In 2021, Einstein's handwritten notes for the theory of relativity fetched a record 11.6 million euros at an auction in Paris.