Question

After reviewing the digital repositories in the reading and resource section of this module, answer the questions below in 2-3 paragraphs each. To develop your responses, combine your experience deploying search terms to locate the three primary sources in this module with your own reflections on the questions posed. While reviewing these resources, think about how useful these repositories would be to you if you were a historian seeking to write a biography on the scientist Leo Szilard. As you explore each repository, try to locate the following primary sources that you might consult to write a chapter about Szilard's campaign against dropping the atomic bomb. Each primary source is located in only one of the above repositories. Regardless of whether or not you were able to find all three sources, complete all question prompts before you submit your responses. It is especially helpful for your instructor to know what search terms you did use if you weren't able to find the primary sources so that they can provide you with the feedback you need to develop effective search terms.

Answer 1

Leo Szilard drafted the petition below to the President in the summer of 1945 attempting to avert the U.S.'s use of the atomic bomb against Japan. Although the petition was signed by seventy other scientists of the Met Lab in Chicago, it was never seen by the President or the Secretary of War before the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

A PETITION TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

July 17, 1945

Discoveries of which the people of the United States are not aware may affect the welfare of this nation in the near future. The liberation of the atomic power which has been achieved places atomic bombs in the hands of the Army. It places in your hands, as Commander-in-Chief, the fateful decision whether or not to sanction the use of such bombs in the present phase of the war against Japan.

In view of the foregoing, we, the undersigned, respectfully petition: first, that you exercise your power as Commander-in-Chief, to rule that the United States shall not resort to the use of atomic bombs in this war unless the terms which will be imposed upon Japan have been made public in detail and Japan knowing these terms has refused to surrender; second, that in such an event the question whether or not to use atomic bombs be decided by you in the light of the consideration presented in this petition as well as all the other moral responsibilities which are involved.