JOHN MOYNAHAN & COMPANY, INC.           Public Relations
155 EAST 44TH STREET, NEW YORK, N. Y. 10017,
MURRAY HILL 7-2545 CABLE: MOYNAJON
                                        September 29, 1965
 
Miss Elizabeth B. Drewry, Director
Franklin D. Roosevelt Library
Hyde Park, New York
 
Dear Miss Drewry:
 
Thank you very much for your September 24 letter and the copies of four more letters on nuclear
fission. We have carefully noted your statement that literary rights are limited to President
Roosevelt's letters and Professor Einstein's 1939 letter to him.
 
You and Mr. Nixon have been so helpful to us that we should like to do something for you. In his
September 9 letter to us, Mr. Nixon said it was not clear whether Leo Szilard's undated
memorandum was an enclosure to Einstein's letter or to Sachs's letter. Our researches have
revealed the following information, verified by Atomic Energy Commission history on this
subject:
 
The Einstein letter dated August 2, 1939, emerged from conferences between Alexander Sachs
and Leo Szilard. Einstein signed it at their request. Sachs asked Szilard to write an accompanying
memorandum explaining more fully the underlying science of nuclear fission and stressing chain
reaction. Sachs was to deliver both documents to President Roosevelt in an interview with him.
President Roosevelt became very preoccupied with the international crisis and was busy trying to
win repeal of the arms embargo from a reluctant Congress. Therefore Sachs waited for a more
propitious time to see him, and arranged an appointment for October 11. He wrote his October 11
letter, placed it with the Einstein letter and the Szilard memorandum to form a dossier, and went
to the White House.. At the beginning of the interview, Sachs read his own October 11 letter as
President Roosevelt listened, then delivered all three documents to him. As the interview came to
a close, President Roosevelt called in his aide, "Pa" Watson, and said, "This requires action."
 
Therefore the three documents, taken together, may be characterized as a unit
-- the dossler which set in motion the machinery which produced The Bomb.
 
 
                         Very Sincerely yours,
                         /s/ Howard Walls