Sachs, Alexander

Sachs, Alexander. 1945. Early history atomic project in relation to President Roosevelt, 1939-40. Unpublished MS. MED 319.7, National Archives. 

Alexander Hamilton Produced and directed by Muffie Meyer co-produced and written by Ronald Blumer co-produced and edited by Sharon Sachs and Eric Seuel Davies. 

A message from Gustav Stolper awaited Szilard at the King s Crown. He reported to me, Szilard wrote Einstein on July 19, that he had discussed our problems with Dr. Alexander Sachs, a vice-president of the Lehman Corporation, biologist and national economist, and that Dr. Sachs wanted to talk to me about this matter. Eagerly Szilard arranged an appointment. 

Alexander Sachs intended to read aloud to the President when he met with him. He believed busy people saw so much paper they tended to dismiss the printed word. Our social system is such, he told a Senate committee... 

But Alexander Sachs did indeed travel to Washington, not that week but the next, and on Wednesday, October 11, presented himself, probably in the late afternoon, at the White House. Roosevelt s aide. General Edwin M Watson, Pa to Roosevelt and his intimates, sitting with his own executive secretary and military aide, reviewed Sachs agenda. When he was convinced that the information was worth the President s time, Watson let Sachs into the Oval OlRce. 

If each necessary step requires ten months of deliberation, Leo Szilard had complained to Alexander Sachs in 1940, then obviously it will... 

Gustav Stolper LS implies in ibid., p. 84, that he first contacted Stolper after his first visit to Long Island. His letter to Einstein of July 19, 1939 (p. 90), however, makes it clear that he talked to Stolper before his first visit but that Stolper did not connect him to Alexander Sachs until after that visit. In 1945 (Heilman [1945], p. 70) Sachs implied that he had been in touch with Einstein, Wigner and Szilard before this introduction. The contemporary record cited here indicates otherwise. 

Alexander Sachs cf. Heilman (1945). Sachs book title appears on the cover page of Notes on imminence world war in perspective accrued errors and cultural crisis of the inter-war decades, March 10, 1939, MED 319.7. 

Economist Alexander Sachs had car ried the Einstein letter of warning to Roo sevelt he pushed the conservative Brigg committee without success for anothe year. 

Alexander Sachs discusses Einstein s letter with President Roosevelt. Roosevelt decides to act and appoints Lyman J. Briggs head of the Advisory Committee on Uranium. 

Soon a fourth scientist was invited into the discussion—the Hungarian-born physicist Edward Teller, whose work had also focused on fission. Later the four scientists met with Alexander Sachs, a Russian-born economist who was a friend of President Roosevelt. They decided that Einstein would draft a letter to Roosevelt alerting the president of the danger, and Sachs would deliver it. 

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