For an Open World

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsNiels BohrProfessor Niels Bohr, the creator of the quantum theory of atomic structure, is a revered teacher of a generation of theoretical physicists, including many of those who played a leading part in the development of the atomic bomb. For many years, his Institute at Copenhagen has been the gathering place of physicists from all over the world. In 1943, he was brought over from German-occupied Denmark to help in the American atomic bomb project. As he reveals now, he had at that time not only given scientific advice, but had also been one of the first—if not the first—to present to the American political leadership an analysis of the political implications of the release of atomic energy. In his conversations with President Roosevelt, and memoranda which he directed to the President on July 3, 1944, and March 25, 1945, he outlined the international problems of control which the discovery of atomic energy is bound to raise, and has emphasized the impossibility of solving them except on the basis of whole-hearted cooperation and open exchange of ideas and information between all nations. These presentations had preceded the analogous but politically more concrete memoranda by Dr. Szilard in March 1945, and by the “Franck Committee” in June 1945, which have been previously reprinted in the Bulletin.1Dr. Bohr has made no public statements on the political implications of atomic energy since 1945. If he now feels himself impelled to memoiralize to the United Nations on the necessity of returning to the prewar system of free exchange of ideas and information between nations, his argumentation commands attention, despite the momentarily unfavorable world-political climate. His central idea is that restoration of openness in the flow of ideas and information should be attempted as the first (and, he hopes, decisive) step toward the re-establishment of international cooperation, rather than postponed until after the settlement of world-political controversies.