روز اول

A VISIT TO THE PRESIDENT

In the winter of 1941, Enrico Fermi and a number of other distinguished scientists importuned President Franklin Roosevelt for authorization to begin an all-out effort in atomic energy research. The scientists were alarmed by incontrovertible evidence of surreptitious German experiments, and they asked for speedy approval. Italianborn Enrico Fermi was the ideal man to lead the atomic research. Already in 1938 he had won the Nobel Prize for work with radioactive elements and neutron bombardment.

Fermi had found a haven from the Fascists (his wife was Jewish) and he knew that if the Germans were the first to develop an atomic bomb it would mean that Hitler could subjugate the entire world. The international race for atomic supremacy was on.