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33 Bancroft Road Wellesley Hills, Mass. July 1, 1947

JUL 2 RECD

Dr. Harold C. Urey Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists 90 Nassau Street Princeton, N.J.

Dear Mr. Urey:

The AP report of your warning in today's papers moves me to write you again, this time to speak very plainly but not, I hope offensively.

Time is indeed short, perhaps even too late for the efforts of your group as well as of other groups which, all interested in peace, have lost effective unity through diversity.

When I first heard of your Committee, I wrote you an expression of my interest in and approval of your efforts, and I sent a very modest contribution. It was suggested that I write to Dr. Feld at M.I.T., and I did so per copy of letter enclosed, but have had no reply.

As early as October, 1945, I felt so strongly on the subject of the scientists' responsibility for world order that I wrote Drs. Compton and Conant a letter of which a copy went to you. I am taking liberty of enclosing another copy of that letter, not because I am infatuated with its words, but because I feel as strongly about its substance as I did when I wrote it. I must say, however, that my enthusiasm for the scientific mind has diminished since then because it has failed, like most other minds, to achieve "philosophical attitudes to match technological progress". You had the opportunity for unified leadership toward a peaceful world, and I think the peoples of the world would have followed you gladly. But in the drift of two years, the old leadership has taken over: the leadership of politics, business, military attitudes, and the press which have failed again and again to build and maintain world order. (I speak bluntly but the criticism applies also to myself for I have similarly failed in my small niche to have accomplished anything.)

The scientific age needs scientific leadership. Perhaps it is not too late. My purpose is only to urge again that the scientists try on an international plane to achieve and express for their respective people leadership for peace. Specifically, I suggest that scientific leaders in all countries unite in a simple statement to the world that survival depends now on peace, demanding of their political leaders cessation of power politics, insisting upon constructive internationalism, and calling upon their people to support such endeavors. Only by some such dramatic action carefully publicized and persistently followed up can the present trend be