Margaret Gowing: 'Britain and Atomic Energy 1939-1945', Lond...

Hammer

£200

Margaret Gowing: 'Britain and Atomic Energy 1939-1945', London, Macmillan & Co, 1964, 1st edition, the personal copy of Sir Henry Hallett Dale (1875-1968), Nobel Laureate and President of the Royal Society, signed & inscribed to him by the author to verso of half title "Sir Henry Dale, in gratitude and admiration, Margaret Gowing, September 1964", with Dale's ownership signature to front pastedown, and additionally loosely inserted are Dale's copy letters to Winston Churchill and Churchill's scientific adviser, Lord Cherwell, 11th May 1944, concerned with setting up a meeting between Churchill and Niels Bohr, which is referenced in pages 346-366 of the book. Niels Bohr was on a par with Einstein as a theoretical physicist, and after the discovery of nuclear fission in 1938, Bohr was acutely aware of the theoretical possibility of making an atomic bomb, though he considered the practical difficulties so prohibitive as to prevent the realization of a bomb until well after WW2 could be expected to end. In September 1943 word reached Bohr that he was about to be arrested by the Germans, and he fled Denmark to Sweden. From there, he was flown to Britain, where he joined the British Tube Alloys nuclear weapons project, and was part of the British mission to the Manhattan Project. Taking part for several weeks at a time in the work in Los Alamos, New Mexico, to develop the atomic bomb, he made significant technical contributions, notably to the design of the so-called initiator for the plutonium bomb. His most-important role, however, was to serve, in J. Robert Oppenheimer’s words, “as a scientific father confessor to the younger men.” Bohr became convinced that the existence of the bomb would “not only seem to necessitate but should also, due to the urgency of mutual confidence, facilitate a new approach to the problems of international relationship.” The first step toward avoiding a postwar nuclear arms race would be to inform the ally in the war, the Soviet Union, of the project. He was conscious of the likelihood of tension between Russia and the Western Allies after the war, but he believed the atomic bomb was something so big that it could be the means of promoting confidence and co-operation between nations. Furthermore, Bohr believed it would be disastrous if Russia should learn on her own about the bomb, and knowing the competence of the Russian physicists Bohr felt certain, like many leading scientists when they considered the point, that the margin of time before the Russians were able to construct a bomb themselves would be very small. In this backdrop of deep concern with the unique situation with which an atomic bomb would confront the world, Bohr was desperately anxious to meet Churchill and receive any suggestion from him on the subject. Sir Henry Dale was the President of the Royal Society and a member of the Tube Alloys Consultative Council. He was an old friend of Bohr's and during his visit to England Bohr had told Dale about his hopes and fears, these conversations taking place in the most secret place the men could think of, on iron park chairs in the middle of the biggest expanse of grass in Hyde Park. Dale was also greatly concerned with the deeper implications of the bomb and he wrote to the Prime Minister begging him to see Bohr on the question of international control. After outlining Bohr's credentials, Dale concludes his letter to Churchill "...It is my serious belief that it may be in your power even in the next six months to take decisions which will determine the future course of human history. It is in that belief that I dare to ask you, even now, to give Professor Bohr the opportunity of brief access to you". Bohr was unable to convince Churchill of his viewpoint, however, instead being suspected by Churchill of spying for the Russians, and came away from the meeting greatly disappointed at the way the world was apparently governed, with small points exercising a quite irrational influence. After the war, Bohr persisted in his mission for what he called an “open world” between nations, continuing his confidential contact with statesmen and writing an open letter to the United Nations in 1950. Original cloth gilt, dust wrapper (with 55s net price still intact). Together with a printed book of words of remembrance for Henry Hallett Dale by Lord Alexander Todd, in English & German, published Heidelberg, Verlag Lambert Schneider, 1968/69, original wraps. Provenance - from the estate of Lord Alexander R. Todd (1907-1997), British biochemist who who also became a Nobel Laureate and PResident of the Royal Society, and married Dale's daughter, a distinguished Scientist in her own right (2)