Niels Bohr’s Political Crusade during World War II

Abstract

Niels Bohr’s “Open Letter to the United Nations”, published in 1950 and pleading for an “open world” between nations, is well known. It is also well known that Bohr took part in the Manhattan Project during World War II. This article describes in some detail how Bohr’s idea of an open world not only matured during his war-time exile, but even constituted the basis for a veritable crusade on Bohr’s part in the course of the war to convince statesmen of the necessity to think differently in the post nuclear-bomb era. How and why did Bohr come to these ideas? Why were they so important to him? How did his crusade relate to his simultaneous participation in the Manhattan project? What means did he use during wartime to convince the statesmen? How successful were his efforts? A treatment of these specific questions is intended to serve as background for a discussion of what general lessons, if any, can be drawn on the basis of Bohr’s crusade with regard to the political role of the scientist, particularly in a war situation.

Article Footnote

The article is based on Finn Aaserud,“The scientist and the statesmen: Niels Bohr’s political crusade during world war II,” Historical studies in the physical and biological sciences 30 (1,1999), 1-47, as well as Aaserud’s editorship of Volume 11 of the Niels Bohr Collected Works, tentatively titled Political Activities and Occasional Writings and scheduled for publication by Elsevier in 2004.