MEREDITH, N.H. — Interest in the late scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer has expanded after the Oscars this weekend into a historic signed report and letter.
RR Auction in Boston is taking bids on the rare 1945 report, as well as a letter to a journalist signed by “Opie” that describes the atomic bomb as a “weapon for aggressors.” On Saturday, bids for the report were $35,000, while the letter was almost $5,000. The auction ends on Wednesday.
The film “Oppenheimer” is a favorite to win best picture and a host of other honors at the Academy Awards on Sunday, after winning many other awards in the run-up. The film, directed and produced by Christopher Nolan, is the most successful biopic in history. after raking in nearly $1 billion at the box office.
The report details the bomb’s development and was signed by Oppenheimer and 23 other scientists and administrators involved in the Manhattan Project, including Enrico Fermi, Ernest Lawrence, James Chadwick and Harold Urey.
RR Auction said the roughly 200-page report was written prior to the testing of the first bomb at the Trinity Site in New Mexico and was released to the news media days after the 1945 attacks on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The report was called the “Smyth Report” after author Henry Smyth. The full title is ‘Atomic Bombs: A General Account of the Development of Methods of Use Atomic Energy for Military Purposes Under the Auspices of the United States Government, 1940-1945’.
Also up for auction is a one-page letter signed by “Opie” to Stephen White of Look magazine. Oppenheimer comments on a draft article White sent him detailing Russia’s growing stockpile of nuclear weapons.
Oppenheimer tells White to “print it” and refers him to a previously written quote saying that the delivery methods and strategy for the bomb may differ if it is ever used again.
“But it is a weapon for aggressors, and the elements of surprise and terror are as inherent to it as its fissile cores,” Oppenheimer writes.