I'm writing a research paper about the societal factors that contributed to Einstein/Szilard letter to FDR + how the letter influenced the development of the Manhattan project and WWII.
I've found a ton of sources already. Most of them, however, refer to the implications of the manhattan project and not so much the factors that contributed to Einstein/Szilard letter or the factors that contributed to FDR's approval of the Manhattan project.
I was also looking or a source that discussed why the Manhattan project was necessary for the US to experience in the 1940's.
If anyone has any sources AND/OR can help me acquire information it would be greatly appreciated!
(one more thing: I still need to word a thesis based on the information I can acquire, if anyone has any idea, please post?)
Thanks so much!
On Einstein's general politics, see Fred Jerome's The Einstein File. He had complicated views on politics and war and weapons. He was a pacifist but not so much of one that he thought you could be weak in the face of someone like Hitler. He was socially and politically active.
For understanding what he and Szilard were thinking, you have to look into Szilard's own thoughts and Szilard's own personal history. Richard Rhodes' The Making of the Atomic Bomb does a good job of this. I am particularly fond of the interviews collected in Leo Szilard and Gertrud Weiss-Szilard, Leo Szilárd: His Version of the Facts: Selected Recollections and Correspondence.
Szilard was deeply affected by the rise of Nazism and his experienced in Europe. He believed that the difference between life and death was staying one step ahead. So he always endeavored to figure out where that step was.
As for social pressures, "social" can be a vague word, but if there is a social pressure, it is fear of the Nazis.
As for FDR, he is trickier. But be aware that when he approved taking action on the Einstein-Szilard letter in 1939, he did not approve the Manhattan Project. The Uranium Committee, which is what FDR approved, was not the Manhattan Project. It was a small exploratory body that could look into the possibility of whether atomic bombs were possible to build. It was not trying to actually build one, though. The decision to turn it into a project for building bombs came later, in 1942. It is a much smaller commitment to say, "OK, the government should be looking into this as a possibility" than it is to say, "OK, build an atomic bomb as soon as possible." Richard Hewlett and Oscar Anderson's The New World does a very good job of talking about how these decisions were made.