Franck Report

The Franck Report of June 1945, named for James Franck, spoke about the impossibility to keep the U.S. atomic discoveries secret indefinitely. It predicted a nuclear arms race, forcing the United States to develop nuclear armaments at such a pace that no other nation would think of attacking first from fear of overwhelming retaliation.

It recommended not to use the nuclear bomb on Japan, and proposed that either a demonstration of the "new weapon" be made before the eyes of representatives of all of the United Nations, on a barren island or desert, or to try to keep the existence of the nuclear bomb secret for as long as possible.

In the first case, the international community would be warned of the dangers and encouraged to develop an effective international control on such weapons.In the later case, the United States would gain several years time to further develop their nuclear armament, before other countries would start their own production.

Signers of the Franck Report:
James Franck (Chairman), Donald J. Hughes, J. J. Nickson, Eugene Rabinowitch, Glenn T. Seaborg, J. C. Stearns, Leo Szilard

External links

* Four online postings of the Franck Report text
** [http://www.fas.org/sgp/eprint/franck.html Federation of American Scientists]
** [http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/ethics/issues/scientific/franck-report.htm Nuclearfiles.org]
** [http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/ManhattanProject/FranckReport.shtml Atomicarchive.com]
** [http://www.dannen.com/decision/franck.html Dannen.com]
* [http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=jf05schollmeyer "Minority Report"] by Josh Schollmeyer, "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists", January/February 2005 (vol. 61, no. 1), pp. 38-39.
* [http://www.bio.indiana.edu/~gest/HGSzilard.html Howard Gest, "The July 1945 Szilard Petition on the Atomic Bomb: Memoir by a signer in Oak Ridge"]