Paul Allen is widely known as the co-founder of Microsoft alongside his childhood friend Bill Gates. In the auction world, he is remembered for his collection of artworks that have set the record as the most expensive private collection ever brought to sale. In 2022 the combined sale of his estate’s art sold for over US$1.6 billion. This year his collection of science-related memorabilia goes on sale at Christie’s.
With the closure of Allen’s Living Computers: Museum + Labs in 2020, his collection of scientific and technological memorabilia goes on sale. This includes a Gemini spacesuit, an Enigma machine, some of the earliest Xerox and IBM computers, and the headlining lot: a letter from Albert Einstein to President Franklin D. Roosevelt on the American pursuit of nuclear power.
Written in the summer of 1939, this unsent version of the letter co-written between Einstein and physicist Leo Szilard pressed FDR to engage in nuclear research as Europe teetered towards war. It warned of tension and competition with Germany and was instrumental in what would become the Manhattan Project. It will be auctioned on 10 September and is estimated between US$ 4,000,000 - 6,000,000.
Albert Einstien (1879-1955) & Leo Szilard (1898-1964)⏐A typed letter signed, “A. Einstein to President FDR⏐Typewriter bond paper
Written Circa Summer of 1939⏐Posted circa 2 August 1939
Dimensions: 1.5 pages, 4to (10 7/8 x 8.5)
Provenance (researched by The Value):
- Leo S. Szilard (1898-1964)
- Gertrude Weiss Szilard, wife of the preceding
- A relative of the above
- Anonymous owner (sale, Christie's, 19 December 1986, lot 68)
- Malcolm S. Forbes
- Sale, Christie's, 27 March 2002, lot 161
- Collection of Paul G. Allen
Estimate US$4,000,000 - 6,000,0000
Auction house: Christie’s New York
Sale: Pushing Boundaries: Ingenuity from the Paul G. Allen Collection
Date: 10 September 2024
During the 1930s, there was a mass exodus of scientists from Germany. Some of these scientists, many of whom were Jewish, fled for the United States. They had raised fears about Germany and her ambitions with a key concern the scientists brought up being the potential for a German atomic program, due to their wealth of nuclear physicists.
This was only further heightened by the fact that the letter’s co-author Szilard realized how to construct a nuclear weapon and further determined the Germans were also getting close, with scientific articles coming from the country on the exploitation of nuclear energy.
Sizlard and his associates decided that Belgium needed to be warned, as the Belgian Congo has the world's largest source of uranium ore. It was only then that Einstein was approached to pen the letter, as he knew the Belgian royal family. When Szilard came to Einstein with his concern about nuclear weapons, Einstein exclaimed, “I did not even think about that.”
Einstein (left) and Szilard (right) reenact the original conversation they had for a 1946 documentary titled Atomic Power
It was decided that this warning to the Belgians wasn’t enough and that after asking associates and those close to the government, a direct letter to FDR requesting support for uranium research was necessary. Previous attempts by other scientists and concerned parties had failed to sway the president, so it was decided that again the prestigious voice of Einstein was needed.
Szilard had originally handwritten a version and sent it to Einstien for his editing and signature, a version that was riddled with grammar errors and misspellings of words. When Szilard arrived at Einstein’s Long Island home, the latter would dictate his version in German.
The letter was then taken by Szilard to his stenographer at Columbia University, Janet Coatesworth, to type it out in English. Upon being told about “powerful bombs,” Coatesworth thought she was working for a “nut.” The “Yours truly, Albert Einstein” written at the end did little to alleviate her concerns. The letter was then posted for Einstien to sign.
The house in Southold, Long Island New York where Einstein lived in the summer of 1939 and where he was approached by Sizlard to write letters to the Belgian and US governments
The official version of the Einstein-Szilard letter that was sent to FDR. It is held at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library in Hyde Park, New York State
It was around this time that two letters came into existence. The longer official letter was sent to the US government and FDR, shown above. The shorter and less detailed version that was also typed up by Coatesworth is the lot on sale with Christie's.
The key differences are on the second page, where the longer version goes into far more detail about recommendations to the US government on how to proceed with nuclear research, such as the necessary laboratory investment and purchasing of uranium ore, which America lacks.
However, the most telling part in both letters is the emphasis placed on Germany. Both letters discuss in detail the nature of German research and their hoarding of nuclear materials. With the letter dispatched in August of 1939 and the war in Europe breaking out the following month, this letter may have been one of the most vital parts in galvanizing US action towards nuclear arms development.
Albert Einstein & Leo Sizlard⏐A typed letter signed, “A. Einstein to President FDR⏐Sold by Christie’s New York for around US$2.09 million, 2002
The shorter version was held onto by Szilard since Einstien personally chose the longer version to be sent. Evidently, after Einstein signed both versions, he possibly sent them back to Szilard, who kept the version not to be sent, identifiable by the fact that on the front of the first page, Sizlard wrote “Original, not sent.”
This letter would originally stay within the Szilard family before being first sold by Christie’s in 1986. It would then end up in the hands of Michael S. Forbes, the publisher of Forbes Magazine before it was put on auction again by Christie’s in 2002. From there, it is unclear how it ended up in the hands of Paul Allen.
Paul Allen the previous owner of the unsent Einstein-Szilard letter, and co-founder of Microsoft