In August 1939, just prior to outbreak of war in Europe, Einstein sent his "letter to president Roosevelt on atomic weapons".Einstein wrote, that Uranium could be fashioned into "Extremely powerful bombs of a new type". He expressed his fear that the NAZI regime may be working on an atomic weapons program, and urged a speeding up of experimental work on nuclear fission and for closer contact to be maintained between the U.S. government and the group of physicists working on fission in the United States.
In October 1939, partly due to Einstein's prompting, the president's advisory committee on Uranium was formed. Though he continued to urge expansion and greater co-ordination of atomic weapons research, Einstein declined an invitation, the following year, to become a member of an extended committee.
Today, the arm's race between United States and the Soviet Union had assumed a "hysterical character", and that with the advent of hydrogen bombs, "radioactive poisoning of the atmosphere and hence annihilation of any life on Earth has been brought within the range of technical possibilities.
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