Albert Einstein's Letter to President Roosevelt 1939

       

 

                           

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This letter dated August 2, 1939, was personally delivered to the President on October 11, 1939 by Alexander Sachs, a longtime economic adviser to FDR.  

Albert Einstein was acquainted with the Roosevelts and was internationally recognized for his expertise when wrote this letter telling the President about the dangers of a nuclear chain reaction bomb.

After reading the letter, President Roosevelt told his military adviser General Edwin M. Watson, “This requires action.” This later evolved into the "Manhattan Project".

Source: http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/archives/pdfs/docsworldwar.pdf

Press Release: Executive Order 9066

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February 20, 1942. This press release contains the text of Executive Order 9066  which was issued on the day after Roosevelt signed the order. 

Source: http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/archives/pdfs/internment.pdf

Senator Kilgore's Letter to President Roosevelt 2/19/1942

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February 19, 1942.  Letter from Sen. Harley Kilgore, Democrat, member of the powerful Senate Committee on Military Affairs.  Tells of the political pressure with the issue of Japanese-Americans on the West Coast.

The letter was received by the White House the day after Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066.

Source: http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/archives/pdfs/internment.pdf

Attorney General's Memo to the President (Roosevelt) 2/17/1942

February 17, 1942.  Memorandum from Attorney General Biddle to President Roosevelt was Biddle’s last, best attempt to steer the President away from the massive, immediate evacuation and internment of Japanese-Americans being proposed by the military.
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In this memo, Biddle clearly tries to limit the Justice Department’s involvement in relocating American citizens, while at the same time warning Roosevelt not to bend to pressure from Congress and from the public outcry being created by outspoken columnists Walter Lippmann and Westbrook Pegler. Lipmmann had recently written that “Nobody’s constitutional rights include the right to reside and do business on a battlefield”, and in a widely read column, Pegler had declared “The Japanese in California should be under armed guard to the last man and woman right now, and to hell with habeus corpus until the danger is over.”

Source: 

http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/archives/pdfs/internment.pdf

Grace Tully, FDR's private secretary

 February 2, 1942 Memorandum to the President’s private secretary Grace Tully from Assistant to the Attorney General James H. Rowe, Jr.  This memo warns the President of the growing public pressure and the constitutional issues involved.

[Click on the memo 2 times  to ENLARGE.]
Source:http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/archives/pdfs/internment.pdf