GENIUS IN THE SHADOWS

Well-known names such as Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and Edward Teller are usually those that surround the creation of the atom bomb. One name that is rarely mentioned is Leo Szilard, known in scientific circles as the “father of the atom bomb.” The man who first developed the idea of harnessing energy from nuclear chain reactions, he is curiously buried with barely a trace in the history of this well-known and controversial topic.

Born in Hungary and educated in Berlin, he escaped Hitler’s Germany in 1933 and in that first year developed his concept of nuclear chain reactions. In order to prevent Nazi scientists from stealing his ideas, he kept his theories secret, until he and Albert Einstein pressed the US government to research atomic reactions and designed the first nuclear reactor. Though he started his career out lobbying for civilian control of atomic energy, he concluded it with founding, in 1962, the first political action committee for arms control, the Council for a Livable World. Szilard also studied biology and sparked ideas that won others the Nobel Prize. William Lanouette has written about atomic energy and arms control for more than two decades. Publications he has written for include the Atlantic, the Economist, New York Magazine, and the Washington Post. He holds a BA in English from Fordham Univer- sity and an MSc and a PhD in politics (comparative government) from the London School of Economics. He lives in Washington, DC. Bela Silard is Leo Szilard’s brother. He changed his name as an immigrant to the United States in 1938. In helping with with this republication of GENIUS IN THE SHADOWS (first published in 1992 by Scribner), he translated his parents’ memoirs, compiled family records and photographs, and drafted recollections. Now retired from electrical engineering, he lives in Pleasantville, New York, with his wife.