By Nick Perry -
The Associated Press
Interest in the late scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer has gone beyond the Oscars this weekend, which are being held tonight, turning public attention towards a curious report and a rare letter signed by the physicist.
The 1945 report and a letter signed by Opie
describing the nuclear bomb as a “weapon for aggressors”
are up for sale at RR Auction in Boston .
As of Saturday,
the leaks for the report had exceeded $35,000
, while the letter was close to $5,000.
The auction ends Wednesday.
[A Prince demo with unreleased songs from 1976 goes up for auction]
The
Oppenheimer
film is one of the favorites to win the best picture award and other awards at the Academy Awards on Sunday, after winning many others at different festivals and competitions.
Directed and produced by Christopher Nolan, the film is the most successful biographical film in history, after grossing almost $1 billion at the box office.
Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer at the Institute for Advanced Study, December 15, 1957, in Princeton, New Jersey.
John Rooney / AP
The report detailed the development of the bomb and is signed by Oppenheimer
and 23 other scientists and administrators who participated in the Manhattan Project, including Enrico Fermi, Ernest Lawrence, James Chadwick and Harold Urey.
RR Auction said the report, about 200 pages long, was written before the bomb test at the Trinity Site in New Mexico and was broadcast to the media several days after the 1945 attacks on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. .
Also up for auction is a one-page typewritten letter signed by
Opie
and addressed to Stephen White from Look magazine in 1952. Oppenheimer commented on a draft of an article White sent him, which detailed Russia's growing nuclear weapons arsenal.
Oppenheimer told White
he should “print it” and referred him to an earlier written quote
in which he said the bomb's delivery methods and strategy could differ if it were used again.
“But it is a weapon for aggressors, and the elements of surprise and terror are as intrinsic to it as fissile nuclei,” Oppenheimer wrote.