Description
First edition of Men and Decisions by Secretary Lewis L. Strauss, inscribed to James Franck, winner of the 1925 Nobel Prize in Physics and Director of Chemistry for the Manhattan Project.
Octavo, viii, [4], 468pp. Gray cloth, title stamped in gilt and black on spine. The first printing, with “First Edition” statement on the copyright page. Light dust along top edge of text block, internally clean. Note on the front pastedown in a different hand. In the publisher’s dust jacket, $6.95 retail price on front flap, light shelf wear, small chip at head of the spine, a bright, near fine example.
Inscribed on the front free endpaper to James Franck, using a nickname: “For ‘Eggie’ Franck / who shares my memoires of half a century – these nostalgic recollections / with the best wishes of his friend / Lewis L. Strauss / Brandy Station / 20 July ’62.”
James Franck (1882-1964) was a German-born physicist and winner of the 1925 Nobel Prize in Physics, who emigrated to the United States after leaving Nazi Germany. During World War II, Franck worked on the Manhattan Project at the University of Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory. In 1945 he chaired the committee that produced the Franck Report, a memorandum urging that the atomic bomb not be used against Japan without prior warning and recommending instead a demonstration of the weapon before international observers. After the war, Franck continued to urge restraint and international control of atomic energy, often at odds with Strauss, who served as the leader of the Atomic Energy Commission.
