In the spirit of "writing across the curriculum" I reckon it is important
for students to learn how to write an interoffice memo. It helps to see
some examples of the sort of memo that real-world physicists and engineers
are called upon to write.
Let's temporarily pretend we don't know the historic relevance of this
memo. Not every memo goes down in history. Instead, let's look at the
structure. Every memo should be properly structured.
This memo says:
-- What's going on.
-- Why it is a big problem. Potential downside.
-- What has heretofore been tried, and why that has not sufficed.
-- What needs to be done instead.
-- The author is going through channels, not jumping over his supervisor's
head. Indeed the supervisor co-signed the memo.
This is IMHO a very well-structured memo.
Including now the meaning as well as the structure: This is what scientific
integrity and responsibility look like. If you write a memo like this, you
go down in history as the guy who did the right thing.