Einstein: His Life and Universe
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6. Einstein realized there was no lasting “secret” of the bomb to protect. As he said later, “America has temporary superiority in armament, but it is certain that we have no lasting secret. What nature tells one group of men, she will tell in time to any other group.” Einstein, “The Real Problem Is in the Hearts of Men,”New York Times Magazine , June 23, 1946.
7. Einstein, remarks at the Nobel Prize dinner, Hotel Astor, Dec. 10, 1945, in Einstein 1954, 115.
8. Einstein, ECAS fund-raising telegram, May 23, 1946. Material relating to this is in folder 40-11 of the Einstein archives. The history and archives of the ECAS can be found through www.aip.org/history/ead/chicago_ecas/20010108_content.html#top.
9. Einstein, ECAS letter, Jan. 22, 1947, AEA 40-606; Sayen, 213.
10. Newsweek , Mar. 10, 1947.
11. Richard Present to Einstein, Jan. 30, 1946, AEA 57-147.
12. Einstein to Dr. J. J. Nickson, May 23, 1946, AEA 57-150; Einstein to Louis B. Mayer, June 24, 1946, AEA 57-152.
13. Louis B. Mayer to Einstein, July 18, 1946, AEA 57-153; James McGuinness to Louis B. Mayer, July 16, 1946, AEA 57-154.
14. Sam Marx to Einstein, July 1, 1946, AEA 57-155; Einstein to Sam Marx, July 8, 1946, AEA 57-156; Sam Marx to Einstein, July 16, 1946, AEA 57-158.
15. Einstein to Sam Marx, July 19, 1946, AEA 57-162; Leó Szilárd telegram to Einstein, and Einstein note on reverse, July 27, 1946, AEA 57-163, 57-164.
16. Bosley Crowther, “Atomic Bomb Film Starts,”New York Times , Feb. 21, 1947.
17. William Golden to George Marshall, June 9, 1947, Foreign Relations of the U.S.; Sayen, 196.
18. Halsman’s quote from Einstein, recounted by Halsman’s widow, is in Time’s Person of the Century issue, Dec. 31, 1999, which has the portrait he took (shown on p. 487) as the cover.
19. Einstein comment on the animated antiwar film, Where Will You Hide?, May 1948, AEA 28-817.
20. Einstein interview with Alfred Werner, Liberal Judaism , Apr.–May 1949.
21. Norman Cousins, “As 1960 Sees Us,”Saturday Review , Aug. 5, 1950; Einstein to Norman Cousins, Aug. 2, 1950, AEA 49-453. (A weekly magazine is actually published one week earlier than it is dated.)
22. Einstein talk (via radio) to the Jewish Council for Russian War Relief, Oct. 25, 1942, AEA 28-571. See also, among many examples, Einstein unsent message regarding the May-Johnson Bill, Jan. 1946; in Nathan and Norden, 342; broadcast interview, July 17, 1947, in Nathan and Norden, 418.
23. “Rankin Denies Einstein A-Bomb Role,” United Press, Feb. 14, 1950.
24. Einstein to Sidney Hook, Apr. 3, 1948, AEA 58-300; Sidney Hook, “My Running Debate with Einstein,”Commentary (July 1982).
25. Einstein to Sidney Hook, May 16, 1950, AEA 59-1018.
26. “Dr. Einstein’s Mistaken Notions,” in New Times (Moscow), Nov. 1947, in Nathan and Norden, 443, and Einstein 1954, 134.
27. Einstein, Reply to the Russian Scientists, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (the publication of the Emergency Committee that he chaired), Feb. 1948, in Einstein 1954, 135; “Einstein Hits Soviet Scientists for Opposing World Government,”New York Times , Jan. 30, 1948.
28. Einstein, “Atomic War or Peace,” part 2, Atlantic Monthly , Nov. 1947.
29. Einstein to Henry Usborne, Jan. 9, 1948, AEA 58-922.
30. Einstein to James Allen, Dec. 22, 1949, AEA 57-620.
31. Otto Nathan contributed to this phenomenon with the 1960 book of excerpts he coedited from Einstein’s political writings, Einstein on Peace. Nathan, as the coexecutor with Helen Dukas of Einstein’s literary estate, had a lot of influence over what was published early on. He was a committed socialist and pacifist. His collection is valuable, but in searching through the full Einstein archives, it becomes noticeable that he tended to leave out some material in which Einstein was critical of Russia or of radical pacifism. David E. Rowe and Robert Schulmann, in their own anthology of Einstein’s political writings published in 2007, Einstein’s Political World , provide a counterbalance. They stress that Einstein “was not tempted to give up free enterprise in favor of a rigidly planned economy, least of all at the price of basic freedoms,” and they also emphasize the realistic and practical nature of Einstein’s evolution away from pure pacifism.
32. Einstein to Arthur Squires and Cuthbert Daniel, Dec. 15, 1947, AEA 58-89.
33. Einstein to Roy Kepler, Aug. 8, 1948, AEA 58-969.
34. Einstein to John Dudzik, Mar. 8, 1948, AEA 58-108. See also Einstein to A. Amery, June 12, 1950, AEA 59-95: “However much I may believe in the necessity of socialism, it will not solve the problem of international security.”
35. “Poles Issue Message by Einstein: He Reveals Quite Different Text,”New York Times , Aug. 29, 1948; Einstein to Julian Huxley, Sept. 14, 1948, AEA 58-700; Nathan and Norden, 493.
36. Einstein to A. J. Muste, Jan. 30, 1950, AEA 60- 636.
37. Today with Mrs. Roosevelt, NBC, Jan. 12, 1950, www.cine-holocaust.de/cgibin/gdq?efw00fbw002802.gd;New York Post , Feb. 13, 1950.
38. D. M. Ladd to J. Edgar Hoover, Feb. 15, 1950, and V. P. Keay to H. B. Fletcher, Feb. 13, 1950, both in Einstein’s FBI files, box 1a, foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/einstein.htm. Fred Jerome’s book The Einstein File offers an analysis. Jerome says that when making Einstein the Person of the Century, Time refrained from noting that he was a socialist: “As if the executives at Time decided to go so far but no farther, their article makes no mention of Einstein’s socialist convictions.” As the person who was the magazine’s managing editor then, I can attest that the omission may indeed have been a lapse on our part, but it was not the result of a policy decision.
39. Gen. John Weckerling to J. Edgar Hoover, July 31, 1950, Einstein FBI files, box 2a.
40. See foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/einstein.htm. Herb Romerstein and Eric Breindel in The Venona Secrets (New York: Regnery, 2000), an attack on Soviet espionage based on the “Venona” secret cables sent by Russian agents in the United States, have a section called “Duping Albert Einstein” (p. 398). It says that he was regularly willing to be listed as the “honorary chairman” of a variety of groups that were fronts for pro-Soviet agendas, but the authors say there is no evidence that he ever went to communist meetings or did anything other than lend his name to various worthy-sounding organizations, with names like “Workers International Relief,” that occasionally were part of the “front apparatus” of international Comintern leaders.
41. Marjorie Bishop,“Our Neighbors on Eighth Street,” and Maria Turbow Lampard, introduction, in Sergei Konenkov, The Uncommon Vision (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2000), 52–54, 192–195.
42. Pavel Sudoplatov, Special Tasks , updated ed. (Boston: Back Bay, 1995), appendix 8, p. 493; Jerome, 260, 283; Sotheby’s catalogue, June 26, 1988; Robin Pogrebin, “Love Letters by Einstein at Auction,”New York Times , June 1, 1998. The role of Konenkova has been confirmed by other sources.
43. Einstein to Margarita Konenkova, Nov. 27, 1945, June 1, 1946, uncatalogued.
44. Einstein, “Why Socialism?,”Monthly Review , May 1949, reprinted in Einstein 1954, 151.
45. Princeton Herald , Sept. 25, 1942, in Sayen, 219.
46. Einstein, “The Negro Question,”Pageant , Jan. 1946, in Einstein 1950a, 132.
47. Jerome, 71; Jerome and Taylor, 88–91; “Einstein Is Honored by Lincoln University,”New York Times , May 4, 1946.
48. Einstein,“To the Heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto,” 1944, in Einstein 1950a, 265.
49. Einstein to James Franck, Dec. 6, 1945, AEA 11-60; Einstein to James Franck, Dec. 30, 1945, AEA 11-64.
50. Einstein to Verlag Vieweg, Mar. 25, 1947, AEA 42-172; Einstein to Otto Hahn, Jan. 28, 1949, AEA 12-72.
51. Brian 1996, 340; Milton Wexler to Einstein, Sept. 17, 1944, AEA 55-48; Roberto Einstein (cousin) to Einstein, Nov. 27, 1944, AEA 55-49.
52. Einstein to Clara Jacobson, May 7, 1945, AEA 56-900.
53. Sayen, 219.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: LANDMARK
1. Seeli
g 1956b, 71.
2. Pais 1982, 473.
3. See Bird and Sherwin.
4. J. Robert Oppenheimer to Frank Oppenheimer, Jan. 11, 1935, in Alice Smith and Charles Weiner, eds., Robert Oppenheimer: Letters and Recollections (Cam-bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980), 190.
5. Sayen, 225; J. Robert Oppenheimer,“On Albert Einstein,”New York Review of Books , Mar. 17, 1966.
6. Jim Holt, “Time Bandits,”New Yorker , Feb. 28, 2005; Yourgrau 1999, 2005; Goldstein. Yourgrau 2005, 3, discusses the connections of incompleteness, relativity, and uncertainty to the zeitgeist. Holt’s piece explains the insights they shared.
7. Goldstein, 232 n. 8, says that, alas, various research efforts have failed to discover the precise flaw Gödel thought he had discovered.
8. Kurt Gödel, “Relativity and Idealistic Philosophy,” in Schilpp, 558.
9. Yourgrau 2005, 116.
10. Einstein, “Reply to Criticisms,” in Schilpp, 687–688.
11. Einstein to Han Muehsam, June 15, 1942, AEA 38-337.
12. Hoffmann 1972, 240.
13. Einstein 1949b, 33.
14. Einstein and Wolfgang Pauli, “Non-Existence of Regular Solutions of Relativistic Field Equations,” 1943.
15. Einstein and Valentine Bargmann, “Bivector Fields,” 1944. He is sometimes referred to as Valentin, but in America he signed his name Valentine.
16. Einstein to Erwin Schrödinger, Jan. 22, 1946, AEA 22-93.
17. Erwin Schrödinger to Einstein, Feb. 19, 1946, AEA 22-94; Einstein to Erwin Schrödinger, Apr. 7, 1946, AEA 22-103; Einstein to Erwin Schrödinger, May 20, 1946, AEA 22-106; Einstein, “Generalized Theory of Gravitation,” 1948, with subsequent addenda.
18. Einstein, The Meaning of Relativity , 1950 ed., appendix 2, revised again for the 1954 ed.; William Laurence, “New Theory Gives a Master Key to the Universe,”New York Times , Dec. 27, 1949; William Laurence, “Einstein Publishes His Master Theory: Long-Awaited Chapter to Relativity Volume Is Product of 30 Years of Labor; Revised at Last Minute,”New York Times , Feb. 15, 1950.
19. Einstein to Maurice Solovine, Nov. 25, 1948, AEA 21-256; Einstein to Maurice Solovine, Mar. 28, 1949, AEA 21-260; Einstein to Maurice Solovine, Feb. 12, 1951, AEA 21-277.
20. Tilman Sauer, “Dimensions of Einstein’s Unified Field Theory Program,” courtesy of the author; Hoffmann 1972, 239; I am grateful for the help of Sauer, who is doing research in Einstein’s late work on field theories.
21. Whitrow, xii.
22. Niels Bohr, “Discussion with Einstein,” in Schilpp, 199.
23. Abraham Pais, in Rozental 1967, 225; Clark, 742.
24. John Wheeler, “Memoir,” in French, 21; John Wheeler, “Mentor and Sounding Board,” in Brockman, 31; Einstein quoted in Johanna Fantova journal, Nov. 11, 1953. In letters to Besso in 1952, Einstein defended his stubbornness. He insisted that a complete description of nature would describe reality, or a “deterministic real state,” rather than merely describe observations. “The orthodox quantum theoreticians generally refuse to admit the notion of a real state (based on positivist considerations). One thus ends up with a situation that resembles that of the good Bishop Berkeley.” Einstein to Michele Besso, Sept. 10, 1952, AEA 7-412. A month later he noted that quantum theory declared that “laws don’t apply to things, but only to what observation informs us about things ... Now,I can’t accept that.” Einstein to Michele Besso, Oct. 8, 1952, AEA 7-414.
25. Einstein to Mileva Mari, Dec. 22, 1946, AEA 75-845.
26. Fölsing, 731; Highfield and Carter, 253; Brian 1996, 371; Einstein to Karl Zürcher, July 29, 1947.
27. Einstein to Hans Albert Einstein, Jan. 21, 1948, AEA 75-959.
28. Einstein to Carl Seelig, Jan. 4, 1954, AEA 39-59; Fölsing, 731.
29. Sayen, 221; Pais 1982, 475.
30. Sarasota Tribune, Mar. 2, 1949, AEA 30-1097; Bucky, 131. Jeremy Bernstein writes, “Anyone who spent five minutes with Miss Dukas would understand what a lunatic accusation this is.” Bernstein 2001, 109.
31. Hans Albert Einstein interview, in Whitrow, 22.
32. “Trouble is brewing between Maja and Paul. They ought to divorce as well. Paul is supposedly having an affair and the marriage is quite in pieces. One shouldn’t wait too long (as I did) ... No mixed marriages are any good (Anna says: oh!).” Einstein to Michele Besso, Dec. 12, 1919. The half-joking reference to Anna was about Anna Winteler Besso, who was Michele Besso’s wife and Paul Winteler’s sister. The Wintelers were not Jewish; Besso and the Einsteins were.
33. Highfield and Carter, 248.
34. Einstein to Solovine, Nov. 25, 1948, AEA 21-256; Sayen, 134.
35. Einstein to Lina Kocherthaler, July 27, 1951, AEA 38-303; Sayen, 231.
36. “Einstein Repudiates Biography Written by His Ex-Son-in-Law,”New York Times , Aug. 5, 1944; Frieda Bucky, “You Have to Ask Forgiveness,”Jewish Quarterly (winter 1967–68), AEA 37-513.
37. “Einstein Extolled by 300 Scientists,”New York Times , Mar. 20, 1949; Sayen, 227; Fölsing, 735.
38. Einstein to Queen Mother Elisabeth of Belgium, Jan. 6, 1951, AEA 32-400; Sayen, 139.
39. Einstein to Max Born, Apr. 12, 1949, AEA 8-223.
40. “3,000 Hear Einstein at Seder Service,”New York Times , Apr. 18, 1938; Einstein, “Our Debt to Zionism,” in Einstein 1954, 190.
41. “Einstein Condemns Rule in Palestine,”New York Times , Jan. 12, 1946; Sayen, 235–237; Stephen Wise to Einstein, Jan. 14, 1946, AEA 35-258; Einstein to Stephen Wise, Jan. 14, 1946, AEA 35-260.
42. “Einstein Statement Assails Begin Party,”New York Times , Dec. 3, 1948; “Einstein Is Assailed by Menachim Begin,”New York Times , Dec. 7, 1948.
43. Einstein to Hans Muehsam, Jan. 22, 1947, AEA 38-360, and Sept. 24, 1948, AEA 38-379.
44. Einstein to Lina Kocherthaler, May 4, 1948, AEA 38-302.
45. Dukas interview, in Sayen, 245; Abba Eban to Einstein, Nov. 17, 1952, AEA 41-84; Einstein to Abba Eban, Nov. 18, 1952, AEA 28-943.
46. Einstein’s travails with Hebrew University are recounted in Parzen 1974. For his relationship with Brandeis, see Abram Sacher, Brandeis University (Waltham, Mass.: Brandeis University Press, 1995), 22. The one place with which he had a great relationship was Yeshiva University. He was made the honorary chair of the fund-raising drive to build the College of Medicine there in 1952, and the following year allowed the medical college to be named after him. I am grateful to Edward Burns for providing information. See www.yu.edu/libraries/digital_library/einstein/panel10.html.
47. Einstein to Maariv newspaper editor Azriel Carlebach, Nov. 21, 1952, AEA 41-93; Sayen, 247; Nathan and Norden, 574; Einstein to Joseph Scharl, Nov. 24, 1952, AEA 41-107.
48. Yitzhak Navon, “On Einstein and the Presidency of Israel,” in Holton and Elkana, 295.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: RED SCARE
1. Einstein to Queen Mother Elisabeth of Belgium, Jan. 6, 1951, AEA 32-400.
2. Einstein to Leopold Infeld, Oct. 28, 1952, AEA 14-173; Einstein to Russian students in Berlin, Apr. 1, 1952, AEA 59-218.
3. Einstein to T. E. Naiton, Oct. 9, 1952, AEA 60-664.
4. Einstein to Judge Irving Kaufman, Dec. 23, 1952, AEA 41-547.
5. Newark FBI Field Office to J. Edgar Hoover, Apr. 22, 1953, in Einstein FBI files, box 7.
6. Einstein to Harry Truman, with fifteen lines of equations on the other side, Jan. 11, 1953, AEA 41-551.
7. New York Times , Jan. 13, 1953.
8. Marian Rawles to Einstein, Jan. 14, 1953, AEA 41-629; Charles Williams to Einstein, Jan. 17, 1953, AEA 41-651; Homer Greene to Einstein, Jan. 15, 1953, AEA 41-588; Joseph Heidt to Einstein, Jan. 13, 1953, AEA 41-589.
9. Einstein to William Douglas, June 23, 1953, AEA 41-576; William Douglas to Einstein, June 30, 1953, AEA 41-577.
10. Generosa Pope Jr. to Einstein, Jan. 15, 1953, AEA 41-625; Daniel James to Einstein, Jan. 14, 1953, AEA 41-614.
11. Einstein to Daniel James, Jan. 15, 1953, AEA 60-696;New York Times , Jan. 22, 1953.
/> 12. Einstein, Acceptance of the Lord & Taylor Award, May 4, 1953, AEA 28-979. In a letter to Dick Kluger, then a student editor of The Daily Princetonian,he wrote: “As long as a person has not violated the ‘social contract’ nobody has the right to inquire about his or her convictions. If this principal is not followed free intellectual development is not possible.” Einstein to Dick Kluger, Sept. 17, 1953, in Kluger’s possession.