Using material newly obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, Fred
Jerome weaves information from Albert Einstein’s almost two-thousand-page
FBI file with the history of the period to create a spy-story-like narrative
that also explores Einstein’s political dimension.
From the moment Albert Einstein arrived in the United States in 1933, the
year of the Nazis’ ascent to power in Germany, until his death in 1955,
J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI, assisted by several other federal agencies, began
feverishly collecting “derogatory information” in an effort to
undermine the renowned physicist’s influence and destroy his reputation.
For the first time, Fred Jerome tells the in depth of that anti-Einstein
campaign, explains why and how the campaign originated, and provides the first
detailed picture of Einstein’s little-known political activism.
Unlike the popular image of Einstein as an absentminded, head-in-the-clouds
genius, he was in fact intensely interested in the larger society and felt it
was his duty to use his worldwide fame to help advance the cause of social
justice. Einstein was a fervent pacifist, socialist, internationalist, and an
outspoken critic of racism (he considered racism America’s “worst
disease”), as well as a friend of celebrated African Americans Paul
Robeson and W.E.B. Du Bois. Einstein dared to use his immense prestige to
denounce Joseph McCarthy at the height of the feared senator’s power, and
publicly urged witnesses to refuse to testify before the House Un-American
Activities Committee.
The story that emerges not only reveals a little-known aspect of
Einstein’s considerable social and humanitarian concerns, but underscores
the dangers that can arise to the American republic and the rule of law in
times of obsession with national security.
St. Martin’s Press, Fred Jerome, ISBN 0-312-31609-7,
Softcover, 358 p.p., Index.
