Listening to his talk was a Brooklyn schoolteacher, William Frauenglass, who had a month earlier been called to testify in Washington before a Senate Internal Security Subcommittee looking into communist influence in high schools. He had refused to talk, and now he wanted Einstein to say whether he had been right.
Einstein crafted a reply and told Frauenglass he could make it public. “The reactionary politicians have managed to instill suspicions of all intellectual efforts,” he wrote. “They are now proceeding to suppress the freedom of teaching.” What should intellectuals do against this evil? “Frankly, I can only see the revolutionary way of non-cooperation in the sense of Gandhi’s,” Einstein declared. “Every intellectual who is called before one of the committees ought to refuse to testify.”13
Einstein’s lifelong comfort in resisting prevailing winds made him serenely stubborn during the McCarthy era. At a time when citizens were asked to name names and testify at inquiries into their loyalty and that of their colleagues, he took a simple approach. He told people not to cooperate.
He felt, as he told Frauenglass, that this should be done based on the free speech guarantees of the First Amendment, rather than the “subterfuge” of invoking the Fifth Amendment’s protection against possible self- incrimination. Standing up for the First Amendment was particularly a duty of intellectuals, he said, because they had a special role in society as preservers of free thought. He was still horrified that most intellectuals in Germany had not risen in resistance when the Nazis came to power.
When his letter to Frauenglass was published, there was an even greater public uproar than had been provoked by his Rosenberg appeal. Editorial writers across the nation pulled out all the stops for their denunciatory chords.
The
“To employ unnatural and illegal forces of civil disobedience, as Professor Einstein advises, is in this case to attack one evil with another. The situation which Professor Einstein rebels against certainly needs correction, but the answer does not lie in defying the law.”
The
“He has put himself in the extremist category by his irresponsible suggestion. He has proved once more that genius in science is no guarantee of sagacity in political affairs.”
The
“It is particularly regrettable when a scholar of his attainments, full of honors, should permit himself to be used as an instrument of propaganda by the enemies of the country that has given him such a secure refuge ... Dr. Einstein has come down from the stars to dabble in ideological politics, with lamentable results.”
The
“It is always astonishing to find that a man of great intellectual power in some directions is a simpleton or even a jackass in others.”
The
(Colorado)
“He, of all people, should know better. This country protected him from Hitler.”
14
Ordinary citizens wrote as well. “Look in the mirror and see how disgraceful you look without a haircut like a wild man and wear a Russian wool cap like a Bolshevik,” said Sam Epkin of Cleveland. The anticommunist columnist Victor Lasky sent a handwritten screed: “Your most recent blast against the institutions of this great nation finally convinces me that, despite your great scientific knowledge, you are an idiot, a menace to this country.” And George Stringfellow of East Orange, New Jersey, noted incorrectly, “Don’t forget that you left a communist country to come here where you could have freedom. Don’t abuse that freedom sir.”15
Senator McCarthy also issued a denunciation, though it seemed slightly muted due to Einstein’s stature. “Anyone who advises Americans to keep secret information which they have about spies and saboteurs is himself an enemy of America,” he said, not quite aiming directly at Einstein or what he had written.16
This time, however, there were actually more letters in support of Einstein. Among the more amusing ripostes came from his friend Bertrand Russell. “You seem to think that one should always obey the law, however bad,” the philosopher wrote to the
Abraham Flexner, now retired from the Institute for Advanced Studies and living on Fifth Avenue, took the opportunity to restore his relationship with Einstein. “I am grateful to you as a native American for your fine letter to Mr. Frauenglass,” he wrote. “American citizens in general will occupy a more dignified position if they absolutely refuse to say a word if questioned about their personal opinions and beliefs.”18
Among the most poignant notes was from Frauenglass’s teenage son, Richard. “In these troubled times, your statement is one that might alter the course of this nation,” he said, which had a bit of truth to it. He noted that he would cherish Einstein’s letter for the rest of his life, then added a P.S.: “My favorite subjects are your favorite too —math and physics. Now I am taking trigonometry.”19
Dozens of dissenters subsequently begged Einstein to intervene on their behalf, but he declined. He had made his point and did not see the need to keep thrusting himself into the fray.
But one person did get through: Albert Shadowitz, a physics professor who had worked as an engineer during
