Surveilling Einstein
It's well known that Albert Einstein was a brilliant physicist. It's fairly well known that he was also an outspoken pacifist and civil rights activist. One might suspect that these latter facts would have rankled a few people, and one would be right.
The FBI conducted ongoing surveillance of Einstein until his death in 1955. In 1983, Dr. Richard Alan Schwartz wrote about Einstein and the FBI for The Nation. Since then the censorship of Einstein's file has been reduced, and Fred Jerome (hardly a neutral author, which may rankle a few people as well) has written a new book on the topic, to be published this month.
The New York Times wrote about all this today (you can use "songdog.net" as username and password)
Comments
I was about to send you this story!
Just when I think nothing can shock me any more...
Posted by: steve | May 7, 2002 11:46 AM
Leslie sent this one along too, after I'd started blogging it. Thanks to both of you for thinking of me :)
Posted by: Songdog | May 7, 2002 11:59 AM
Interesting article, I have found that most of the informed active pacifists that I have met tend to think highly of communism. It seems that capitalism, in its every man for himself mentality, awards the aggresive, and repress the passive. I am not aware of a democratic communist nation(ignorant in these areas) it would be interesting an study though.
Posted by: Jim | May 8, 2002 11:38 AM
The Hungarians tried to create, or at least work towards, a democratic communist nation in 1956, and the Czechs in '68; both attempts were promptly quashed by the ever-vigilant Soviets. Of course, had they been allowed to proceed, they would eventually have been forced to take one fork or the other.
Posted by: steve | May 8, 2002 07:04 PM