By Jim Green

Albert Einstein was declared "Person of the Century" in the December 31, 1999 edition of Time magazine. Einstein's accomplishments in the field of theoretical physics were stressed; he was, according to Time's Frederic Golden, "the embodiment of pure intellect," "unfathomably profound – the genius among geniuses."

Time's managing editor Walter Isaacson put Einstein's scientific accomplishments in a social context. For Isaacson: "If you had to describe the century's geopolitics in one sentence, it could be a short one: Freedom won. Free minds and free markets prevailed over fascism and communism." The explosion of science and technology, Isaacson argued, "helped secure the triumph of freedom by unleashing the power of free minds and free markets." As the most famous scientist of the century – and one of the most gifted – Einstein deserved Time's "Person of the Century" accolade. QED.

There is a major flaw in Isaacson's line of reasoning, though we might still agree with his conclusion. Einstein was an outspoken critic of the triumphalism implicit in the rhetoric of "free minds and free markets." Far from celebrating capitalism's alleged freeing of the mind, Einstein argued in his 1949 essay, Why Socialism?, that the "crippling of individuals" is "the worst evil of capitalism" and that the "economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil."

The only hint of Einstein's radicalism in the Time article is contained in a reference to its sister magazine, Life, which in April 1949 listed the 70-year-old Einstein as one of 50 prominent U.S. "dupes and fellow travelers" used as "weapons" by the communists. Frederic Golden deals with Einstein's politics by patronising him as "well meaning if naive" and "a soft touch for almost any worthy cause." There is no mention in Time of the fact that after World War II, Einstein became a prominent target of the anticommunist crusades in the United States, or that he was an "enemy of America," according to no less an authority than U.S. politician and inquisitor Joseph McCarthy.

The real Albert Einstein – left-wing, pacifist, internationalist – is far more interesting than the airbrushed, inaccurate versions to be found in corporate media, where the image of a brilliant, absent-minded professor looms large. Einstein was an agitator, more than willing to challenge authority and to support a range of progressive causes.

Einstein on atomic weapons

In August 1939, just prior to the outbreak of war in Europe, Einstein sent a letter to US President Roosevelt. It was conceivable, Einstein wrote, that uranium could be fashioned into "extremely powerful bombs of a new type." He expressed his fear that the Nazi regime may be working on an atomic weapons' program, and urged a speeding up of experimental work on nuclear fission and for closer contact to be maintained between the U.S. Government and the group of physicists working on fission in the United States.

In October 1939, partly due to Einstein's prompting, the President's Advisory Committee on Uranium was formed. Though he continued to urge expansion and greater coordination of atomic weapons' research, Einstein declined an invitation, the following year, to become a member of an expanded committee.

At the end of the war, with the nuclear strikes on Japan, Einstein spoke out against them, arguing that they were unjustified and motivated by U.S.-Soviet politicking. With the benefit of hindsight, he regretted having urged an atomic weapons' program in the United States during the war.

Following the war, Einstein gave strong support to organisations fighting against militarism and atomic weapons in particular. In May 1946, he became chair of the newly-formed Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists, which was primarily concerned with education on the dangers of atomic weapons and acted as an umbrella and fund-raising group. Funds raised assisted other organisations such as the Federation of American Scientists and activities like the publication of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

In 1955, scientist-philosopher Bertrand Russell approached Einstein, suggesting that a group of scientists be convened to discuss nuclear disarmament and ways in which war could be abolished. The first such meeting was held in July 1957, in Pugwash, Nova Scotia. Shortly before his death in 1955, Einstein was one of 11 scientists, nine of them Nobel laureates, to sign an initial statement – the Russell-Einstein Manifesto – calling for the abolition not only of atomic weapons but also of war itself, regardless of the necessary "distasteful limitations of national sovereignty."

For Einstein, the issue of atomic weapons was subordinate to the broader issues of militarism and nationalism. In Atomic War or Peace, he wrote: "As long as there are sovereign nations possessing great power, war is inevitable. That is not an attempt to say when it will come, but only that it is sure to come. That was true before the atomic bomb was made. What has changed is the destructiveness of war."

Einstein hoped that the added threat of atomic weapons might facilitate his broader objective of establishing a supranational authority, and wanted the "secret" of the atomic bomb to be monopolised by such an authority.

Einstein wanted the U.S. Government to agree to supranational authority over atomic weapons. He did not advocate unilateral nuclear disarmament by the United States, but he wanted the United States to renounce the use of atomic weapons pending the creation of a supranational authority or if supranational control was not achieved.

Though it is possible that the serious pursuit of an atomic weapons' program in the United States might have been delayed if not for Einstein's urgings, the impact of his letters to Roosevelt has often been overstated. The Manhattan Project – large-scale, coordinated work on atomic weapons – did not begin until late 1941, and Einstein himself was blacklisted from the project by U.S. security agencies. He did do some consultancy work on high explosives for the U.S. Navy during the war years, but this work was unrelated to atomic weapons.

There is no truth to the widespread view that Einstein's scientific research led to, or provided the foundations for, the development of atomic weapons.

In February, 1950, Einstein appeared on an NBC network program called "Today With Mrs. Roosevelt," discussing the U.S. Government's plans to build hydrogen bombs far more powerful than the fission bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Einstein's speech on the program (included below as National Security), was typically punchy, warning that the "idea of achieving security through national armament is… a disastrous illusion," that the arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union had assumed a "hysterical character," and that with the advent of hydrogen bombs, "radioactive poisoning of the atmosphere and hence annihilation of any life on Earth has been brought within the range of technical possibilities."

Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth, Australia.

More information: <www.foe.org.au/anti-nuclear/issues/weapons-various>.