Another Hoover enemy: Einstein
Author reveals FBI's probes of physicist
By Steve Weinberg
Special to The Denver Post
Sunday, May 05, 2002
The Einstein FileBy Fred Jerome272 pages, $27.95St. Martin'sTechnology Review magazine columnist Fred Jerome has turned a brief newspaper reference he saw by chance into a fascinating account of how the Federal Bureau of Investigation harassed the world's most famous scientist.
Dozens of previous books have documented FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's deceitful surveillance of public figures, especially those he considered disloyal to his nation. But Albert Einstein, the genius physicist?
Jerome had no clue about the surveillance until, researching a project on the most prominent science stories of the 20th century, Jerome tracked references to Einstein published after his death in 1955.
On page 17 of The New York Times business section for Sept. 9, 1983, Jerome came across this headline: "FBI Filed Reports on Einstein as a Spy and Kidnap Plotter." Interested and puzzled, Jerome used the federal Freedom of Information Act to obtain the agency's file on Einstein.
What Jerome found in those documents was the story not of Einstein the physicist but of Einstein the crusader for civil rights on behalf of blacks, victims of anti-communist witchhunts and other oppressed people.
Although what Jerome has produced is decidedly not a full-life biography of Einstein (Jerome counts at least 300 of those already), the monograph is enlightening about aspects of the genius' life apart from what the FBI recorded.
What the FBI recorded, not so incidentally, is filled with not only rumor but also factual inaccuracies galore. The supposedly crackerjack law-enforcement agency comes across as staffed by lawbreaking buffoons.
Jerome suggests Hoover and his minions did not care about accuracy. What they cared about was silencing celebrities with left-wing ideas and intimidating the remaining population. Einstein comes across as a hero, refusing to let the federal government's underhanded tactics minimize his very public support of unpopular causes.
Jerome has produced a well-written, provocative book that could - and should - alter the ways Hoover and Einstein are viewed.
In the case of Hoover, the revised view should be the final disgrace, one that might finally push Congress to remove his name from the FBI building in downtown Washington, D.C.
In the case of Einstein, the revised view ought to bring the humanitarian into sharper focus, alongside the renowned physicist portion of his remarkable life.
Steve Weinberg is an author and reviewer living in Columbia, Mo.