The Einstein File: J. Edgar Hoover's Secret War Against the World's Most Famous Scientist

by Fred Jerome

Book Overview

From the moment of Albert Einstein's arrival in the United States in l933, the year of the Nazis' ascent to power in Germany, until his death in l955, J. Edgar Hoover's FBI, assisted by several other... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312288565
• ISBN13: 9780312288563
• Release Date: May 2002
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.58 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

the Hobo Philosopher

Needless to say, I was not surprised. This book is of course another in a long line of books exposing Hover, the FBI and our not so pure system. Albert Einstein was clearly a good man and it is becoming rather apparent that J. Edgar Hoover was not. When people complain about how their tax dollars are spent, I don't understand why organization like the FBI and the CIA are so defended by so many. Are these people just not informed? I know that even history is not always accurate or in some cases even rather political and deceptive but so many people can't be lying about Hoover and these secretive organizations of ours. We are beginning to make the Communists look reasonable. I can hardly believe all this and I just don't see how so many others can be in this state of denial. I don't get it. Books written by Richard Noble - The Hobo Philosopher: "Hobo-ing America: A Workingman's Tour of the U.S.A.." "A Summer with Charlie" "A Little Something: Poetry and Prose" "Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother"

Shockingly Relevant Today

This is a must read book for many reasons. We have allowed J. Edgar Hoover and Joseph McCarthy's abuses of power to slip quietly into fuzzy memory. We have failed to learn from history and are now condemned to repeat it. Einstein emerges in this book as far more than a smart mathematician. He was a good and wise man. That so much of our government's power was engaged in an effort to discredit him is frightening. Einstein experienced the Nazi's rise to power first hand. He could see the similarities between their anti-Semitism and our own racism. He had seen the Nazis attack the Communists and quash dissent. Einstein was a long time Pacifist, but he supported the war against the Nazis, even to the point of suggesting to FDR that we develop the Atomic Bomb before Hitler could. Einstein was never a Communist. He valued his freedom of thought and expression too much. He saw how dangerous narrow nationalism could be and that it could threaten democracy. Einstein and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt were strong supporters of the United Nations and Human Rights. This earned both extensive FBI files, along with Martin Luther King Jr., whose Civil Rights efforts were also seen as a threat by Hoover. After World War II, Nazis were eagerly embraced as anti-Communists and recruited into the growing "intelligence community". Einstein, an avowed Socialist, was feared to be, if not actually "Red" at least "Pink", and not to be trusted. If he had not been so well known and loved, he would surely have been stripped of his citizenship and deported. Hoover certainly tried. Fortunately for Einstein, there was no real evidence at all against him, just allegations from completely unreliable sources, innuendo and irrational fear. Today, the flames of irrational fear are again being fanned in our country. Fear is again being used to justify injustice and erode our civil liberties. Everyone should read this book, and take it as a warning.

More than a theory

The Einstein File by Fred Jerome, quickly dispels the poplar image of Albert Einstein as an absentminded, head-in-the-clouds-genius. Though Einstein is arguably the most widely covered, continuing science story in history and is most noted for his scientific theories that transformed our view of the universe. This book chronicles the life of an Einstein that the masses knew nothing about. An Einstein described as a troublemaker, an agitator, a fervent pacifist, a socialist, and an open critic of racism.Einstein arrived in the United States in 1933, the year of the Nazi's ascent to power in Germany, and became the focus of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. And by any means necessary the FBI amassed a 'file cabinet' of information on him. Fred Jerome stumbled on documents that addressed Einstein as a Spy and a Kidnap Plotter. And a dossier where Jerome discovered the political dimension of Albert Einstein's life and his intense commitment to social justice. Jerome says when he realized how much had not been told to us about the life of the 'Man of the Century', he felt as though he had been robbed. This is not another biography of Einstein, some two hundred have already been written. It is a window opened by the FBI on the nature of Einstein's politics, the depth of his public involvement, and the generosity of his endorsements of organizations he supported. And it is this activism that made Hoover's Bureau consider Einstein dangerous. This book reveals information that makes one think the history we know is sanitized, and what we don't know is at times appalling. It talks of a 'list' maintained by the FBI on celebrities, political figures and anyone thought to have affiliatiions with the Communist Party. It underscores the dangers that can arise, and the rule of law that exists in times of obsession with national security. And it creates questions on where the line should be drawn on the issue of an invasion of privacy. This one will make you take a seat. Reviewed by aNN Brown

Unusual suspects

Einstein was a troublemaker, the author informs us at the beginning of this book detailing, armed with the 1800 pages of files released by the FOIA, with Hoover's Albert-paranoia in action, aimed at the great scientist, especially in the years of the Red Scare, McCarthyism, and the Cold War. The public image of the greatest scientist of the twentieth century has been carefully manicured, but behind the teddy bear was a determined activist on many fronts, who fell afoul of not only the Nazis, but of the FBI. Einstein's valiant stands on social justice, racism, antisemitism, war, peace, and the Bomb barely enter public consciousness through the layers of the myth. The record of Hoover's manipulations and skullduggeries is almost pathetic in its pickiun character, next also to its bungling and misinformation. It is, for example, discouraging to watch how Einstein is deprived of security clearance, lest a man with such a reputation and global popularity be, we suspect the motive, able to influence or speak out from the inside on the use of the first atom bomb. The portrait left of the reactionary and racist Hoover at the head of a critical institution pursuing this biased and incomprehending agenda is nothing less than appalling. The portrait of Einstein's deep social concerns (read a triffle 'leftist') in action is the real man, please.