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“Jewish” and “Bolshevik” physics of Einstein. Ironically, in the Soviet Union at about the same time, prominent Stalinist intellectuals were denouncing relativity as “bourgeois physics.” Whether or not the
substance
of the theory being attacked was correct was, of course, never considered in such deliberations.
    Einstein’s identification of himself as a Jew, despite his profound estrangement from traditional religions, was due entirely to the upsurge of anti-Semitism in Germany in the 1920s. For this reason he also became a Zionist. But according to his biographer PhilippFrank, not all Zionist groups welcomed him, because he demanded that the Jews make an effort to befriend the Arabs and to understand their way of life—a devotion to cultural relativism made more impressive by the difficult emotional issues involved. However, he continued to support Zionism, particularly as the increasing desperation of European Jews became known in the late 1930s. (In 1948 Einstein was offered the presidency of Israel, but politely declined. It is interesting to speculate what differences in the politics of the Near East, if any, might have been produced by Albert Einstein as the president of Israel.)
    After leaving Germany, Einstein learned that the Nazis had placed a price of 20,000 marks on his head. (“I didn’t know it was worth so much.”) He accepted an appointment at the recently founded Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, where he was to remain for the rest of his life. When asked what salary he thought fair, he suggested $3,000. Seeing a look of astonishment pass over the face of the representative of the Institute, he concluded he had proposed too much and mentioned a smaller amount. His salary was set at $16,000, a goodly sum for the 1930s.
    Einstein’s prestige was so high that it was natural for other émigré European physicists in the United States to approach him in 1939 to write a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, proposing the development of an atomic bomb to outstrip a likely German effort to acquire nuclear weapons. Although Einstein had not been working in nuclear physics and later played no role in the Manhattan Project, he wrote the initial letter that led to the establishment of the Manhattan Project. It is likely, however, that the bomb would have been developed by the United States regardless of Einstein’s urging. Even without E = mc 2 , the discovery of radioactivity by Antoine Becquerel and the investigation of the atomic nucleus by Ernest Rutherford—both done entirely independently of Einstein—would very likely have led to the development of nuclear weapons. Einstein’s dread of Nazi Germany had long since caused him to abandon, although with considerablepain, his pacifist views. But when it later transpired that the Nazis had been unable to develop nuclear weapons, Einstein expressed remorse: “Had I known that the Germans would not succeed in developing an atomic bomb, I would have done nothing for the bomb.”
    In 1945 Einstein urged the United States to break its relations with Franco Spain, which had supported the Nazis in World War II. John Rankin, a conservative congressman from Mississippi, attacked Einstein in a speech to the House of Representatives, declaring that “this foreign-born agitator would have us plunge into another war in order to further the spread of Communism throughout the world … It is about time the American people got wise to Einstein.”
    Einstein was a powerful defender of civil liberties in the United States during the darkest period of McCarthyism in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Watching the rising tide of hysteria, he had the disturbing feeling that he had seen something similar in Germany in the 1930s. He urged defendants to refuse to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, saying that every person should be “prepared for jail and economic ruin … for the sacrifice of his personal welfare in