Walter Isaacson - Einstein - His Life and Universe

Many of his performances were purely impromptu. That first Halloween, he disarmed some astonished trick-or-treaters, a group of 12-year-old girls who had come with the intent of playing a prank, by appearing at the door and serenading them with his violin. And at Christmastime, when members of the First Presbyterian Church came by to sing carols, he stepped out into the snow, borrowed a violin from one of the women, and accompanied them. “He was just a lovely person,” one of them recalled. 8

Einstein soon acquired an image, which grew into a near legend but was nevertheless based on reality, of being a kindly and gentle professor, distracted at times but unfailingly sweet, who wandered about lost in thought, helped children with their homework, and rarely combed his hair or wore socks. With his amused sense of self-awareness, he catered to such perceptions. “I’m a kind of ancient figure known primarily for his non-use of socks and wheeled out on special occasions as a curiosity,” he joked. His slightly disheveled appearance was partly an assertion of his simplicity and partly a mild act of rebellion. “I have reached an age when, if someone tells me to wear socks, I don’t have to,” he told a neighbor. 9

His baggy, comfortable clothes became a symbol of his lack of pretense. He had a leather jacket that he tended to wear to events both formal and informal. When a friend found out that he had a mild allergy to wool sweaters, she went to a surplus store and bought him some cotton sweatshirts, which he wore all the time. And his dismissive attitude toward haircuts and grooming was so infectious that Elsa, Margot, and his sister, Maja, all sported the same disheveled gray profusion.

He was able to make his rumpled-genius image as famous as Chaplin did the little tramp. He was kindly yet aloof, brilliant yet baffled. He floated around with a distracted air and a wry sensibility. He exuded honesty to a fault, was sometimes but not always as naïve as he seemed, cared passionately about humanity and sometimes about people. He would fix his gaze on cosmic truths and global issues, which allowed him to seem detached from the here and now. This role he played was not far from the truth, but he enjoyed playing it to the hilt, knowing that it was such a great role.

He had also, by then, adapted willingly to the role Elsa played, that of a wife who could be both doting and demanding, protective yet afflicted with occasional social aspirations. They had grown comfortable together, after some rough patches. “I manage him,” she said proudly, “but I never let him know that I manage him.” 10

Actually, he knew, and he found it mildly amusing. He surrendered, for example, to Elsa’s nagging that he smoked too much and on Thanksgiving bet her that he would be able to abstain from his pipe until the new year. When Elsa boasted of this at a dinner party, Einstein grumbled, “You see, I am no longer a slave to my pipe, but I am a slave to that woman.” Einstein kept his word, but “he got up at daylight on New Year’s morning, and he hasn’t had his pipe out of his mouth since except to eat and sleep,” Elsa told neighbors a few days after the deal was over. 11

The greatest source of friction for Einstein came from Flexner’s desire to protect him from publicity. Einstein was, as always, less fastidious about this than were his friends, patrons, and self-appointed protectors. An occasional flash of the limelight made his eyes twinkle. More important, he was willing and even eager to endure such indignities if he could use his fame to raise money and sympathy for the worsening plight of European Jews.

Such political activism made Einstein’s penchant for publicity even more disconcerting to Flexner, an old-line and assimilated American Jew. It might provoke anti-Semitism, he thought, especially in Princeton, where the Institute was luring Jewish scholars into an environment that was, to say the least, socially wary of them. 12

Flexner was particularly upset when Einstein, quite charmingly, agreed one Saturday to meet at his home with a group of boys from a Newark school who had named their science club after him. Elsa baked cookies, and when the discussion turned to Jewish political leaders, she noted, “I don’t think there is any anti-Semitism in this country.” Einstein agreed. It would have amounted to no more than a sweet visit, except that the adviser who accompanied the boys wrote a colorful account, focusing on Einstein’s thoughts about the plight of Jews, that was bannered atop the front page of the Newark Sunday Ledger. 13

Flexner was furious. “I simply want to protect him,” he wrote in a sharp letter to Elsa, and he sent the Newark article to her with a stern note attached. “This is exactly the sort of thing that seems to me absolutely unworthy of Professor Einstein,” he scolded. “It will hurt him in the esteem of his colleagues, for they will believe that he seeks such publicity, and I do not see how they can be convinced that such is not the case.” 14

Flexner went on to ask Elsa to dissuade her husband from being featured at a scheduled musical recital in Manhattan, which he had already accepted, that was to raise money for Jewish refugees. But like her husband, Elsa was not totally averse to publicity, nor to helping Jewish causes, and she resented Flexner’s attempts at control. So she replied with a very frank refusal.

That provoked Flexner to send an astonishingly blunt letter the next day, which he noted he had discussed with the president of Princeton University. Echoing the sentiments of some of Einstein’s European friends, including the Borns, Flexner warned Elsa that if Jews got too much publicity it would stoke anti-Semitism:

It is perfectly possible to create anti-Semitic feeling in the United States. There is no danger that any such feeling would be created except by the Jews themselves. There are already signs which are unmistakable that anti-Semitism has increased in America. It is because I am myself a Jew and because I wish to help oppressed Jews in Germany that my efforts, though continuous and in a measure successful, are absolutely quiet and anonymous . . . The questions involved are the dignity of your husband and the Institute according to the highest American standards and the most effective way of helping the Jewish race in America and in Europe.

15

That same day, Flexner wrote Einstein directly to make the case that Jews like themselves should keep a low profile because a penchant for publicity could arouse anti-Semitism. “I have felt this from the moment that Hitler began his anti-Jewish policy, and I have acted accordingly,” he wrote.“There have been indications in American universities that Jewish students and Jewish professors will suffer unless the utmost caution is used.” 16

Not surprisingly, Einstein went ahead with his planned benefit recital in Manhattan, for which 264 guests paid $25 apiece to attend. It featured Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins in D-minor and Mozart’s G Major Quartet. It was even opened to the press. “He became so absorbed in the music,” Time magazine reported, “that with a far-away look he was still plucking at the strings when the performance was all over.” 17

In his attempt to prevent such events, Flexner had begun intercepting Einstein’s mail and declining invitations on his behalf. The stage was thus set for a showdown when Rabbi Stephen Wise of New York decided it would be a good idea to get Einstein invited to visit President Franklin Roosevelt, which Wise hoped would focus attention on Germany’s treatment of Jews. “F.D.R. has not lifted a finger on behalf of the Jews of Germany, and this would be little enough,” Wise wrote a friend. 18

The result was a telephone call from Roosevelt’s social secretary, Colonel Marvin MacIntyre, inviting Einstein to the White House. When Flexner found out, he was furious. He called the White House and gave a stern lecture to the somewhat surprised Colonel MacIntyre. All invitations must go through him, Flexner said, and on Einstein’s behalf he declined.