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Lot 73
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Albert Einstein TLS, just barely post WWII, with reference to Mark Twain
Albert Einstein TLS, just barely post WWII, with reference to Mark Twain
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Description:

Einstein Albert 1879 - 1955 Albert Einstein TLS just barely post WWII, with association to Mark Twain.

Single page TLS, 8.5" x 11", on Albert Einstein's personal stationary bearing a blind stamp letterhead with his address of "112, Mercer Street, Princeton, New Jersey, U.S.A.". Dated "July 16, 1947", and signed by Albert Einstein as "A. Einstein". Expected folds with faint toning along the right edge.

Einstein writes to the President of the Mark Twain Society, Cyril Clemens, declining his invitation to attend a meeting due to poor health. Cyril C. Clemens (1902-1999) founded the International Mark Twain Society in 1923; he was also Twain's third cousin twice removed. Cyril's father, James Ross Clemens, a budding medical student, developed a close rapport with his cousin Mark Twain which began when the London newspapers erroneously reported that the great author had been left destitute in the city. James Ross communicated with Twain via the latter's publisher, offering him aid. Twain replied on March 5, 1897 thanking his relative, and the two became fast friends. The famous story of Twain's premature demise evolved from another journalistic misunderstanding when it was reported that Twain, not his cousin James Ross Clemens, had died of pneumonia. Twain penned a note on the subject that was published in facsimile in Outlook in 1910: "James Ross Clemens, a cousin of mine, was seriously ill two or three weeks ago, in London, but is well now. The report of my illness grew out of his illness, the report of my death was an exaggeration."

Einstein's 1947 letter to Cyril was written about two years post World War II and is shown below in full:

"Thank you very much for your invitation to address your meeting in November. Unfortunately, poor health does not permit me anymore to accept to accept [sic] such invitations."

Just a few years prior, at the beginning of World War II, Einstein became the catalyst and "arguably the key stimulus for the U.S. adoption of serious investigations into nuclear weapons on the eve of the U.S. entry into World War II". This fascinating period had a group of Hungarian scientists that included émigré physicist Leo Szilard attempted to alert Washington to ongoing Nazi atomic bomb research. The group's warnings were discounted. Einstein and Szilard, along with other refugees "regarded it as their responsibility to alert Americans to the possibility that German scientists might win the race to build an atomic bomb, and to warn that Hitler would be more than willing to resort to such a weapon." To make certain the U.S. was aware of the danger, in July 1939, a few months before the beginning of World War II in Europe, Szilard and Wigner visited Einstein to explain the possibility of atomic bombs, which Einstein, a pacifist, said he had never considered. He was asked to lend his support by writing a letter, with Szilard, to President Roosevelt, recommending the U.S. pay attention and engage in its own nuclear weapons research. The letter is believed to be "arguably the key stimulus for the U.S. adoption of serious investigations into nuclear weapons on the eve of the U.S. entry into World War II". In addition to the letter, Einstein used his connections with Belgian to get access with a personal envoy to the White House's Oval Office. President Roosevelt could not take the risk of allowing Hitler to possess atomic bombs first. As a result of Einstein's letter and his meetings with Roosevelt, the U.S. entered the "race" to develop the bomb, drawing on its "immense material, financial, and scientific resources" to initiate the Manhattan Project. The U.S. became the only country to successfully develop nuclear weapons during World War II and also remains the only country to have used them in combat, against Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively, towards the end of the war.

A fantastic signed TLS by Einstein, written about a year before his publication titled "Why Socialism?", where he pronounced the profit motive of a capitalistic society, in conjunction with competition among capitalists, leads to unnecessary cycles of booms and depressions, and ultimately encourages selfishness instead of cooperation. Perhaps Einstein was becoming a budding author, and now with World War II finalized, he found a new personal connection with the legacy author Mark Twain from a bygone era.

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