FBI: Albert Einstein | Hacker News Reader

FBI: Albert Einstein

foia.fbi.gov

84 pointshelwr53 comments

Sounds like Anarchists were the Terrorists of the early 20th century; unless contained they would bring about the end of Western Civilization as we know it. I wonder what new amorphous threat we will worry about a hundred years from now.

From Part 1a, Formal Charges:

We are informed and believe and charge that Professor Albert Einstein is inadmissible to the United States on the following grounds

a) Albert Einstein believes in, advises, advocates or teaches a doctrine which, in a legal sense, as held by the courts in other cases, “would allow anarchy to stalk in unmolested” and result in “government only in name.”

b) Albert Einstein advises, advocates or teaches, and is a member of _and_ affiliated with groups that are in “militant” and admittedly ”illegal” opposition to the most fundamental principle of organized government.

Edit: It has been pointed out that these formal charges are made by The Women Patriot Corporation, not the FBI.

I think what's disguised behind "anarchy" is communism, civil rights movement, maybe unions movements and zionism too.

Yes, most likely. What’s striking for me is that the anarchist charge is the go-to indictment for the FBI in this case. Reading the indictment, you get the sense they think it is the most damning.

Those causes are certainly sympathetic to anarchism, but I'm pretty sure that the early 20th century anarchists really were anarchists. They were pretty open about their goals; just like the people we currently call terrorists.

Libertarian socialism is now the most polite label for the anarchist political philosophy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism I prefer to call it left libertarianism.

That particular letter is from a group self-identified as "The Women Patriot Corporation".

They're upset that Countess Michael Karolyi didn't get a visa, so they go on a 16-page jihad: if the countess doesn't get one, then Einstein shouldn't get one either and it should be revoked.

Thanks for the correction, duly noted.

It looks like a typical garbage collection file: a collection of letters to the government from people suggesting or accusing Einstein of communism, anarchy, or any anti-government suggestions.

Looking through, it appears whack-jobs are not a TV-made phenomena (as we've been led to believe) and that whack-jobs have been prevalent in society for much longer than any of us suspected. This give me great pause and concern...

Careful there. Undue concern about other whack-jobs is exactly what made them whack-jobs in the first place. ;)

I guess we can take hope from the fact that despite the best efforts of the whack-jobs, the FBI let him stay.

I was concerned too, but then I reflected that if it's always been this way and we got this far, it must be survivable.

It was survivable before we invented nukes. We've gotten by on luck for half a century, and now we're working on nanotechnology and genetic engineering.

See also the curious case of James Tilly Mathews who in c.1810 believed "that a gang of criminals and spies skilled in "pneumatic chemistry" had taken up residence at London Wall in Moorfields (close to Bethlem) and were tormenting him by means of rays emitted by a machine called the "Air Loom". The torments induced by the rays included "Lobster-cracking", during which the circulation of the blood was prevented by a magnetic field..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tilly_Matthews#The_.22Air...

Well before the days of satellites, aluminum foil, and Major League Baseball.

I was recently given a collection of Einstein's writings (http://www.alphadecay.org/libro/la-mentalidad-militar) and was quite perturbed to find that he thought that a "supranational" world government was the answer to the threat of atomic war.

Funny to find, then, that he was on the hook for anarchism...

Is that not a solution to the threat of atomic war? Seems to be working ok so far.

Regardless of whether it's working or not, it's not a particularly anarchist sentiment.

Cold-war noise - ex-German spies were hired by the CIA and FBI to generate "intelligence" which they did - by making up rumors about famous people, to keep the pipe full of reports and keep their jobs. Refer to the last pdf - when Einstein died the final investigation concluded all "reports" were by unknown sources or people dead or moved to Russia - "Case closed"

It is pretty big. If someone has time to digest all this, I'd love to read some summary.

"Please wait . . . loading file."

I'm sure they meant to say, "Please wait... logging your interest in this file."

First one is a 92 page pdf.

They sure have some excellent scanners over there..

I don't think they were scanned recently. I could be wrong.

The PDF properties says 1999.

The stamp (which I assume to be the release date) on the first page reads 4-22-80. Did we have scanners in 1980?

Scanned in the 90s from 80s photocopies/pictures?

i skimmed to page 14 of the first one. favorite quote:

'Neither is Albert Einstein subject to exclusion by reason of his frequently revised theory of "relativity" which, even if true, is of no more practical importance than the answer to the old academic riddle, "how many angels can stand on the point of a needle if angels do not occupy space."'

lmao. ah mass-energy equivalence, so impractical.

None of the PDFs are opening for me. Anyone else?

Here they open, some 6 seconds after the "Please wait . . . loading file.".

Thanks.

Works on FF, not on Chrome Dev Channel.

I get

FBI.GOV is currently experiencing technical difficulties. Please try back later. Thank you.

Others' files seem to be unaffected

http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/lennon.htm

Try the direct links:

You can try the links here http://www.theeinsteinfile.com/portal/alias__Einstein/lang__... and they seem to be much clearer.

This is the site of the book by Jerome the Einstein Files. Extract from same site:

The story that emerges not only reveals a little-known aspect of Einstein's considerable social and humanitarian concerns, but underscores the dangers that can arise to the American republic and the rule of law in times of obsession with national security.

"a doctrine which ...'would allow anarchy to stalk in unmolested' and result in 'government only in name.'

So, what's the FBI got on Wall Street, then?

Whatever all the nuts have mailed in to them.

Man, I wish the FBI still had a mandate to investigate communist fronts. Another thing about Einstein: In his later years he had a lady-friend who was a Soviet spy.

No worries, Glenn Beck has taken the torch.

Sarcasm? Or do you seriously believe that the government should have the right to violate people's privacy based on their political leanings?

> Or do you seriously believe that the government should have the right to violate people's privacy based on their political leanings?

I'm not the original poster, but something to think about - communism isn't a political leaning the way debating about state/federal powers is a political leaning. Mainstream communist literature - Communist Manifesto for instance - directly advocates violence and rioting, to the end of placing the state under control of the workers. Marx said that condition - control by the workers - would be socialism. Socialism could then slowly dissolve until it's a classless, peaceful society, but Marx said you'd need to make a lot of violence on the bourgeois first.

I don't know, if there was a group that advocated, for instance, that they should confiscate and destroy all the property of non-Caucasians, make sure whites control everything, but that's only a necessary step to a perfectly peaceful and equal society - well, would you want the FBI to keep tabs on those people? How about if someone believed that they should kill all infidels to place society under the control of Muslims, which would then lead to a peaceful society? No, Communism isn't a political leaning, it's a very bad thing that's done very bad things.

I'm visiting Cambodia in two weeks by the way, I'm going to see the relic of one of the most literal applications of Marxist communist doctrines:

> People were often encouraged to confess to Angkar their "pre-revolutionary lifestyles and crimes" (which usually included some kind of free-market activity, or having had contact with a foreign source, such as a US missionary, or international relief or government agency, or contact with any foreigner or with the outside world at all), being told that Angkar would forgive them and "wipe the slate clean". This meant being taken away to a place such as Tuol Sleng or Choeung Ek for torture and/or execution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killing_Fields#Process

Communism is a bad thing. The legality/criminality of advocating it should be equivalent to the legality/criminality of other forms of advocating violence and destruction.

The declaration of independence also calls for violent revolution as a means to obtain a more ideal society

Absolutely false. The United States Declaration of Independence does not declare war on Britain or advocate violence.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Seems pretty clear to me.

"new Guards for their future security" refers to forming their own government, the purpose of which is to safeguard the aforementioned inalienable rights. If "throw off such Government" is really the strongest call to revolutionary violence you can point out, I stand by my point.

It is absurd to assume that "throw off such government " means anything other than by forceful (violent ) means, especially considering the authors subsequent actions.

This is the most egregious strawman I've seen in quite a while. The FBI already keeps watch on groups prone to violence. What you have done is simply redefined communists to be communists who advocate violent overthrow and declaring that is the only type of communist there is. Your comment is a piece of trite propaganda.

> What you have done is simply redefined communists to be communists who advocate violent overthrow and declaring that is the only type of communist there is.

But that's actually, legitimately the definition of Communism. That's how Marx defined it. Second sentence from Wikipedia: "Karl Marx, the father of communist thought, posited that communism would be the final stage in society, which would be achieved through a proletarian revolution"

Here's a map of everywhere that tried Communism - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sino-Soviet_split_1980.svg

Violence in every single place. Lots of it. Horrible stuff.

> Your comment is a piece of trite propaganda.

The book that laid out Communism - the Communist Manifesto - directly calls for violence. Every significant attempt at Communism has included violence. At this point, Communism includes violence. If you're not in favor of rioting and violence and re-education, you're doing something other than Communism as was written by the founder of the movement and every real life implementation of it.

Pointing this out is not propaganda, and it's not trite. Trying to make Communism happen has literally created more misery and destruction than any other movement in history, and it's not even really close. People need to know about and remember the Khmer Rouge killing fields, they need to know about the Great Leap Forwards and Cultural Revolution, they need to know what Marx actually wrote in his books, they need to know where Communism leads and what it really is. It's a horrible thing. Putting it down is not trite - it's important that it's remembered for what it is, and never allowed to surface again, for the same reasons it's important that fascism doesn't surface again.

Just because the Communist Manifesto calls for violence does not mean that everyone who self-identifies as communist has to accept it. Modern communists can change, re-interpret, or cherry-pick parts of the doctrine. I know at least one person who explicitly identifies as both a communist (small c) and a pacifist. Marx defined the original meaning of the word, but he doesn't control its definition through the end of history, and the modern conception of communism is the resulting economic system, not the means to achieve it. Hell, in some contexts, communism is a tool of literary analysis.

Communism (big C), in practice, has lead to a lot of slaughter. I can't deny that. However, to say that it has created "more misery and destruction than any other movement in history," I will provide the counter-point that it is the only significant social-historical movement to occur in the industrial age. The Crusades (to pick a Goodwin-level example) or even the French revolutions did not have the means to cause misery and destruction on such a scale. Controlling for that accident of historical (technological) context, I would need additional evidence or argument to convince me that Communism is significantly more malicious from any other abstract idea (including democracy in both ancient and recent time as well as most religions) that people have used as an excuse for killing each other over the years.

Little C communists are just big C communists who haven't had the chance to implement their ideas. The idea that the capitalization of a letter means a significantly different ideology is silly. Libertarians don't go around calling themselves liberals because they know it means something different now and don't want to be associated with the new definition of liberal.

> the modern conception of communism is the resulting economic system, not the means to achieve it.

Every socialist I've ever talked to has always said their about the good ideas not the bad results. Where do you think the bad results come from? Do you think Mao thought the great leap forward would really kill 60 million people?

Roughly the same amount of people have died in India, from starvation, because of implementation of quite opposing ideas.

I agree if you don't like the violence aspect don't call yourself a communist.

I wouldn't have a problem with the FBI keeping tabs on anyone who has publicly stated that they want to violently overthrow the government. However...

Communism is hardly a monolithic strain of thought. There are many people who ascribe to the economic principles of communism but who absolutely reject that sort of violence. In fact, there are large numbers people who identify non only as communists, but also as pacifists, such as Einstein (though, late in life he made an exception for defeating forces such as Naziism). There is very little danger of someone like Einstein violently over throwing anything. His political philosophy is directly opposed to such a thing. The FBI keeping tabs on a man like him served absolutely no purpose related to the security of the nation.

Similarly, there are currently members of the tea party movement advocating the violent overthrow of government. They are a minority (probably a very small one) in the movement. As much as I disagree with tea partiers, I still feel that if the FBI decided it had a right to keep tabs on anyone who identified with tea party movement, it would be a gross violation of civil liberties.

If you're going to think about something, then please make the attempt to do so clearly.

The standards you are applying to 'communism' here are ones that would damn 'capitalism' as well -- there have been plenty of atrocities committed in the name of both, and neither philosophy has abstained from advocating violence. Not to mention that you'd make most major religions illegal as well!

Step one in thinking clearly is to define and use terms precisely. What seems to be your working definition of "communism" is more or less "all the bad things done by people that the US disagrees with" -- if you're trying to make value judgements, a near tautology.

I thought he/she was being pretty clear, actually. I understood his working definition to not be "all the bad things ..." but roughly "the philosophy espoused by the Communist Manifesto and by the governments of the USSR, Mao-era China, and Khmer-Rouge Cambodia".

What are the atrocities committed specifically in the name of capitalism? I'm genuinely curious which ones would add up to having the same impact as the ones committed in Stalinist Russia, Cambodia, and cultural-revolution China.

the hell. why are people upvoting this ridiculous ignorance?

Christ what a piece of contorted nonsense. Can you name one governing political institution in history not initially established by violence, whether or not explicitly stated?

In his later years, he had many lady friends of all sorts :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com