Einstein’s Prophecy: “International order” Requires “Cooperation of the English-Speaking Nations”

Einstein left Germany for good in December 1932, a month before the Hitler takeover. For most of 1933 he lectured and studied in England and Belgium. In England in September, he met with Winston Churchill as well as other political leaders, scientists and intellectuals, to alert them in person about the dangers of Nazism. In October, he set sail for America, for what he thought would be a six-month appointment as an instructor in mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Study on the Princeton University campus.

Upon his arrival in America, Einstein promptly dropped the formal veneer expected of a European professor and became an instant American in his own special way; his first act in Princeton was to buy an ice-cream cone. Far more importantly, he directly called for “a sustained co-operation between the United States and the British Empire, including possibly France and Russia”. That was prophetic, because although these nations had been on the same side in World War I, there was no long-term vision for their cooperation, and with the exception of Churchill, nobody else at that early day envisaged such an unusual alliance. Einstein began teaching in January 1934. That month, he also read a speech advocating an Anglo-American alliance written by Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Columbia University and President Taft’s running mate in 1912. He was impressed and perhaps surprised that Butler shared his vision, and wrote to inform him that there were those in England (specifically Churchill) with similar ideas. Typed Letter Signed, in German, Princeton, N.J., January 27, 1934, to Butler. “Yesterday I read by chance your excellent speech, in which you declare that the germ for a really effective international order may be found in the cooperation of the English-speaking nations. I had an opportunity to observe in England that your conception of the matter coincides in marked degree with that of influential English statesmen. The fashion in which you courageously represent in this country a point of view by no means popular deserves every recognition. May your seed fall on good ground.” The letter A in the signature appears to be written over an earlier letter that did not take, whether by Einstein we cannot be sure. In 1934, the Atlantic Charter establishing the Atlantic Alliance Einstein here advocates was still seven years and a bloody war away. That he, a German, could foresee with clarity the role Anglo-American cooperation would need to play in the future political organization of the world is nothing short of extraordinary.