Scripto | Page Revision | Transcription

1014 Dinwiddie st. Downey, California May 6, 1947.

Dr. Albert Einstein Chairman Emergency committee 90 Nassau st. Princeton, N.J.

Dear Dr. Einstein: I am just in receipt of circulars requesting subscriptions for your educational program. I enclose a smalldonation. Wish I could more, but rising costs, heavy expenses nad declining income make it difficult. Shortly after "Hiroshima" I realized that this newly discovered force could be used as an unliminited blessing or to destroy the civilized world. So I have constantly urged that fact in newspaper articles and in correspondence withe members of Congress and others. It apppears to me that the people who most need "educating" are the President, his cabinet and members of Congress. They are the ones who are making decisions that will decide the fate of the world. And, in my opinion, they are making many wrong decisions. The worst yet being the President's "new foreign policy" - his virtual declaration of war against Russia. Has he not declared that a state of war exists when he says there is "a world wide conflict between two ways of life"? At the same time he announces determination to "stop the spread of Communism " on all fronts by military means, if necessary. Of course there is war between the two governments - has been ever since 1917, when we sent troops into Russia to oppose the new government , before Communism ever had a chance to do any "spreading". Dr. Einstein, perhaps I look at this matter a little different from some. As I see it, control of atomic energy, or even a world government, will not prevent war. They may act as a deterent but not a preventive. An international "police force" for the punishment of agressors never coul be strong enough to prevent a great nation, fullly prepared, for fear of "punishment." And it is my firm conviction that the "conflict" between the US and Russia can only end in war - unless we find some way to cooperate with Russia - be friends instead of enemies. Unless we can prove that Stalin is wrong - that the two systems can exist in the same world - one of them must be destroyed, or changed to conform with the other. Neither country wants to change its system, so each is doing its best to get the other to change. " Communists" here - propaganda there.