Albert Einstein, Who Made the Atomic Bomb Possible, Believes the World Is in “Immediate Danger”

He outlines his philosophical and practical approach: identify which of your goals are attainable now, work to achieve those, and conserve your energies

The World Federalist Movement evolved out of organizations and efforts that started in the 1930s as a response to the failure of the League of Nations. At the end of the violence of World War II, groups formed across Europe and North America to address the need for effective mechanisms of ensuring international peace and stability. The groups started working independently of each other, publishing newsletters, pushing for reform, and monitoring the newly formed United Nations. They felt they were working in a totally different environment than prior to the war, as the atomic bomb, which Albert Einstein's work had been crucial in making possible, threatened worldwide destruction.

In the United States, in 1948, Americans in sympathy with the World Federalist movement generously funded an organization to work for its goals called the Foundation for World Government. Stringfellow Barr was the Director, and he famously collaborated with his colleague Scott Buchanan. Barr was an author and college president, and with Buchanan they instituted the Great Books curriculum.

The idea of Barr and Buchanan was to end the international anarchy of states, only slightly altered by the new United Nations established in 1945, and to inaugurate the effective rule of world law under new representative global institutions. World citizenship, in their minds, would be the very basis of a popularly representative world federal government. Such a government would be the work of the sovereignty of the people. A constitution of the world would vest the powers of the people in a higher form of government to protect their lives and liberties. A bill of human rights and duties would declare the benefits and responsibilities of all human beings under such a government. Most of the Foundation's work took place in seminars and funded studies in such new fields as functional economic and social cooperation, Gandhian nonviolence, world development corporations, world citizenship, and establishment of a world federalist political party. The organization rose in the McCarthy era, and it was attacked as communist or as fellow-travelers of the communists. It was in the cross-hairs.

Einstein once described himself as a world citizen. As early as 1946, he was writing about a world government. In a public letter to the United Nations that year, he proposed to install such a government, in which he saw the only chance for a durable peace. In the following years he intensified these endeavors, and tried to blunt the strong force of nationalism, which he saw as driving many of the world's problems. He is well known for saying, "Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind." In a 1949 Monthly Review article entitled "Why Socialism?", he described a chaotic capitalist society, a source of evil to be overcome, as the "predatory phase of human development." With Albert Schweitzer and Bertrand Russell, Einstein lobbied to stop nuclear testing and future bombs.

Seeing Einstein as sympathetic and hoping for his support, on June 16, 1950, Barr sent Einstein the Foundation for World Government's new report, which had very extensive, ambitious and expansive goals. Although idealistic, Einstein was a very practical man whose mind worked on the basis of scientific principles. To him, it was no good simply putting forward a program; the results had to be achievable and provable to make any sense. He was not a Don Quixote tilting at windmillls; he was seeking experiments that had a chance of being useful. His response to Barr is a model of this philosophy: since the need is urgent, work effectively toward that which is attainable, and don't divide your forces and thus waste your energies.

Typed letter signed, in English, 2 pages, June 20, 1950, to Barr. "Dear Mr. Barr: Thank you for your letter of June 16th. I did indeed receive the request copy of which you were kind enough to send me with your recommendation. I did nothing about it at the time I received the cable simply because I did not know what to do and I feel the same today. Although one has the impression that the senders of the telegram are quite serious about their proposal the latter seems to be a  soap-bubble.  If one advocates such romantic enterprises one is very soon not taken seriously anymore and might lose one's credit. I have read carefully your report. I could, perhaps, agree with you if it were not for the fact that we are in a situation of such immediate danger. I believe also that a realization of the minimum program for World Government must lead very soon to an expansion of its functions and duties. However, I think that it would be considerably easier to rally the support of the relevant groups of people the world over for the minimum program than for a more expansive program which would include Human Rights, elimination of starvation and maybe birth­ control etc. For the danger of general annihilation by war directly and simultaneously threatens the strong and the weak alike – perhaps the strong even more than the weak. For this reason I do believe that all sensible people should back a minimum program to prevent dispersion of forces. These remarks should not be taken as an objection to your efforts insofar as only education and enlightenment are intended. Yours very sincerely, A. Einstein."