Commentary:

The forgotten man behind the iconic image

From The Guardian newspaper, Tuesday 19 April 1955:

We much regret to announce the death at Princeton, New Jersey, yesterday of Dr Albert Einstein. He was 76. Dr Einstein had entered hospital on Friday for treatment of arterio-sclerosis.

A Record of Goodness
David Mitrany

Even a layman can tell what made Albert Einstein famous as a scientist. But what was the secret of his truly amazing fame as a man - and fame is not the right word. For it was not anything like the gaping of the humble at some awe-inspiring oracle, or like the cheering of some mighty personage by an excited anonymous crowd. Rather it was something quite simple and human, a genuine personal affection by many thousands for someone they never knew or were likely to know personally. They may have heard that he was a great man, but somehow they seemed to know that he was a good man.

---

And of course he was utterly uncompromising when it was a matter of scientific truth - uncompromising above all with himself. I used to tease him with the suggestion that he had chosen me as a walking companion because I had no mathematics at all and so he was safe from prying questions, but in fact now and then he did used to tell me about what he was doing - and how clear and simple it all seemed when he spoke! On a such an occasion, in 1937 or 1938, he told me in some excitement that he thought he had found the key to unified field theory, but some six months later during a walk he said quietly that calculations had proved his hypothesis to be all wrong. "What are you going to do now?" "I am going to publish it." "But why if it is wrong?" "Why! To save perhaps another fool from wasting six months on the same idea?"

It so happened that I was spending the evening at his house some two years ago, after the death of Dr Weizmann, when a telegram arrived from the Israeli Ambassador in Washington asking to be received on the following day - we knew what it meant, as there had been a rumour that Mr Einstein would be offered the Presidency of Israel. Mr Einstein was obviously greatly moved, but after a brief conference he insisted on telephoning himself to the Ambassador at once, for his main and urgent thought was how to spare the Ambassador the embarrassment of his inevitable refusal.

He was in all circumstances endlessly considerate for the position and problems of others. And with all this it is still difficult to say what made him so beloved, so simply accepted on trust, by an endless number of people everywhere. One can only say that it is itself a tribute to the decency of the mass of the people everywhere who recognised and loved goodness in a man above all other things.

We often forget the humanity underlying our icons.