JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post The History of Blank and Empty Things series
"Albert Einstein, Part Time Civil Servant."
I can almost see this title as a eggshell-white comic strip in a Sunday Featureette with everything else in color-- it just sounds so, well, wrong, and colorless. Fact is though that at this time Einstein was working on weapons projects for the U.S. Navy, and evidently he needed to account for his work time just like everyone else.
The "part time" was what interested in this. What was he doing not being part time?
It was actually a little more than that, the "part time" part. Because until he was hired by the Navy on 2 May 1943, Einstein worked "no time" on the war effort. Not full time, not part time: no time. The FBI thought him not trustworthy, and he was rejected by Army G2 in July 1940 as not clearable.. Einstein was out--in spite of the fact that he wanted desperately to work on something to help defeat the Nazis, and he would have made a pretty good go-to guy. In May '43 though he was cleared by the Office of Naval Intelligence and he went to work--at $25/day-- on sub warfare and HE projects, much to his high happiness.
Einstein did so without the Navy haircut, as he liked to tell.
I have this post in my Blank, Empty and Missing Things series for the missing/absence/emptiness of trust and judgment extended to Einstein in wartime.
In addition to this there are three other images, all hiosted by the U.S. National Archives, here: http://research.archives.gov/description/597840
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