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Shadlen, Conrad, January 23, 1947.
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CONRAD SHADLEN COUNSELOR AT LAW NEW YORK, N.Y. 20 Pine Street Room 1907 New York, N.Y.
January 23, 1947
Professor Albert Einstein Princeton, New Jersey
Dear Professor Einstein:
Your letter of January 20, 1947 addressee to me was addressed to one whose convictions concerning what effect the release of atomic energy has had upon our civilization and its political organization, though much less influential, are as strong as your own. When I was an undergraduate, before you and your colleagues had developed the atomic bomb, I was arguing world government in a world armed only with tanks, bombers, gas and bacteria. Today, a struggling young lawyer of twenty-three, I am helping World Federalists in whatever way I can, during whatever time I have. My Socratic button-holing of whomever will listen has made me a somewhat limited conversationalist. Your argument for world government falls on sympathetic ears. I venture, however, to disagree with you in one respect.
With your premise that America must raise a Stentorian voice from its village squares, I am in full agreement. With your premise that the immediate approach to the atomic problem is one of education, I am likewise enthusiastically in accord. My difference with you arises in connection with the approach to the educational problem.
The statement you sent me of the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists lists six "facts" which you seek to make known to the public. Without for a moment questioning the authority of your committee to state these propositions---and, in fact, assuming readily that if any committee in the world is qualified to make these assertions, it is yours---these propositions, with one exception, do not appear to me to be "facts". Furthermore, for your committee to attempt to convince people that these propositions are "facts" appears to me to be both unneccessary and, from a propagandist viewpoint, impractical.
Lawyers and scientists, because of the very nature of their work, have found it necessary to distinguish between fact, inferences or assertions which have high probability, and opinions. In order to avoid an abstract discussion which will avail our immediate purpose little let me