Notes on Conversation of Linus Pauling with Albert Einstein on 16 November 1954
On 16 November 1954 I talked with Albert Einstein at his home in Princeton, for a couple of hours, about various matters, scientific in part, but especially about the world as a whole.
When I said goodbye, and left the house, I stopped on the sidewalk and wrote two sentences in my notebook, in order that I would not forget just what he had said to me. One statement that he made that I noted is the following: “Oxenstierna said to his son ‘You would be astonished to know with how little wisdom the world is governed.’”
The other sentence about which I made a note is the following: “I made one great mistake in my life - when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made; but there was some justification - the danger that the Germans would make them.”
I made one great mistake in my life—when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made; but there was some justification—the danger that the Germans would make them.Recorded by Linus Pauling, “Note to Self regarding a meeting with Albert Einstein. November 16, 1954