By ROBIN POGREBIN
The New York Times June 1, 1998
The New York Times June 1, 1998
The revelation sounds too sensational even for a tabloid headline: Albert Einstein Had Love Affair With Russian Spy in World War II.
Yet nine letters have surfaced written in 1945 and 1946 by Einstein, the physicist who formulated the theory of relativity, to Margarita Konenkova. According to a book by a former Soviet spy master, Mrs. Konenkova was a Russian agent whose mission was to introduce Einstein to the Soviet vice consul in New York.
The letters, sent by Einstein from his home in Princeton over the course of a year, were consigned to Sotheby's auction house by a member of Mrs. Konenkova's family who has chosen to remain anonymous. The letters are to be sold on June 26 in New York.
The notes, written in elegant German script and preserved in their aged blue envelopes, reveal a sensitive man who writes with humor, warmth and candor about his daily life and his undying love.
''Just recently I washed my head by myself, but not with the greatest success; I am not as careful as you are,'' he wrote on Nov. 27, 1945. ''But everything here reminds me of you: 'Almar's' shawl, the dictionaries, the wonderful pipe that we thought was gone, and really all the many little things in my hermit's cell; and also the lonely nest.'' (Almar was apparently a pet name the two had devised for each other, made up of their combined names: Albert and Margarita.)
Paul Needham, who spent eight years as director of Sotheby's department of books and manuscripts and is now a consultant to the auction house, said the authenticity of the letters was immediately apparent. He said that the handwriting matches the many other examples available of Einstein's autograph and that the envelopes show Einstein's return address as well as postal information on where and when they were sent.
''In all the years I spent at Sotheby's, this is the most interesting discovery story I've ever encountered,'' said Mr. Needham, who translated the letters. ''They're very open and very different from Einstein's other letters as they've survived. They reveal both deep emotion and very accessible emotion -- the kind anybody who's ever been in love can identify with.''
Within the Einstein archive at Hebrew University in Israel, Mr. Needham said, there is no trace of any letters from Mrs. Konenkova to Einstein. Although the two met around 1935, it is unclear when the affair began -- whether it was before or after the death of Einstein's second wife, Elsa, in 1936. Mrs. Konenkova, however, was married to the noted Russian sculptor Sergei Konenkov, who created the bronze bust of Einstein at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. She was also known to have had affairs with the composer Sergei Rachmaninoff and the emigre artist Boris Chaliapin.
At the time of the letters, Einstein was 66 years old and Mrs. Konenkova was 51. There is no indication in the letters that Einstein was aware that Mrs. Konenkova may have been a spy. Even some members of her family may not have known, said the family member who consigned the letters. ''We're talking about the 40's, 50's, 60's,'' he said. ''And that period of time in my country was scary. People didn't want to talk about it because one conversation on the phone could take you out of your job and out of your life.''
Mr. Needham said he made that connection himself in researching supplementary materials and coming across Mrs. Konenkova's name in ''Special Tasks,'' the memoirs of the Soviet spy master, Pavel Sudoplatov and his son, Anatoly, published in 1995.
The job of Mrs. Konenkova (code name Lukas) was ''to influence Oppenheimer and other prominent American scientists whom she frequently met in Princeton,'' the book says, referring to Robert Oppenheimer. Although the book does not say how Mrs. Konenkova was to have ''influenced'' the scientists, it notes that she was rewarded when she was recalled to Moscow in 1945. Mrs. Konenkova succeeded in introducing Einstein to the Soviet vice consul, Pavel Mikhailov, and Einstein refers to him in the letters.
When she and her husband were ordered back to Russia, they were granted special privileges for their services. ''I have been speaking with top K.G.B. people,'' the family member said, ''and I have been hearing she was the No. 1 spy for the Manhattan Project.''
Mr. Needham and cold war scholars said it seemed highly unlikely that Einstein may have helped the Russians in building their own bomb, given Einstein's lack of direct involvement in America's bomb project. ''Einstein himself was not involved at the technical level -- he was not out at Los Alamos or Oak Ridge or any of the Chicago laboratories,'' said Gaddis Smith, a history professor at Yale University. ''He was sitting in his sweater and smoking his pipe and thinking deep mathematical thoughts at Princeton.''
Mr. Needham said the letters show what Einstein scholars already know: that the great physicist was also a great writer. Some of the passages read like poetry. ''Men are living now just the way they were before, as if we didn't have a new, all-overshadowing danger to deal with, and it's clear, that they have learned nothing from the horrors they have experienced,'' he writes on December 30, 1945. ''The little intrigues, with which they complicated their lives before, take up again the greatest part of their thoughts. What a strange species we are.''
In addition to the letters, the lot to be auctioned includes a red leather address book, which belonged to Mrs. Konenkova and includes Einstein's addresses in Princeton and Saranac Lake; five snapshots, four of which show Einstein and Mrs. Konenkova together; and a sketch, presumed to be Einstein's, that depicts Einstein -- with his perpetual pipe and signature hair -- looking out at a leaving ship and Mrs. Konenkova bending over a table reading Einstein's letters.
The letters indicate that the mail often took months to arrive, leaving Einstein waiting impatiently to hear from Mrs. Konenkova. ''Be greeted and kissed, if this letter reaches you,'' he signs off on Feb. 8, 1946, ''and the devil take anyone who intercepts it. Your A.E.''
Photo: Margarita Konenkova had kept an autographed photograph of herself and Albert Einstein, which is also up for auction at Sotheby's. The German inscription translates to ''Sincere Regards A. Einstein.'' (Sotheby's New York)
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