Lewis Einstein

Biography

The son of wool magnate David L. Einstein, Lewis Einstein had two sisters: Amy, who married Joel Elias Spingarn, and Florence, who married Sir Charles Waldstein. He graduated from Columbia University in 1898, and earned a master's degree in 1899.

Einstein's diplomatic career began in 1903, when he was appointed as Third Secretary of Legation at Constantinople. The next year, he married Helen Ralli, a noted English beauty a number of years older than he, whose sister was married to the younger son of Francis Stonor, 4th Baron Camoys. This marriage led to friction between Einstein and his father, who worried that Ralli would damage the younger Einstein's career; Ralli was twice a divorcee, and divorced women could not be received in some European courts.

Einstein advanced from Second Secretary to First Secretary and then Charge d'Affairs during the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, remaining in Constantinople despite the hostilities. He served as United States Ambassador to Costa Rica for one month in 1911, before his wife's ill health in the country's high altitude forced him to leave the post. He returned to Constantinople in 1915 and wrote his diaries which would be later published under the name Inside Constantinople: A Diplomatist's Diary During the Dardanelles. Einstein kept the diary from the months of April to September. The diary described the most critical points in the Ottoman Empire's involvement in the war. Einstein also paid special attention to the massacres of Armenians and wrote about it extensively throughout the diary. He described the events and stated that "the policy of murder then carried out was planned in the coldest blood" in the preface of his diary. Einstein blamed the cooperative pact between Germany and the Ottoman Empire as the supportive and responsible agents behind the massacres. He also pointed out that the stockpiles of armaments that was used as a justification for the arrests was in fact a "myth". By August 4, Einstein wrote in a diary entry that the "persecution of Armenians is assuming unprecedented proportions, and is carried out with nauseating thoroughness." He kept in contact with both Enver and Talat and tried to persuade them to reverse their policy towards the Armenians. In a diary entry, he states that Talat insisted that the Armenians sided with the enemies and that Enver believed the policy was out of military necessity, but in reality both leaders feared the Armenians.

In 1921, Warren Harding made him United States Ambassador to Czechoslovakia, a position he held until 1930. He was also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Lewis Einstein was disinherited by his father after marrying Ralli, except for a sum of $125,000 . After Einstein's death, newspapers reported that a $1,250,000 share of the elder Einstein's estate, valued in total at approximately $4,000,000, had been set aside for Lewis Einstein in the event that he divorced his wife, and that it passed to his sister Lady Waldstein after he declined to do so. This report was denied by Lady Waldstein, who indicated that the father's only wish regarding Lewis Einstein was to see that he was "taken care of", a means she accomplished by granting him an annual allowance of $20,000. Earlier, Lewis had received nothing from the estate of his mother Caroline Einstein, who instead divided her property among Einstein's sisters and various friends among European nobility.

Authorship

Einstein wrote the following books:

Einstein also engaged in a longtime correspondence with Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., and in 1964 their collected letters were published in the volume The Holmes-Einstein Letters : Correspondence of Mr. Justice Holmes and Lewis Einstein 1903-1935, edited by James Bishop Peabody.