476 JOURNEY'S END
The nurse's notes indicate that he invariably responded to inquiries about his
health by saying that he felt well. He left the hospital on January 13, 1949.
About a year and a half later, it was found that the aneurysm was growing.
From then on, 'we around him knew ... of the sword of Damocles hanging over
us. He knew it, too, and waited for it, calmly and smilingly' [D2].
On March 18, 1950, Einstein put his signature to his last will and testament.
He appointed his friend, the economist Otto Nathan as executor. Nathan and
Helen Dukas were named trustees of all his letters, manuscripts, and copyrights
with the understanding that all his papers would eventually be turned over to the
Hebrew University. Other dispositions included the bequests of his books to Helen
Dukas and of his violin to his grandson Bernhard Caesar.
Among the other legatees were his sons, Hans Albert, then a professor of engi-
neering at Berkeley, and Eduard, then confined to the psychiatric hospital Burg-
holzli in Zurich. Their mother, Mileva, had died in Zurich on August 4, 1948.
My picture of Mileva has remained rather vague. Among the many difficulties
which beset her life, the poor mental health of Eduard must have been a partic-
ularly heavy burden. She saw 'Tede' regularly until the end of her life. Eduard
died in Burgholzli in 1965, Hans Albert in Berkeley in 1973.
Among the many events in later years, I single out one.
Chaim Weizmann, the first president of Israel, died on November 9, 1952.
Thereupon the Israeli government decided to offer the presidency to Einstein, who
first heard this news one afternoon from The New York Times. What happened
next has been described by a friend who was with Einstein that evening. 'About
nine o'clock a telegram was delivered. .. from the Israeli ambassador in Wash-
ington, Mr Abba Eban. The highly elaborate terms of the telegram ... made it
quite plain that the earlier report must be true, and the little quiet household was
much ruffled. "This is very awkward, very awkward," the old gentleman was
explaining while walking up and down in a state of agitation which was very
unusual with him. He was not thinking of himself but of how to spare the
Ambassador and the Israeli government embarrassment from his inevitable
refusal.. .. He decided not to reply by telegram but to call Washington at once.
[ He got] through to the Ambassador, to^1 whom he spoke briefly and almost humbly
made plain his position' [Ml].
The end came in 1955.
In March of that year, Einstein had occasion to remember three old friends.
He wrote to Kurt Blumenfeld, 'I thank you belatedly for having made me con-
scious of my Jewish soul' [Ell]. He wrote his last autobiographical sketch [E12],
a contribution to a special issue of the Schweizerische Hochschulzeitung published
on the occasion of the centenary of the ETH. In this note, he mentioned 'the need
to express at least once in my life my gratitude to Marcel Grossmann,' the friend
whose notebooks he had used as a student, who had helped him to get a job at the
patent office, to whom he had dedicated his doctoral thesis, and with whom he
had written his first paper on the tensor theory of general relativity. In the same