Nonetheless, Eban, explaining he had to at least go through the motions and officially present the offer, pressed him to receive Goitein. Einstein, while emphasizing that he had already made up his mind and characterizing such a visit as a waste of time, finally relented, and Goitein delivered the following November 22, 1952 correspondence from Eban:
The bearer of this letter is Mr. David Goitein of Jerusalem who is now serving as Minister at our Embassy in Washington. He is bringing you the question which Prime Minister Ben Gurion asked me to convey to you, namely, whether you would accept the Presidency of Israel if it were offered you by a vote of the Knesset. Acceptance would entail moving to Israel and taking its citizenship. The Prime Minister assures me that in such circumstances complete facility and freedom to pursue your great scientific work would be afforded by a government and people who are fully conscious of the supreme significance of your labors.Mr. Goitein will be able to give you any information that you may desire on the implications of the Prime Minister’s question. Whatever your inclination or decision may be, I should be deeply grateful for an opportunity to speak with you again within the next day or two at any place convenient for you. I understand the anxieties and doubts which you expressed to me this evening. On the other hand, whatever your answer, I am anxious for you to feel that the Prime Minister’s question embodies the deepest respect which the Jewish people can repose in any of its sons. To this element of personal regard, we add the sentiment that Israel is a small State in its physical dimensions, but can rise to the level of greatness in the measure that it exemplifies the most elevated spiritual and intellectual traditions which the Jewish people has established through its best minds and hearts both in antiquity and in modern times. Our first President, as you know, taught us to see our destiny in these great perspectives, as you yourself have often exhorted us to do.
Therefore, whatever your response to this question, I hope that you will think generously of those who have asked it, and will commend the high purposes and motives which prompted them to think of you at this solemn hour in our people’s history.
Ben-Gurion is reputed to have sheepishly asked: “What do we do if he accepts?” Indeed, Navon writes that after the invitation to Einstein had been extended, Ben-Gurion said to him: “Tell me what to do if he says yes. I’ve had to offer the post to him because it was impossible not to. But if he accepts, we are in trouble.”
To Ben-Gurion’s great relief, Einstein turned down the offer and, in his famous and oft-quoted formal reply to Eban, wrote:
I am deeply moved by the offer from our State of Israel and at once saddened and ashamed that I cannot accept it. All my life I have dealt with objective matters, hence I lack both the natural aptitude and the experience to deal properly with people and to exercise official functions. For these reasons alone I should be unsuited to fulfill the duties of that high office, even if advancing age was not making increasing inroads on my strength.I am the more distressed over these circumstances because my relationship to the Jewish people has become my strongest human bond, ever since I became fully aware of our precarious situation among the nations of the world.
Now that we have lost the man who for so many years, against such great and tragic odds, bore the heavy responsibility of leading us towards political independence, I hope with all my heart that a successor may be found whose experience and personality will enable him to accept the formidable and responsible task.
