New York - Nine letters written by Albert Einstein reveal that the father of modern physics had a love affair during the second World War with a purported Soviet spy, Sotheby's auction house said yesterday.
It said the letters, to be sold at auction by Sotheby's in New York on June 26th, were written in elegant German by Einstein to Russian emigree, Margarita Konenkova. He wrote to her in the Soviet Union from his home in Princeton, New Jersey, during the postwar period between November 1945 and July 1946.
Although Konenkova succeeded in her job of introducing Einstein to the Soviet vice consul in New York, Pavel Mikhailov, scholars believe it is highly unlikely that he helped Moscow's effort to build an atomic bomb.