New letters reveal mysteries of Einstein's love life

JERUSALEM, July 11 (Reuters) Albert Einstein had half a dozen girlfriends and told his wife they showered him with ''unwanted'' affection, according to letters released here that shed light on his extra-marital affairs.

The wild-haired Jewish-German scientist, renowned for his theory of relativity, spent little time at home. He lectured in Europe and in the United States, where he died in 1955 at age 76. But Einstein wrote hundreds of letters to his family.

Previous-released letters suggested his marriage in 1903 to his first wife Mileva Maric, mother of his two sons, was miserable. They divorced in 1919 and he soon married his cousin, Elsa. He cheated on her with his secretary, Betty Neumann.

In the new volume of letters released yesterday by Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Einstein described about six women with whom he spent time with and received gifts from while being married to Elsa.

In the early 1980s, Elsa's daughter, Margot, gave almost 1,400 letters to Hebrew University, which Einstein helped found. But Margot directed that the letters not be released publicly until 20 years after her death. She died on July 8, 1986.

Some of the women identified by Einstein include Estella, Ethel, Toni, and his ''Russian spy lover,'' Margarita. Others are referred to only by initials, like M and L.

''It is true that M followed me (to England) and her chasing after me is getting out of control,'' he wrote in a letter to Margot in 1931. ''Out of all the dames, I am in fact attached only to Mrs L, who is absolutely harmless and decent.'' In another post to Margot, Einstein asked his stepdaughter to pass on ''a little letter for Margarita, to avoid providing curious eyes with tidbits.'' FAMILY HEARD The new batch of letters for the first time included replies from Einstein's family, Hanoch Gutfreund, chairman of the Albert Einstein Worldwide Exhibition at Hebrew University said.

This, he told reporters, helped shatter myths that the Nobel Prize-winning scientist was always cold towards his family.

''In these letters he acts with much greater friendship and understanding to Mileva and his sons,'' Gutfeund said.

Gutfeund said that though Einstein's later marriage to Elsa was best described as a ''marriage of convenience,'' he wrote to her almost every day, describing, among other things, his experiences touring and lecturing in Europe.

''Soon I'll be fed up with the (theory of) relativity,'' Einstein wrote in a postcard to Elsa in 1921. ''Even such a thing fades away when one is too involved with it.'' Einstein lived and studied in the 1930's at Oxford, where he hid from the Nazis. A German colleague, he said in a letter to Else, had told him ''to not even come near the German border because the rage against me is out of control.'' In the same letter, which he wrote in 1933, less than a decade before the start of World War II and the Nazi Holocaust, Einstein writes: ''One fears everywhere the competition of the expelled 'brainy' Jews. We are even more burdened by our strength than by our weakness.'' Reuters SB VV0902