“He needs to do a lot of soul searching for he is the kind of guy we fear. His opportunity to spread his views and his cleverness will continue to be a stumbling block before we reach peace here at home.”

“When two people loved each other like you & Hilde did you must feel contented… Stay happy. I preach those same words to Lucille Lots of times during our life together. I have so much happiness from the life she and I have already live together until I don’t want No Misery from which ever one should leave this Earth ‘LAST’”

During the 1950s, the State Department sent jazz musicians on international goodwill tours. As a uniquely American form of music, jazz could display the best of American culture with artists like Dizzy Gillespie, Dave Brubeck, Duke Ellington, and Louis Armstrong. This letter, written to a German friend between his visits behind the Iron Curtain to East Berlin, East Germany, and Budapest, Hungary, reflects his busy schedule at the height of his popularity in 1965.

“the man who has done more to subordinate brute force to the rule of law than any man of our time; -- Americas great friend in war and peace, Sir Winston Churchill. We feel honored, Sir, beyond our power of expression, that you who in the darkest days of history supplied the leadership which made the survival of free institutions on this continent possible, would now treat our profession and recognize it as a force for preserving those institutions.”

In a letter peppered with references to Middle Earth and its inhabitants, an exhausted Tolkien takes his first lengthy holiday in four years—in Italy. He returns and writes to Naomi Mitchison, a fellow novelist and his proofreader, for failing to provide feedback for her novel, To the Chapel Perilous. Tolkien discusses the demands on his time, ranging from his teaching load, thesis advising, and publishing, to reading critical reviews. Tolkien’s dissatisfaction with radio adaptations of Lord of the Rings occupies a prominent place: I think poorly of the broadcast adaptations. Except for a few details I think they are not well done... I thought that the dwarf (Gloin not Gimli, but I suppose Gimli will talk like his father...) was not too bad if a bit exaggerated. I do think of the “Dwarves” like Jews: at once native and alien in their habitations, speaking the language of the country, but with an accent due to their own private tongue. The balance of the letter discusses literary critics, reviews of Mitchison’s book, and anachronisms in her latest offering as contrasted to Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.

Golda Meyerson (she would change her name to Meir in 1956), promotes the idea of Mapam (the Marxist United Workers’ Party) joining Sharett’s Mapai (Workers’ Party) government. Hazan, the recipient, was one of Mapam’s co-founders.

“I suppose you can say that anything which is obligatory is in some degree similar to communism or fascism. The only difference here is that we the people, are consulted and it is our representatives through whom we speak… I think you are a trifle emotional when you call 18 year old men, children. I think they should be allowed to vote…. Of course there are inequalities and injustices in any big undertaking.”

“I am sorry if you feel that you can not trust your government…. You can not expect always to have one man who will carry the burdens of the whole democracy and express their thinking for them. Now we have to do it for ourselves.”

“We are not alone in Korea, many nations are represented … but we have to bear the brunt … because we were spared during the last war from war in our own country and therefore today we are the strongest nation in the world.”

“A mothers’ rebellion would certainly be a novel and interesting undertaking because there would be a division even among the mothers. I do not know, nor could I tell you exactly how you could find out how many men in Congress have eighteen year old sons but I am sure there are a great many who have.”

A rich and fascinating letter by one of the twentieth century’s most powerful first ladies.

To the Workers of Israel, celebrating the historic decision of the United Nations General Assembly authorizing the establishment of a Jewish state in the land of Israel.

“All my life I have troubled myself with problems and am always – as on the first day – inspired by the fact that cognition in the scientific and artistic sense is the best thing we possess…If one hears the angels singing a couple of times during one’s life, one can give the world something and one is a particularly fortunate and blessed individual.”

“I am willing to join the federation for the introduction of an international auxiliary language to promote understanding, peace, and cooperation among nations.”

Einstein was a lifelong champion of efforts to eliminate of the nationalist divisions that leaders erected between peoples, often to deadly effect. Esperanto, the “international auxiliary language,” was an easy to learn, politically neutral language invented by L.L. Zamenhof, a Polish ophthalmologist, in the 1870s-1880s. His goals, to transcend nationalism and create harmony and peace in the world community, were certainly shared by Einstein — and pilloried as a Jewish conspiracy by Adolf Hitler. Considering the date of the pledge, Einstein was taking an early stand against the Fascist future into which Europe was about to descend.

Blanche Bruce was the first full-term African American to serve in the U.S. Senate, 1875-1881. He was then appointed by President James Garfield as Register of the U.S. Treasury in 1881. He later served as the Washington, D.C. Recorder of Deeds (a position earlier held by Frederick Douglass), 1890-1893 and again as Register of the Treasury from 1897 until his death in 1898.