In 1931 the Permanent Committee on Literature and the Arts of the League of Nations proposed exchanges of letters between intellectuals. Contacted in June 1932, Freud agreed to respond to Einstein's letter, which he received in August. The result was a "Letter to Albert Einstein" titled "Why War?" On September 8, 1932, he stated to Max Eitingon that he had finally finished writing the "tedious and sterile so-called discussion with Einstein" (quoted in Jones, 1957, Vol. 3, p. 185). To Einstein's question "Is there any way of delivering mankind from the menace of war?" (1933b [1932], p. 199), Freud would respond by returning to a number of issues that he had already addressed in his work on this subject, from "Thoughts for the Times on War and Death" (1915b) to Civilization and Its Discontents (1930a). Instead of his correspondent's proposal to consider the relationship between right and might, he preferred to consider the...