National Bureau of Economic Research

The New School for Social Research had absorbed many social scientists from Central Europe, and even some of Mises's associates such as Richard Schüller. Mises never received an offer. Hayek received one in August 1940, but declined out of loyalty to his colleagues at LSE.²⁵

Eventually it would once again be the Rockefeller Foundation that would fund Mises. Joseph H. Willits, who at the time headed the Foundation's social sciences division, signed a $2,500 grant to the National Bureau of Economic Research to put Mises on its payroll for one year starting December 15, 1940.²⁶ The stipend was less then a third of his salary in Geneva, but given the circumstances Mises would have been satisfied to find anything at all.²⁷

Mises's contacts with other NBER economists seem to have been ephemeral. He ran a seminar at NBER's Hillside offices but found it uninspiring. To Hayek he wrote:

My seminar is going on. Last week M. and L. took part. I think that their impression was that it is still far below the Stubenring standard. But everything takes time.²⁸

It turned out, however, that he did not have the time to build up a group of permanent participants as in Vienna. All of the attending students were quickly absorbed in government jobs—the war years were a strong growth period for the federal government, which hired thousands of young graduates all over the country.²⁹

During the first year at NBER, Mises continued to write in German, which few or none of his colleagues could read. He must have thought he would one day return to an academic position in Europe. But was there any real chance that this could happen? When he arrived in New York, this might have been his plan and his hope, but the prospect grew ever dimmer over the course of 1941.

His manuscripts were translated into English. The NBER officer responsible for handling publication matters, a certain Martha Anderson, also tried to find a translator for one of his book manuscripts—probably the original German manuscript of what was later published as Omnipotent Government. In November 1941, Anderson proposed Max Eastman for the job. Eastman was a New York journalist who had already translated Das Kapital. Mises replied that he would like to meet Eastman, and might have done so in Eastman's home in March 1942, but no professional relationship would come of it.