Editing Richard Feynman (section)

=== Personal and political life ===
Feynman did not return to Cornell. Bacher, who had been instrumental in bringing Feynman to Cornell, had lured him to the [[California Institute of Technology]] (Caltech). Part of the deal was that he could spend his first year on sabbatical in Brazil.{{sfn|Feynman|1985|pp=233–236}}{{sfn|Gleick|1992|p=277}} He had become smitten by Mary Louise Bell from [[Neodesha, Kansas]]. They had met in a cafeteria in Cornell, where she had studied the history of Mexican art and textiles. She later followed him to Caltech, where he gave a lecture. While he was in Brazil, she taught classes on the history of furniture and interiors at [[Michigan State University]]. He proposed to her by mail from Rio de Janeiro, and they married in [[Boise, Idaho]], on June 28, 1952, shortly after he returned. They frequently quarreled and she was frightened by what she described as "a violent temper".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Who smeared Richard Feynman? |url=https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2014/07/11/smeared-richard-feynman/ |access-date=October 17, 2024 |website=Restricted Data: A Nuclear History Blog |language=en-US}}</ref> Their politics were different; although he registered and voted as a [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]], she was more conservative, and her opinion on the 1954 [[Oppenheimer security hearing]] ("Where there's smoke there's fire") offended him. They separated on May 20, 1956. An interlocutory decree of divorce was entered on June 19, 1956, on the grounds of "extreme cruelty". The divorce became final on May 5, 1958.{{sfn|Gleick|1992|pp=291–294}}<ref name="Who smeared Richard Feynman?">{{cite web |author1=Wellerstein |first=Alex |author-link=Alex Wellerstein |date=July 11, 2014 |title=Who smeared Richard Feynman? |url=https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2014/07/11/smeared-richard-feynman/ |access-date=June 10, 2023 |publisher=Restricted Data}}</ref>

{{blockquote| ... the appointee's wife was granted a divorce from him because of appointee's constantly working calculus problems in his head as soon as awake, while driving car, sitting in living room, and so forth, and that his one hobby was playing his African drums. His ex-wife reportedly testified that on several occasions when she unwittingly disturbed either his calculus or his drums he flew into a violent rage, during which time he choked her, threw pieces of bric-a-brac about and smashed the furniture ...
|author=Special Agent in Charge in Los Angeles|title=in mail to FBI director, July 24, 1958<ref>{{Cite web |title=FOIA Responsive documents of FBI Files on Richard Feynman |url=https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/fbi-files-on-richard-feynman-1165/#file-4617|page=64 |website=MuckRock.com|date=March 12, 2012 }}</ref>|source=}}

In the wake of the 1957 [[Sputnik crisis]], the U.S. government's interest in science rose for a time. Feynman was considered for a seat on the [[President's Science Advisory Committee]], but was not appointed. At this time, the FBI interviewed a woman close to Feynman, possibly his ex-wife Bell, who sent a written statement to [[J. Edgar Hoover]] on August 8, 1958:{{blockquote|I do not know—but I believe that Richard Feynman is either a Communist or very strongly pro-Communist—and as such is a very definite security risk. This man is, in my opinion, an extremely complex and dangerous person, a very dangerous person to have in a position of public trust&nbsp;... In matters of intrigue Richard Feynman is, I believe immensely clever—indeed a genius—and he is, I further believe, completely ruthless, unhampered by morals, ethics, or religion—and will stop at absolutely nothing to achieve his ends.<ref name="Who smeared Richard Feynman?" />}}

The U.S. government nevertheless sent Feynman to Geneva for the September 1958 [[Atoms for Peace]] Conference. On the beach at [[Lake Geneva]], he met Gweneth Howarth, who was from [[Ripponden]], West Yorkshire, and working in Switzerland as an ''[[au pair]]''. Feynman's love life had been turbulent since his divorce; his previous girlfriend had walked off with his [[Albert Einstein Award]] medal and, on the advice of an earlier girlfriend, had feigned pregnancy and extorted him into paying for an abortion, then used the money to buy furniture. When Feynman found that Howarth was being paid only $25 a month, he offered her $20 (equivalent to $202 in 2022) a week to be his live-in maid. Feynman knew that this sort of behavior was illegal under the [[Mann Act]], so he had a friend, [[Matthew Sands]], act as her sponsor. Howarth pointed out that she already had two boyfriends, but decided to take Feynman up on his offer, and arrived in [[Altadena, California]], in June 1959. She made a point of dating other men, but Feynman proposed in early 1960. They were married on September 24, 1960, at the [[The Langham Huntington, Pasadena|Huntington Hotel]] in Pasadena. They had a son, Carl, in 1962, and adopted a daughter, Michelle, in 1968.{{sfn|Gleick|1992|pp=339–347}}{{sfn|Gribbin|Gribbin|1997|pp=151–153}} Besides their home in Altadena, they had a beach house in Baja California, purchased with the money from Feynman's Nobel Prize.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://justalifestory.wordpress.com/2008/11/18/a-weekend-at-richard-feynmans-house/ |title=A Weekend at Richard Feynman's House |publisher=It's Just A Life Story |access-date=July 15, 2016 |date= November 19, 2008 |archive-date= October 7, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161007144513/https://justalifestory.wordpress.com/2008/11/18/a-weekend-at-richard-feynmans-house/ |url-status=live}}</ref>