C. Brown,
You wrote:
"I wonder whether Albert Einstein, the iconical genius of modern academe, hasn't turned out to be a sort of sorcerer's apprentice. At this point, the most significant impact on human society of his work has been the development of nuclear weapons."
This is really a misguided line of reasoning. First, Einstein developed the field of relativity and his work was pretty much done in the by the late 1920's. He did little if any work with radioactive isotopes that I know about. Second, Einstein's work was one of the most pivotal scientific realizations in the history of man. Relativity is a fundamental building block of all science and even philosophy. Equating Einstein and nuclear bombs is about as valid as equating Newton and ICBM's. Without calculus you can't figure out the trajectories of any long-distance weapon.
The political ideology of scientists would have done absolutely nothing to stop the development of nuclear weapons.
peace