 By this time, the storm clouds gathering in Europe were obvious for all to see, and like many of the Vienna Circle, Carnap sought an appointment in North America. In 1936 he landed at the University of Chicago, where he would stay for nearly twenty years, longer than he spent anywhere else. While he felt personally and intellectually comfortable in the United States, his written prose was never as elegant or forceful in English as it had been in German, and his publications were mostly quite technical. The larger context of his philosophy was of course unknown to most colleagues and students, and remained obscure to the larger public. This decontextualization of logical empiricism was reinforced by political factors. As new immigrants, Carnap and his Vienna Circle friends felt vulnerable in the United States, and many of them, having previously supported socialist causes in Europe, were kept under observation by the FBI, including Carnap himself (Reisch 2005). It was thus in their interest to play down the larger significance of their philosophical preoccupations, and to pose as narrow specialists in technical subjects.