July 20, 1937

Professor Wm. Lloyd Evans

Department of Chemistry

Ohio State University

Columbus, Ohio

Dear Dr. Evans:

I am very glad to learn that you are interested in Lassettre, because I think that he is a very promising man and that he would be valuable to all of the members of your department.

Lassettre is a tall thin young man (twenty-five years old) of studious and quiet disposition and appearance. From the personal standpoint he is thoroughly satisfactory. He has a pleasant manner and gets along very well with all of his associates. He is not at all temperamental; he has had no disagreements with any one here, but has, on the contrary, shown himself to be interested in the work of other people and has on several occasions worked hard on mathematical problems connected with researches of Professor Dickinson and myself just in order to be helpful.

Lassettre is well trained in all branches of chemistry and physics and especially of mathematics. As I wrote in my earlier letters, he is rated by the Department of Mathematics here as one of the ablest men in the Institute. He is not especially interested in pure mathematics, however, but instead in applications of mathematics to chemistry. You have no doubt seen his very clever and original treatment of apparent molecular weights published in the July Journal of the American Chemical Society. He has a long related paper in the last issue of Chemical Reviews. Although he has carried on several experimental researches, his main interests are theoretical, and he plans to work mainly on theoretical problems in the future. I am sure that he would be glad to tackle theoretical problems connected with the researches of his colleagues. He is interested in quantum mechanics, but also in other branches of theoretical chemistry, and he has good common sense and a broad and penetrating point of view. He is an especially thoughtful and original man.

He is sending to you a complete account of his academic career.

Lassettre is married and has one child, a three-year-old son. Mrs. Lassettre is a very attractive young woman, who received her B.A. in chemistry at the University of California at Los Angeles. During the past eighteen months she has worked as secretary and assistant to me; you may have noticed that we have acknowledged her help in several of our recent electron-diffraction and theoretical papers.

I mentioned before that Lassettre is interested in freshman teaching and has done very well with this work here during the past three years.

With best regards, I am

Yours sincerely,

Linus Pauling