July 24, 1946

Dr. William M. Eberhardt

Department of Chemistry

Georgia School of Technology

Atlanta, Georgia

Dear Bill:

I was glad to get your letter of July 22, which I have read with interest, as also your earlier letter of April 21 (a rereading of this).

I feel that it would be sensible for you to leave Georgia Tech. The situation as you have described it does not look promising to me. I suppose you know that I am not going to stop by for a few weeks next spring, as I had tentatively planned to do. I am too busy to take the time, partially because I shall go to England in the fall of 1947, and must keep busy in the spring in order to get everything done.

I trust that you have not committed yourself so definitely as to make it hard to leave this summer.

I am not sure that I would be able to live through a few weeks of life among the hot-dogs and paper plates around the drive-in. My only visit to Atlanta was a very pleasant one, with most of my time spent on Peachtree Street. I do remember a rather gloomy chemistry building at Georgia Tech — I think that it had an amphitheater with seats arranged around in circles at successively increasing levels.

As to jobs: I think that you could get a job almost anywhere in the country — not any particular school, but any region -— as instructor at about $3,000. It is a little harder to get better jobs. I tabulate below some of the possibilities.

Professor W. F. Coover of Iowa State College, Ames, Iowa, has written me saying that he wants to appoint four post-doctorate fellows in the Atomic Research Institute, of which Dr. Spedding is Director, these fellows to be in inorganic, analytical, and physical chemistry, and in physical chemistry as applied to metallurgy. Stipend $4,500, payable on the twelve months basis with one months vacation. Possibility of permanence. I have heard pretty good things about this set-up — Art Stosick left the other day to accept just exactly this appointment. He told me that he would have a small teaching load, seven hours per week, in the chemistry department, and as much support for his crystal structure research as he wanted. He will be supposed to devote half of his research time to special activities of the Research Institute, on order, and have the other half to follow along any lines that he wants. There are to be two or three fellows associated with each research fellow — I don't know whether they are full-time research assistants or graduate students with appointments.

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Dr. Coover also mentions their need for one man in chemical kinetics, and one in low temperature research, stipend $5,000 in each case.

I would think that you might not like a job of this sort too well, because you might not like having to work on jobs assigned to you in the Atomic Research Institute, even for half of your time. However, I have a good opinion of Spedding, and of the Iowa State set-up generally, and this might work out all right. Rundle is leaving Princeton to go back to Iowa State.

There is an opening as instructor at Oregon State College, at $3,000, which might possibly be boosted a bit, I would surmise. Professor E. O. Gilbert is the Head of the Chemistry Department there, and the man that you should write to. Spitzer has accepted an appointment there, and is on the job. Dr. Gilbert wrote me that they wanted a man to teach freshman chemistry, but preferred an organic chemist with an interest in theoretical organic chemistry.

There is an instructorship open at the University of Virginia. Dr. Arthur F. Benton is the Head of the department there, and the man to write to. The job there is at $340 per month for nine months, with the possibility of added pay for summer school work. I think that it is a freshman teaching job. I know Dr. Benton, who was a National Research fellow here in 1924 and 1925. I do not know anything about the chemistry department otherwise.

I suggest that you write to these places, say that you feel that you should have an assistant professorship, and see whether you get any response. I am referring here to Virginia and Oregon State — the Iowa State set-up is pretty well fixed, I judge, so far as rank goes.

I do not feel very enthusiastic about the research assistantship with Crawford at Minnesota. I think that you, with your liking for teaching, should get a teaching job, and that it should be a pretty standard sort of academic appointment, giving you freedom to follow along your own bent.

I might mention that Arthur B. Lamb needed an instructor in general chemistry at Harvard, and that the opening may still exist. Also Princeton has need for an instructor or two. I think that the job at Harvard was to pay $3,000, and there is not much prospect of permanence.

Please let me know about any special desires you have. I shall write letters for you to anybody to whom you apply. I have mentioned you to Gilbert at Oregon State and to Benton at Virginia.

Sincerely yours,

Linus Pauling

LP:gw