March 4, 1969

Professor Raymond K. Sheline

Department of Physics

The Florida State University

Tallahassee 32306

Dear Ray:

I am pleased that you should write to me, and also that you have encouraged Mr. Chatwin to write to me.

I have continued to do some work in the nuclear field. I have another note on magnetic moments in process of publication in Physical Review, and have been working over some other material. I hope to have a couple of graduate students working on nuclear problems next year, but I am not sure.

I shall be Professor of Chemistry in Stanford University after 1 July 1969. One of my problems is that I have some money to support research on schizophrenia, but very little for work in other fields, and I probably would not be able to offer an appointment to Mr. Chatwin.

With best regards, I am

Sincerely yours,

Linus Pauling

LP:jj

4th March, 1969

Mrs. Linda Kamb

3500 Fairpoint Street

Pasadena 8

Calif. U.S.A.

Dear Linda,

Thank you very much for your Christmas card which is a beautiful picture. You and Mamma seem to be looking very well. Thank you also for the birthday card, which I enjoyed very much.

I have a price list and catalogue of the stainless steel table-ware that you wanted and am posting it to you now. I have moved and live now at Flat 11, 1/5 Hornton Street, London W.8. It is a much nicer flat, much larger and more usefully laid out, but also is more expensive. I have ordered a large number of bookshelves in order to try to keep the disorganization under control.

I apologize for not writing and hope you will forgive me, and apologize for this particular mechanism but wish to inform you that I am still alive, barely.

Things move around here, more or less, I drink too much and smoke too much but am still struggling along. I think perhaps I will start writing novels if I can find the time.

Thank you very much for the shoes and the shirt and other stuff which you sent. The shoes belonged to Daddy and I did not have space in my suitcase to pack them and thought I would leave them behind. They are, however, very useful and I am pleased to have them, though as I say, I did not consider them worth carrying in a separate package. It is very nice, both of you and of Gloria and Linus, to bring them to me.

My flat was robbed some months ago and among other things which I valued to some extent the item which I valued most highly which was taken was the pot that you gave me for Christmas last year. The loss of that pot is the thing that upsets me most and I try not to think about it. If you do have some other piece that you have made which you can spare I would like very much that you send it to me. I think the only reason that the bloke took the pot was that it was full of Italian coins, and I would suspect that what he wanted was the money. It is all rather sad. He took many other things that I rather value, most of my clothing and jewelry and my radio which I used all the time to fill up the empty holes in my head when I am alone, but the item I have been most unhappy about is that pot.

Why don’t you come see me? I think Linus had a good time while he was here, though I did not see an awful lot of him.

With much love,

Peter

March 11, 1969

Mr. Michael B. Hyman

818 Wickfield Road

Wynnewood, Pa. 19096

Dear Mr. Hyman:

In answer to your letter, I may say that one of the great experiences in my life as a scientist occurred in December 1930, when I realized that a good approximate solution of the problem of hybridization of bond orbitals could be made by considering only the angular dependence of the orbitals. This simple idea led rapidly to a number of contributions to the theory of chemical bonding.

With best wishes to you, I am

Sincerely yours,

Linus Pauling

LP:jj

Flat, 11

1/5 Hornton St.

London W. 8

16 March 1969

Dear Mamma,

I apologize for my not writing. I have not written anyone which is very bad. I have moved to a new flat as above. It is much nicer, in a pleasant and interesting part of town. It is another College flat, on the 3rd floor with these rooms: a sitting room, 18’*15’ with three windows looking east over Kensinton Church; a bedroom 12’ * 16’ with two windows looking the same way; a small bedroom 14’ * 14’, a kitchen and bath. It is quite nice and I am settling in slowly. I do a lot of work there. The only furniture I have is a desk, a heater and Dictaphone. A lot of shelves should come the end of this month and there I can move all the papers off the floor. It is about 20 minutes from the lab.

I am not sure I mentioned that the Neverne Square flat was robbed before I moved and rather a lot of things I rather liked were taken: a pot Linda had made and most of my jewelry and a lot of clothes. It was too bad. Also I am afraid your old Kodak 35mm camera which I had borrowed from you and I fear you will not get it back. I would like to ask if you could come visit me for a while in the near future, at Easter or during the Summer term, April, May or June? I would like very much to see you and it would be great fun to have you here. My flat is big enough and will soon be organized. You could see the children which would be good for them. You can have the big bedroom and I will use the little one. The flat is in Kensington which is quite convenient for most things. There are lots of things to do in London. I would like to introduce you to my friends, including a girl I am rather fond of. She is 39 and a director of a publishing firm, a self-made woman. She handles the foreign rights. If you can possibly arrange it please come.

Work is going well. We have done more in the last year than I did in the previous 15. I am afraid I have not yet leased however; I have just bought a computer for $10,000 (half price) to provide an instrument for my best assistant and do not yet have the money. Things are likely to be dicey for a while. I am busy writing papers, making electronics for our instruments and am even writing a little book. I would like to write another book. The papers are the most important.

I think Linus had a good time here, though I did not see an awful lot of him. He seemed to keep himself amused. I hope he comes back.

I have a secretary now and that is a great help. She is officially a Data Processing Assistant and we are teaching her computing, but mostly she is a secretary for me. [...] I hope your driving switch arrived safely. I am sorry about the other stuff. Please come if you can. I would love to see you here.

Much love,

Peter

March 18, 1969

Professor Martin Kamen

Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

Laboratorie de Photosynthese

Gif-sur-Yvette (Seine- et- Oise)

France

Dear Martin:

I am happy to have received your letter, and Ava Helen and I look forward to seeing you next term.

I am, of course, sorry to leave UC San Diego, but for a number of reasons it seemed to me to be better to move to Stanford. Perhaps I can tell you some of them when I see you.

One problem has been making arrangements about keeping the solid phase synthesis work going. I have advised Art Robinson, and also discussed the matter with Fred Wall, who said that Art had behaved in the proper way. He has offered to keep the lab going in UC San Diego, putting in whatever amount of effort is needed to achieve this. I think that the department of biology will accept his proposal, although at first they rejected it.

I look forward to seeing you.

Cordially,

LP:jj