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Letter from Alexander Todd to Linus Pauling. May 6, 1952.
Todd writes to express his outrage at the witholding of Pauling's passport by the U. S. goverment. Todd also provides a short update on his life and work, including the time burdens likely to accompany his new position and his hope that Pauling is "getting interested in the macromolecular structure of the nucleic acids."

Transcript

ART/JB 6th May, 1952.

Professor Linus Pauling,

California Institute of Technology,

Pasadena 4,

California,

U.S.A.

Dear Linus,

I was very much upset to receive your letter of 28th April on my return from a brief lecture visit to Holland. I need hardly say that Alison and I are extremely disappointed that you and Helen are not going to be with us this month. In particular we are very angry indeed at the reason for your staying at home. I do not know whether you have yet seen it or not, but Robinson had a letter in the "Times" yesterday about it in which he stated in quite forthright terms what he thought about the action of your State Department, and I heartily agree with him. Indeed, if he had not written I was proposing to do something about it myself. There is, I suppose, nothing we can do about it at the present time, but the whole thing is so silly.

Thank you for your congratulations - I am not at all sure that commiserations are not more appropriate, but I am hoping that it will work out reasonably well. I think the demands on my time can be kept within bounds, and if they cannot then I shall simply resign, because I do not want to have my ordinary scientific work crippled by outside work of this type. Actually it probably sounds worse than it is because, of course, I am not doing it on a whole time basis like Tizard, and it is much more like the Chairmanship of an ordinary Government Committee than the kind of thing which, for example, Joe Koepfli is doing in Washington.

Our work here goes well, and I hope we may have an opportunity some time soon of discussing things, especially if as I hope you are getting interested in the macromolecular structure of the nucleic acids.

With best regards,

Yours sincerely,

Alex

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