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
