UNIVERSITY of PENNSYLVANIA

PHILADELPHIA 4

May 21, 1956.

The College

DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS

Dear Linus and Helen:

Your nice note of May 16 was received here to-day forwarded from Berkeley. We have been here all spring serving another term as visiting professor. This is our last week here and we go out to St. Louis next week for preliminary house-hunting. After that two weeks in Corning and then to Madison where I am professing quantum mechanics in the summer session to August 18, then a couple more weeks in Corning and really get to St. Louis about Labor Day. I put in all this detail so you will be sure to look us up if your summer travels cross any of this trail.

We are of course delighted to have a really good base of operations and hope that we can persuade you to visit us there when we are established.

As to whether things are getting more rational, I believe they are in the population as a whole, but I see no signs of improvement in the conduct of the Eisenhower administration. Eyring tried to help me by intervening with Senator Watkins and got a brushoff which involved a new charge against me. He writes, "The best picture that I can get is that no one even suggests you are disloyal but some argue that you are too easy going." At the end of April I saw Senator Knowland and asked his help. He took it up with the offending Secretary of the Navy and received a brushoff. So we have a long way to go before these fellows begin to act decently. Our only hope is to arrange matters so that what they say and do does not matter.

Paul is at 116 Cromwell Road, London S.W.7 working at Blackett's lab and will be at Pic du Midi in June then at Princeton next year.

With lots of love,

Ed Condon

21 May 1956

Dear Crellie:

Professor Herbert Harned is here now, and has begun work on the preparation of the subchloride of columbium, Cb₆Cl₁₄. He thinks, too, that he may try to prepare the corresponding bromide.

I have given you appointment as Assistant in Chemistry, for a month or six weeks this summer, possibly until Professor Harned leaves, about the first of August. You are to work forty hours per week, and be paid at the rate of $1.50 per hour.

Your duties under this appointment are to assist Professor Harned in the preparation of the substances. I have told Professor Harned that you would help him with whatever work needs to be done in the laboratory. He has suggested that he might want you to do a certain amount of glassblowing. He might ask you to spend a small amount of time reading the literature, but I think that most of your time would be spent in carrying out the inorganic preparations, under his supervision.

Professor Harned is a bit worried about the danger of working with bromine - that is, he is worried on your account. I think that I should mention to you that bromine is a dangerous substance. Chlorine also is dangerous, but not so dangerous as bromine. A lungful of bromine vapor can easily cause death. Accordingly, while you are working with Professor Harned you must pay careful attention to the advice that he gives you about safety measures. Of course, it is good to remember to be careful in all chemical work. We had a boy go to the hospital a month ago, because of cuts that he received from an explosion in a flask in which he was carrying on a reaction. Fortunately, he was wearing glasses. The glasses were broken, and one of the cuts was on the eyeball, but only a small one. It is a good idea to wear goggles or a safety shield over the face, whenever there is any danger of an explosion.

Professor Harned will, I think, want to tell you stories about his experiences, perhaps even when he was manufacturing Cb₆Cl₁₄ as a graduate student, during the period 1910 to 1913. I think that you may get tired of listening to these stories, especially if he tells them to you more than once, but you should consider it part of your job to listen to them, without showing that you are bored. This situation is one that you are apt to run into many times during your life.

I think that Professor Harned is an understanding sort of man, and that you should be frank with him about any matter that comes up. If you do not understand anything that he has asked you to do, be sure to tell him, and have him go over the matter until you do understand. If you have some ideas as to what might be tried, feel free to tell him, and see what he says.

Mamma and I are sorry not to see you before we get off for Italy. We are looking forward to seeing you when we get back, about 4 July. It may be that you should plan to start work again on the drawings for the Nature of the Chemical Bond at that time, but on the other hand, it may take me a couple of weeks to handle the accumulated work, so that there may be a delay before you change from your work with Professor Harned to the drawing work. Moreover, the synthesis of the columbium chloride compound is a very important part of the program that we have mapped out for the determination of the structure of proteins, and I feel that this work should have your attention as long as is necessary.

Much love from

[Linus Pauling]