Linus Pauling Jr., M.D.,

3909 Round Top Drive

Honolulu

Hawaii

25th June, 1963.

Dear Linus,

I am sorry not to hear from you since your visit to London and hope that you are getting along alright.

Our plans for the summer have changed unfortunately due to a freeze on foreign expenditure by the National Institutes of Health. We are not now planning to spend the summer in California and will not be there to see you. I am rather disappointed, I would like to spend some time with the parents and everyone and get on with the job of producing my instrument. There are, however, many things I can get on with here.

I wish to ask if you are interested in making some property investments in London? You had mentioned once or twice that you wanted to diversify your holdings mainly by investing in property outside the United States. In particular are you interested in joining a venture being undertaken by me and my architect, Leon Carson who lives upstairs in No. 62. We are negotiating for the purchase of a house in Blenheim Crescent (the next street over) and have drawn up plans for its conversion into three family units. I am sending you the general plans of the proposed conversion under separate cover. This house is in the last row backing onto the communal gardens and is in a street just beginning the rise in status which has such a dramatic affect on property value.

It will cost about $K22 to purchase and convert this house, and little more than half for the purchase. Taxes would be about $300 a year and the gross rental income from the three units about $3000 a year.

I think the thing to do would be to form a company with the duties, rights and services due to and from the company for each of the individuals involved carefully written down beforehand.

Let me know if you are interested.

With love from,

25 June 1963

Dr. Peter Pauling

62 Elgin Crescent

London, W. 11,

England

Dear Peter:

Mama and I are sorry to learn from your letter that you are not coming to California this summer. We would have been pleased to see you. I have been hoping that Mama would be well enough so that it would not be too much of a strain on her, in case that you stayed with us for some time. I am hoping that she will get some rest this summer and that her health will improve.

In your letter you ask whether I think that your second point is false, irrelevant, unimportant, or what. I am afraid that I didn't keep your letter, and I am not sure that I remember your second point. My memory may be wrong, but I think that your second point was that I have some duty to you, as my son, to provide you with money.

I shall comment on this point, which may be close enough to what you have in mind, and also on the matter of writing a book for use in high school chemistry classes.

I am not interested enough in a high school chemistry book to write such a book, if you are not interested. I can earn enough money for Mama and me in other ways, doing things that interest me more. As a business man, I recognize that the present time is such that a good high school chemistry might make a lot of money; but I do not have enough need for a lot of money to justify my sacrificing my happiness in the amount that would be necessary if I were to write such a book. If you have enough interest, for financial reasons or other reasons, to work on this job, I might feel that it would be worthwhile for me to make the sacrifice of helping; but you have made it pretty clear that you are not interested.

During the last couple of years I have thought a great deal about the matter of alternative ways in which I can spend the remaining years of my life. There are many things that I want to do - so many that I have to decide among them. I want to make the decisions, in cooperation with Mama, in such a way as to be most satisfying to her and to me. I do not know yet what the decisions will be. I am glad that my circumstances are such that I do not need to take on the uninteresting chore of writing a high school text. I am going to try to have the decisions made in such a way as to give Mama the most pleasure and satisfaction during the remaining years of her life, and also to give me as much satisfaction as possible.

I began to write a textbook of general chemistry in 1934, but I wrote only about one chapter. I am sorry now that I did not take time to finish this textbook, because it would have been very helpful, especially for Mama's sake to have had a bigger income during the earlier years of our life. If the war had not come along, I would have published my General Chemistry in 1940 or 1941, according to my plans - I postponed the job of finishing it in order to work on war research.

In answer to your questions, I think that Mama and I need to be repaid, from now on, for any investment of time and energy that we make - we need to be repaid in happiness, not in money.

Mama and I both send you our love. We have pretty much given up any plan for coming to Europe during the next few months. We are thinking about building a house at the ranch - perhaps getting the plans ready this year, and building it next year. One problem is that electricity is not yet available.

Your letter arrived just after we had left for the ranch, where we stayed nine days.

Love from

Linus Pauling:hpg