July 2, 1968

Mr. Stephen Vogel

11 Broadview Terrace

Norwalk, Conn. 06851

Dear Mr, Vogel:

In answer to your letter, I am sending you a copy of my paper and some other material under separate cover.

It is my opinion that anxiety is sometimes controlled by moderately large doses of niacin or niacinamide. I have been taking niacin three times a day, 250 mg at the end of each meal, not for anxiety but for the anti-aging effect that it seems to have.

I suggest that you write to Dr. Humphry Osmond, New Jersey Neuro-Psychiatric Institute, Box 1000, Princeton, New Jersey 08540, for the name of a physician in your area interested in orthomolecular psychiatry.

With best wishes to you, I am

Sincerely yours,

Linus Pauling

LP:jj

7 July 1968

Dear Peter,

It will be fine if you come to visit us. If you do could you bring me a side view mirror for my M.G.? One that clamps to the windshield frame. Also a rubber inlay for the running board – the long one which has been pulled out and lost. Also a couple of knobs and little gadget to turn on the lights on the dash board. The knobs are for the dash board, too. One for the glove compartment. Maybe I should install a direction indicator too although my hand and arm do fairly well.

Remember my car is the 1950 TD model. I’ll repay you. Did I tell you my oldest brother George’s wife Billie died in May? She was nearly 87 so one can't be too regretful. However, George 81 is rather lost and at loose ends.

I’m sorry to be late with the quarterly payment.

Much love to you,

Mama

Love to your children,

AP

Big Sur, Cal

93920

Dear Emma:

Ava Helen and I are very sorry to learn of Fred’s death, but glad that he had only a short period of illness.

Over the decades I have been happy to have had him as my friend. He had a fine, very interesting personality.

It was wonderful to have had you and him visiting us here last summer.

Sincerely,

Linus

17 July 1968

Mr. Jerome Guss

1H5 St. Johns Place

Brooklyn, N. Y. 11213

Dear Mr. Guss:

In answer to your letter, I would say that it might be possible during the next few decades to alter the genes so that children will be born geniuses or be born with other extraordinary qualities.

I think that a small amount of alteration of genes may be achieved during the next few years, such as the introduction of a normal gene to replace a faulty one, thus controlling the disease for which the faulty gene is responsible.

Sincerely,

Linus Pauling (Signed by Dr. Pauling's Secretary in his absence)

LP:jj

Deer Flat Ranch

Big Sur, Calif. 93920

19 July 1968

Dear Petie,

We hope you are going forward with your plans to come and see us. I’m sure you could be very helpful to the Daddy and he needs some help.

If you come could you bring me a marvelous tool a meter long and 2 cm (no about 3) in diameter. It is a weed burning gadget which burns kerosene and is really nifty. It is made in Birmingham and is called ASL Jet Rod-MKIII No. 593. I have copied this from the handle of the gadget itself. It looks like a piece of red pipe. So very simple but most efficient and I haven’t seen any tool like it here. It is especially fine for getting the bits of poison oak by the rocks. I guess we’ll be going back to La Jolla this coming year and probably to the same house. I’d like my little requests for my MG too but perhaps you can’t bring it all in your luggage.

We are making some headway in getting straightened around. The weather is fine here now. We had been having a bit of fog.

Much love to you,

Mama

Linda, Crellie and Lucie too have asked about your coming. Everyone is eager to see you.

Love, AP

25 July 1968

Dear Petie,

The family is excited about the possibility of your coming in August + even young Linus thinks he will coordinate a visit with your being here.

The Daddy is working very hard on the revision of this book. I wish he had not agreed to revise it. He says we will make $100,000 from it but we need other things more than money at this point.

Linda and Crellin have also made inquiries as to your plans. We’ll have to have one family get-together here at least.

We have rented the same house in La Jolla for next winter. I am trying to get good people to take care of this ranch for us. I want a better person than we had last winter. I hope we can find a good couple.

I am making bread today. We are going to have pastrami with fresh bread for supper.

We have a graduate student and his wife living in the cabin this summer. The graduate student doesn’t work very hard + the paper is getting a little disgusted with him. I hope we can be in less of a tool here than at Christmas time when you are here and have some low key meals and times on the beach.

Love

Mam

25 July 1968

Mr. William Hart

Yliopistonk. 4A28

Jyvaskyla, Finland

Dear Mr. Hart:

The question that you ask in your letter, about how many children have been killed by atomic warfare or atomic testing from 1945 through 1967, is a hard one to answer. A difficulty is that the calculation can be made only on a statistical basis. A child who dies of leukemia, for example, may have leukemia caused by radioactive fallout, or may have leukemia caused by some other source of high-energy radiation or some other cause.

In my Nobel peace prize lecture, which I gave in Oslo on 11 December 1963, I stated that I estimated that 100,000 viable children would be born with gross physical or mental defects caused by fission products and 1,500,000 more, if the human race survives, with gross defects caused by carbon 14 from the bomb tests. In addition, I said, about ten times as many embryonic, neonatal, and childhood deaths are expected—about one million caused by the fission products and fifteen million by carbon 14. I also estimated that about two million human beings alive at that time would die 10 or 15 years earlier than if the nuclear tests had not been made, as a result of leukemia, bone cancer, and other diseases caused by the radioactive material from the bomb tests.

The total number of people affected in these ways, roughly twenty million, refers to a large number of generations. Moreover, I included embryonic deaths in the total.

I also mentioned that about five percent of the fission-product effect and 0.3 percent of the carbon-14 effect might appear in the first generation; that is, about ten thousand viable children with gross physical or mental defects and one hundred thousand embryonic, neonatal, and childhood deaths. In addition there would be some children who would die in the first generation because of leukemia and other diseases.

I now conclude that, as a rough estimate, I would give the number 100,000 as the number of children killed by atomic testing from 1945 through 1967. This is a very rough estimate: the true number might be only half as great, or twice as great.

Sincerely yours,

Linus Pauling

LP:jj

July 31, 1968

Dr. Paul Jennings

University of California

Agronomy Department

College of Agriculture

Davis, California 95616

Dear Dr. Jennings:

I thank you for your interesting letter about my paper on Orthomolecular Psychiatry.

You ask about wild-type Neurospora growing in the presence of added pyridoxine. Some experiments of this sort were made, although I did not mention them for pyridoxine in my paper. They are mentioned in the case of para-aminobenzoic acid.

The idea about evolution that you ascribe to H. J. and R. H. Vogel was in fact first proposed by Professor Norman Haurowltz. It has been an important idea in recent discussions of evolution.

Again let me thank you for writing to me.

Sincerely,

Linus Pauling

LP:jj