Oregon State UniversitySpecial Collections & Archives Research Center

Ava Helen and Linus Pauling Papers, 1873-2013

16. Personal Safe. 1912-1993.

The four drawers of Linus Pauling's personal safe contained an astonishingly rich and diverse collection of items which have yielded a much fuller portrait of Pauling's life and activities. Drawer 1 held over seven-hundred letters between Linus and Ava Helen Pauling, most of them love letters. Drawers 2 and 3 contained a number of items that Pauling had deemed to be either sensitive or important, including communications with world-historical figures as varied as John F. Kennedy and Ho Chi Minh. Drawer 4 served as repository for the dozens of pocket notebooks that Pauling carried throughout his life, as well as scores of Dictaphone belts on which Pauling had recorded chapters of a proposed autobiography.


42 boxes

4. Linus Pauling's Safe - Drawer 4.


Note: This drawer is inventoried in chronological order, as it contains mostly small journals and pocket planners from the late 1920's to the 1970's, except for items 4.058-4.100c, which are in a box marked "DIARIES Linus Pauling", and items 4.101-4.105, which were loose in the drawer and are in a file folder.

4.065 - 4.074 (Page: 71 - 80)



4.065.
Three Red Dictabelts with no envelope, with "Av 1" marked in white on the outermost belt, and a card in the middle labeled by LP "AVOGADRO LP in Italian by M. Gianturco 1956". [Transferred to WAV/DVD].

4.066.
Four Red Dictabelts with no envelope, with a slip of paper between the first and second belt from the outside, marked by LP "U.S. Signatures (by Syd Cassyd", a slip of paper between the second and third belt from the outside marked by LP "Roll 2 P192", a slip of paper between the third and fourth belt from the outside marked by LP "Roll 3 P 261 end", and two slips of paper between the fourth belt from the outside and the center of the rolls marked by LP "Roll 4 to P 343 end" and "Roll #5 end of book 1 9/7/60 [word illegible]". [Transferred to WAV/DVD].

4.067.
Eight Red Dictabelts [two packs of four] clipped together with a piece of paper typed "LP: Dr. Degeilh has your Dictaphone in Room 220. B". The first pack is labeled "1 Proteins, 2 Proteins, 3 Proteins" and "4 Proteins", and the second pack is labeled "Hemo 2, Hemo 3, Hemo 4" and "Hemo 1". No envelope. [Transferred to WAV/DVD].

4.068.
One Blue Dictabelt folded inside a piece of American Chemical Society LP letterhead paper with a note on the paper written by LP "NOTES about fire in Santa Barbara, what wasn't moved out 1964". [Transferred to WAV/DVD].

4.069.
Three Red Dictabelts in a brown envelope labeled by LP "Chapter 8". [Transferred to WAV/DVD].

4.070.
Eight Red Dictabelts in a brown envelope labeled by LP "Chapter 8, 8 belts". [Transferred to WAV/DVD].

4.071.
Seven Red Dictabelts in a brown envelope labeled by LP "Chapter 4 & St. 5". [Transferred to WAV/DVD].

4.072.
Three Red Dictabelts in a "Linus Pauling 3500 Fairpoint St Pasadena California" envelope, marked by LP "Chap.8". [Transferred to WAV/DVD].

4.073.
Nine Red Dictabelts in a brown envelope labeled by LP "Chapter 5 + part chap 7 + Start Chap. 6". [Transferred to WAV/DVD].

4.074.
3.75x6.75" loose papers clipped together and marked by LP "BIO-ORGANIC CHEMISTS. 1936. Linus Pauling".