Linus Pauling Interview, December 8, 1985

LINUS PAULING: My birthday is the 28th. I remember I have a dinner to attend, a banquet, on the 26th, in San Francisco. No, 25th, I guess.

THOMAS HAGER: Uh-huh.

LP: And a speech on the 26th in Cal - Pasadena, and a big affair on the 28th in Pasadena [laughs].

TH: I see. I see, so you'll be busy around-

LP: I'm sure my schedules are very tight for me. I don't have - also, I know where it is; I've left my diary someplace where I can't get at it.

TH: Oh, I see, I see. Well listen, I was wondering; Oregon Magazine up here was wondering if it'd be possible for me to just ask you a couple of questions about your recent concerns so that they can do an article, short article that would come out about the time that you'll be here to speak at the gathering.

LP: Surely.

TH: That would be - that would be terrific. I talked with your office and they suggested that now might be a time when you could spare about five or 10 minutes.

LP: Okay, go ahead.

TH: Okay, terrific. The theme for this conference at Linfield is Rethinking Our Human Environment for the 21st Century. And I understand that your address will center on the elimination of war and some of the peace-related issues.

LP: Well, that may be.

TH: [Laughs].

LP: It sounds reasonable.

TH: Okay [laughs]. Well, that's what I'd like to ask you about, then. Your office told me that you have a book that's about to come out as well. Is that correct?

LP: Well yeah, the book, my book will be out in February. Its title is How to Live Longer and Feel Better.

TH: Oh, really? Okay.

LP: And only the last paragraph [laughs] deals with the other subject, in which 00:02:00I say one of the greatest threats to health is the possibility of a nuclear war [laughs], which would probably mean the end of the human race.

TH: Uh-huh.

LP: So, that's - it isn't until this last paragraph that I get into that subject.

TH: Tell me what the rest of the book is about. In medication, or habits, or what?

LP: Yeah, well it starts out by saying that - by quoting a physician friend of mine who had a book called Matters of Life and Death. He's a physician, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical at Stanford Medical School, Eugene Robin. So, I quote him saying that doctors are dangerous, hospitals are dangerous, drugs are dangerous. But then, of course, I go on in the next chapter 00:03:00to saying what my recommendations are, and part of them is to be sure you get plenty of vitamins.

TH: Uh-huh.

LP: And the only way to get the proper amount that puts you in the best of health is to take vitamin supplements. These nutritionists who keep yapping about eating a good diet and no need for supplementary vitamins are just wrong. But I go on and give other recommendations too. For example, having a moderate intake of alcoholic beverages...

TH: As opposed to no intake, or as opposed to too much intake?

LP: As opposed to no intake, and as opposed to too much intake.

TH: I see.

LP: There's plenty of epidemiological evidence for that. For 30 years, epidemiologists have been reporting that moderate drinkers are healthier than teetotalers.

TH: Now, do you address-

LP: Happier too, I expect.

TH: [Laughs] do you-

LP: But then - about diet, I have one recommendation: I don't say - I don't make any very strong recommendations about not eating meat, cutting down on fats, and not eating eggs, as the evidence is rather poor for that, but I do say you should cut down on the sugar.

TH: Mm-hmm.

LP: So, there's much more to the book than that.

TH: Do you deal with psychological or lifestyle habits, stress, that sort of thing as well?

LP: Well, one of my recommendations is to avoid stress if you can. Have a job that you like doing, get married young and to the right person, and stay married.

TH: Okay. Do you - I want to - one of the things the editor is interested in, of course, is your activism in the area of world peace, and especially wanted to find out some of your current thinking on all of the money the federal government is throwing into "Star Wars," quote, unquote, related research.

LP: Yeah. Well, I think it's nonsense, of course. It's worse than that; it's just part of the policy activation - continued activation - of the policy of spending more and more money on militarism in order to force the Soviet Union to do the same thing.

TH: Mm-hmm.

LP: And since we're twice as rich, our gross national product is twice as great, President Reagan says we can afford it and the Soviet Union can't. He says they're already a - they've already reached their limit, so they have to admit 00:06:00that we're the boss.

TH: Yeah. Hmm.

LP: Well, I - now, perhaps my title may be "A Great Step Toward World Peace." I'm not sure of what title I sent in. The great step is that we've already eliminated war between the great nations, the nuclear powers. You know, it would just be pure insanity if such a world were to take place, just committing world suicide.

TH: Right.

LP: So, then I say so why shouldn't we start saving money instead of wasting money? The criterium of progress is decreasing the military budget.

TH: Mm-hmm.

LP: So, Reagan - so far, our government hasn't made any treaties that lead - 00:07:00they've made some treaties with the Soviet Union and Britain, but they've made them in such a way that the military budget increased, rather than decreased.

TH: Yeah.

LP: So, the important thing that we must be on the lookout for is a decrease in the military budget.

TH: Now, of course, that gets into all kinds of the economic questions about what will happen to our economy if the defense budget falls through.

LP: Yeah, well I quote, in my book No More War, the revised edition, I quote the Boston group... the half-dozen people of Harvard and MIT who got out a book, which I refer to in my book. They argued that our safety would be increased if 00:08:00we cut the military budget by 75 billion dollars. And that was six years ago, I think, that that book came out. It would be 100 billion dollars now. And that analysis shows that unemployment would decrease, rather than increase, because the military budget is - the money spent on militarism is labor-poor.

TH: Oh, I see.

LP: On - money spent on filling human needs, on ordinary materials is labor-rich. You use more labor, spend a larger fraction of the money for salaries, wages.

TH: I see, I see.

LP: When it is for ordinary goods...

TH: Right, the-

LP: ...[unintelligible] spent for military materials.

TH: Now, let-

LP: High technology is not very labor-intensive.

TH: I see.

LP: So, [unintelligible] military, high technology. Aside from the fact that General Dynamics manages to steal a lot of the money.

TH: [Laughs] ah-ha. Looking toward the 21st Century, realistically, with Reagan in office and the way things are going politically in the country, do you see a real hope for a big cut - a realist hope - for a big cut in the military budget?

LP: Oh, yes. Well, I'm - it looks pretty much as it won't happen; that it won't happen until we have a change of administration. Reagan is obviously just under 00:10:00the control of the military-industrial complex and the rich people, generally. When he says he's working for the welfare of the American people, he means of the rich American people.

TH: Mm-hmm. Do you foresee a change in the next election? A switch over? I mean, obviously, Reagan won't run.

LP: Yeah, I think so. Yes. Well, the Democrats haven't been very smart in recent elections, but I think there's a chance, a good chance.

TH: Do you get a feeling that there's a change in mood in the country at all? Any sort of a swing away from militaristic-type policies and military-

LP: Yes. Well, the trouble is, of course, that Reagan and Weinberger and the 00:11:00others lie to the American people. And they - Reagan, of course, gets caught nearly every time he opens his mouth.

TH: [Laughs].

LP: Then Whitehouse Spokesman, Larry Speakes, or the Secretary of Labor, or some Agriculture, has to come out in the next day and say the President misspoke himself.

TH: Uh-huh.

LP: But he does it in a very convincing-[Tape cut]

LP: -person in the Pentagon for 25, 30 years has been using the technique, the scare technique, to get increases in the military budget.

TH: Right. And if they - but if, you know, if they continue doing that it's just, I guess, a matter of having somebody get the word out otherwise, and getting people to listen and-

LP: Well, Secretary McNamara, about a year ago, was on television talking about the missile gap, when he was with President Kennedy. The president asked him to 00:12:00check up on the missile gap after the Pentagon had got its increase. So, he checked up and reported back that there wasn't any missile gap. And this happens over and over again.

TH: Right.

LP: Weinberger keeps saying that the Soviets have more weapons than we have, they're stronger and have more ICBMs or something like that. And the president makes the same statements, even though the Joint Chiefs of Staff say that there's essentially a balance between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

TH: Uh-huh. Do you have a feeling - you know, there is a large group of physicists who've signed a petition stating their opposition to Star Wars 00:13:00related research-

LP: Yes.

TH: Do you think that that's a positive way for the scientific community to deal with political questions? Do you think that that's a correct mode of activity for science, as far as scientists-

LP: Oh yeah, surely. Well, what they did, these physicists, was to say that they would not accept money from the federal government for Star Wars research. And the presidents of Stanford and Harvard and MIT and Johns Hopkins, I think, all came out with a giant statement saying that Reagan was wrong in saying that the government had made arrangements with these universities.

TH: Oh.

LP: That the government hadn't - that they wouldn't make arrangements. That doesn't mean that some professors in the universities would not get contracts, because the universities don't try to... On a matter of that sort, the 00:14:00university wouldn't interfere with the right of a professor to take action individually.

TH: Uh-huh.

LP: So the individual physicists, usually more than half of those in the departments of the larger universities, have signed the statement that they will not be involved in taking money for Star Wars work. And part of the reason is that they think it's a boondoggle... I don't know any physicist who thinks there's a real chance that this would work. It's a too-difficult problem, aside from being too expensive. But the government, the man - I've forgotten his name - who is in charge of the Star Wars project came out with a statement a week or two ago that the statement that some people had made that you could be 100% 00:15:00effective in shooting down oncoming weapons was just not true.

TH: Hmm.

LP: That's what the scientists have been saying. But he has said it, too. But what they were hoping for was to be able to shoot down a large fraction; was dimmish the scale of the attack. And, of course, data and other physicists say well, it would be easy, for a much smaller amount of money, for the Soviet Union just to double the scale of the attack then.

TH: Sure, sure.

LP: So, much cheaper than shooting them down. It's like if you try to protect yourself against someone with a revolver by shooting down the bullets as they're coming towards you [laughs].

TH: Yeah, I see what you mean [laughs].

LP: He could have a revolver in each hand and make it twice as hard for you.

TH: Yeah. Let's - the-

LP: The whole thing, as I say it, of course, I don't think President Reagan understands... understands it. This isn't his field.

TH: Uh-huh. Do you have a memory of any other kind of movement like this among scientists, where they're actually refusing money for a certain kind of research? Or is this sort of a novel way of dealing with the problem?

LP: Well, it's been going on. I was a member of the Society for Social Responsibility in Science, and it no longer exists. There were only a couple of thousand members, and they were supposed to refuse to work on military projects. 00:17:00But it wasn't required. They didn't have to take an oath or anything like that. But that was part of the basic policy of this society. So, there have been, ever since nuclear weapons were developed - of course, even before - there were some scientists who, as a matter of principle, wouldn't get involved.

TH: Uh-huh.

LP: I have - with the conscientious objectors among my students, some of them I got to work on war projects that I had, and others even refused to do that and were off to a concentration camp.

TH: Oh.

LP: So, some of them I talked into working with me on some war project. This was before the nuclear weapons period.

TH: Right, right.

LP: So, I changed when the - well, in a sense I haven't changed, but I decided 00:18:00in 1945 that we'd better get rid of war between the great nations, between nuclear powers. So, this has - scientists have been doing this all along.

TH: Yeah, I see, I see. Okay, let me ask one last question about your new book. We'll kind of switch the subject here back to vitamins. Your views on vitamin C are pretty well known. Do you come out in the book with recommendations about other vitamins?

LP: Yes, I do.

TH: In terms of-

LP: The book will be in the bookstores in February. The publisher, W. H. Freeman and Company, doesn't want it advertised until it's available.

TH: This magazine, this issue of the magazine won't come out until February also.

LP: Yeah, so it's all right to discuss it.

TH: Okay.

LP: You could, in fact, get a copy. I think that copies of the book will be available in January.

TH: Okay.

LP: I finished reading proof and it's all set up in type.

TH: Well, what I was interested in was just if you had come out - now, the last time I spoke with you, you were still talking about vitamin C in doses of like six grams a day.

LP: Yep.

TH: And is that the current recommendation in the book as well, or...?

LP: Well, in the book I say everyone should take at least one gram a day, up to 18 grams. Eighteen grams is what I take, and of course, cancer patients often take much more. So, I don't recommend one particular amount for everybody.

TH: Oh, I see. What about the-

LP: It's not like a drug, where usually the drug is given in amounts that are close to the lethal amount, and so you have to be careful about just how much 00:20:00you take.

TH: In general, if a person was going to take a multivitamin supplement then, would a regular, commercially available multivitamin supplement do the trick, or are you looking for additional...?

LP: Well, be - perhaps if you took 25 times the - took the supplement 25 times a day, but I take one super-B tablet. It's equivalent to 25 ordinary B complex tablets. So, ordinary supplements that are tera-gram and things like that, that are - there are a lot of them that are recommended, advertised... they're just not in the ballpark.

TH: Even for fat-soluble vitamins, vitamin A and...?

LP: Yes, well I take ten times the RDA of vitamin A. You know, vitamin A isn't 00:21:00dangerous. I don't think anybody has ever been killed by an overdose of vitamin A.

TH: [Laughs].

LP: People get headaches and get nauseated. And people die every day from aspirin poisoning.

TH: Uh-huh. I see.

LP: Several hundred people a year die of aspirin poisoning. These - even vitamin A isn't dangerous.

TH: Okay.

LP: Not very dangerous. You have to be a little careful. Vitamin B-6 is the only water-soluble vitamin for which there's any significant toxicity, and it occurs if you take a thousand or 2,000 times the RDA for months, or years.

TH: How about vitamin E, another fat-soluble? How much of that are you taking?

LP: Vitamin E, there's no known toxicity for vitamin E.

TH: Okay.

LP: So... Vitamin D, some people, some scientists who say that vitamin D shouldn't be called a vitamin, but vitamin D, involved in calcium metabolism, has to be handled with some care. I don't recommend extra vitamin D, beyond the usual recommend.

TH: Okay.

LP: Some people just suggest taking two or three times the RDA, but I don't even make that recommendation. I-

TH: Do you deal with mineral supplementation as well, or stick pretty close to vitamins?

LP: Well, I take a mineral tablet, but just the RDA.

TH: Okay, all right. The last question, my editor has seen something somewhere that said that you had mentioned something about vitamin C as a possibility of using with AIDS patients. Does that sound right?

LP: Yes, yeah.

TH: And what's the idea there? I didn't see the story myself, and-

LP: Oh, yes. Well, there's even evidence about it. You know, practically every person with AIDS in San Francisco is taking large doses of vitamin C now. Well, here's the argument: first, AIDS has been shown, I judge reliably, to be caused by a virus. Vitamin C has antiviral activity against every virus for which it's been tested. So, there's an argument. Second: AIDS patients are characterized by 00:24:00having a damaged immune system. Vitamin C has been shown to potentiate the immune system in various ways.

TH: I see.

LP: So, those are the two principal arguments for giving vitamin C to AIDS patients.

TH: So, your idea is that it will aid in the body's defense against the virus, not that it's necessarily a cure for the disease?

LP: Well, the... the word cure, we don't use cure about cancer, even when a patient who is expected to die in a few months lives on for years, so with AIDS, too. I don't know whether you get rid of the virus completely with large - so, I'm cautious about saying cure about any disease, except, of course, the 00:25:00infectious diseases. I can say that patients with mononucleosis who take large doses of vitamin C are cured.

TH: Okay.

LP: Or patients with hepatitis, or people who get over the flu rapidly by taking large doses of vitamin C. They'd be cured in the course of time unless they died, anyway.

TH: I see, right.

LP: They'd develop immunity against the virus. But vitamin C speeds up the process.

TH: Right. Have there been any studies, any clinical studies done yet with AIDS patients? Or, are you, at the Pauling Institute, are they starting any?

LP: Well, it's been hard. I've been trying to get clinical studies made, and my associate, Dr. Cameron, has put in some applications for grants, but it's hard. You know, there's such a bias against the vitamins, we just don't get the money. 00:26:00There's a man, Dr. Cathcart, in Menlo Park, who - Robert F. Cathcart, C-A-T-H-C-A-R-T - who was on a television program recently. I know him; he's written - he's published a couple of papers about his observations on AIDS patients who have been taking large doses of vitamin C. So, this is clinical work. He's not in the position, either, to carry out a controlled clinical trial. And in fact, he has said that it would be impossible to carry one out in San Francisco [laughs] because these people all know about vitamin C.

TH: Uh-huh. Right.

LP: You couldn't get a control group [laughs].

TH: I see, I see [laughs].

LP: They may not take it in large enough amounts, but some of them are taking 00:27:00large amounts. So, Dr. Cathcart, I can say, has reported clinical observations. Dr. Cameron, too, has made some clinical observations, but he hasn't published anything about them.

TH: Right, okay.

LP: But Cathcart is the one who's been outspoken, and who's appeared on television.

TH: Right. Very good, I think that that's going to cover it [clears throat], excuse me.

LP: Very well.

TH: As I said, this will be a relatively brief piece, and it'll be timed to come out about the time that your...

LP: Yeah.

TH: ...that you'll arrive up here, and I wish you success with your speech, and with all of your other travels and so forth.

LP: Call me back if you have any questions when you're writing.

TH: Terrific, I will do that. And again, it's been a pleasure talking with you.

LP: Fine.

TH: All right, thanks a lot. Bye-bye. [Tape ends]