18 November 1955

Dr. and Mrs. Linus Pauling, Jr.

487 Portlock Road

Honolulu, T.H.

Dear Linie and Anita,

We are glad to know that Ramona is getting along well. Have you had any pictures made of her yet? We are looking forward to seeing her, and also to seeing you and the boys again one of these days.

I thank you very much for transferring stock to C.I.T. equivalent to about $50,000 for support of research under my direction. This gift comes at a time when we are needing money badly, because of some problems arising from the construction of the new Norman Church Laboratory. Professor Beadle and I felt strongly that the laboratory should not be built with the sub-basement left out, as had been proposed by the Administration of the Institute-we lack space on the campus, and it seemed to us wrong to build a building with one whole floor missing, because it could not be added at any later time. Accordingly we agreed that the available money, $1,550,000 (of which $500,000 had been provided by the Board of Trustees, and the rest by the donor), was used in building the complete building, and outfitting a part of it. Beadle and I had agreed that we would not pester the Administration about funds for putting in chemical benches, hoods, and so on. By scrounging around, we have succeeded in furnishing about half of the space in chemistry, in a temporarily satisfactory way. We need about $100,000 more.

I am writing now to say that I propose to use a few thousand dollars of your gift to put sinks, chemical benches, hoods, etc. in one large room in the building, in which I propose to have chromatographic work carried out in connection with our program of research on mental deficiency. If the grant from the Ford Foundation is made, and the money becomes available soon enough, I think that this particular job can be transferred to the new grant. Also, I am hoping to make appointment of a post-doctoral research fellow on your fund.

I thank you for sending me the interesting report on phenylketonuria by Dr. Holder. I shall return it to you soon.

I am getting ready this afternoon to give a television broadcast about our work on molecular structure this evening.

I spent two days in Washington early this week, and testified before the Hennings Sub-committee on Constitutional Rights about my passport difficulties. Everything went along very well. Senator Henward, in his office, he said that I had done a great public service by testifying. Today an Associated Press man has read me a news story from Washington, which begins with the statement that I have an unrestricted passport valid for two years. I do not yet know if this is a statement that they got from the State Department, but I am planning to send my passport right back, in order that it can be validated in this way. I think that everything is going to be alright about my passport from now on.

Last night I gave a talk to the Channing Club at Pomona College. I think that it is a club of philosophy students. There were about 100 people there, and they asked questions for about an hour after my talk of an hour was over. One girl said that I had talked only about science, and hadn't said anything about love. I told her that I would discuss the matter privately with her after the lecture. One student said that I was just a materialist. I answered by saying that I was a scientific rationalist.

Mama seems to be a little under the weather-I think that she may have caught a cold.

Did you know that Jeff has been injured? While we were back east over a month ago Mrs. Jordan, who was staying in our house (she is working for Mama now) saw that Jeff could not use his right front leg, and took him to the veterinary. The vet said that he had a badly broken leg, and operated on him, putting a steel pin in the leg. It is still there. Jeff uses his leg only a very little bit, and we do not know whether he will be badly crippled permanently, or only slightly crippled.

Love from

Linus Pauling:W