Letter from Linus Pauling to Kenneth Shaw. October 27, 1959. Page 1  Larger Images / More Information. 1 p.  View Transcript

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Activity Listings

• Check from AHP to H.O. Uern for $40.00. [Filed under LP Biographical: (Business and Financial: Bank Statements and Canceled Checks, December 1957-December 1959), Box #4.025, Folder #25.2] [Also filed under LP Biographical: (Business and Financial: Check Registers, 1951-1960), Box #4.075, Folder #75.6]
• Check from AHP to Pantorium for $9.00. [Filed under LP Biographical: (Business and Financial: Bank Statements and Canceled Checks, December 1957-December 1959), Box #4.025, Folder #25.2] [Also filed under LP Biographical: (Business and Financial: Check Registers, 1951-1960), Box #4.075, Folder #75.6]
• Handwritten notes by LP, RE: Talks about getting a Canadian visa and a phone call to Jim Miller who advises him to read his statement to the publisher or the editor to the L.A. Examiner. Publisher was out of town and editor didn't know about it. Also has notes that the story will not be published Sunday and then has attached copies of his statements for Nov. 14, 1950 and October 31, 1959 about his non-affiliation with the communist party. [Filed under Linus Pauling Safe Contents, Drawer 2 Folder 2.013]
• Inter-office memo from R. V. Langmuir to LP RE: Thanks him for putting him onto Robert Joseph and the showing of "On the Beach" for the AAUP, says when they have arranged to have it shown, and says the mailing list will be restricted to Cal Tech members of the AAUP. [Letter from Kramer to LP October 30, 1959, Letter from LP to Joseph October 30, 1959] [Filed under LP Correspondence: (K: Correspondence, 1959), #201.3]
• Letter from Brian Lees to Thomas Perry, RE: Lees tells Perry that the dicalcium phosphate in their products are derived from mineral sources and thus not thought to be contaminated with Strontium-90. While the Food and Drug Administration does not require these products to be checked for Strontium-90, since there is such a public concern Lees will have the products tested and those results will be given to Perry as soon as they are available. [Filed under LP Peace: (Materials re: Strontium-90, 1960), Box #7.013, Folder #13.19]
• Letter from Frances W. Herring, University of California, Bureau of Public Administration, to LP RE: Reminds LP that he met him at the WILPF Conference in September and promised to look at the articles he has been preparing on not using fission power to meet the world's energy needs, sends a reading draft under separate cover, hopes he will have time to look through the articles as well as the abstract, says he will be attending the Governor's Commission on Metropolitan Problems in November and he will then call their home, encloses a clipping he say LP is probably familiar with and asks if he has worked out a conclusive reply that he could quote. [Attached: abstract and reading drafts of "Meeting the World's Energy Needs Without Fission Power"] [Filed under LP Correspondence: (H: Correspondence, 1959), #167.4]
• Letter from Joan Harris, Secretary to LP, to Shiro Shibata, Chubu Nippon Press, RE: Informs that LP will not return to Pasadena in time to prepare an article by the November 30 deadline. Says he could prepare an article by December 15. [Letter from Shibata to LP October 29, 1959, Letter from Shibata to Harris November 11, 1959] [Filed under LP Manuscripts of Articles: 1959a2.4]
• Letter from Joan Harris, Secretary to LP, to Victor Reynolds, Cornell University Press, RE: Inquires whether a set of page proofs has been sent to Dr. Foerst. [Filed under LP Books: 1960b5.3]
• Letter from Joan Harris, Secretary to LP, to W. Foerst RE: Informs that a set of page proofs is being sent to Foerst by Cornell University Press. [Letter from Foerst to LP October 27, 1959] [Filed under LP Books: 1960b5.3]
• Letter from Käthe Unbehaun to LP RE: Insists on freedom from persecution and liberty for all men fighting for peace and disarmament across the world. Urges that the United Nations must work for equality, health and peace in the world, especially in Africa. [Filed under LP Correspondence: (U: Correspondence, 1959), #421.17]
• Letter from LP [Signed by Joan Harris] to Antoinette Pirie RE: Informs of his and AHP's upcoming trip to Australia and New Zealand. Mentions the Federation of Atomic Scientists and the Society for Social Responsibility in Science. [Letter from Pirie to LP October 25, 1959] [Filed under LP Correspondence: (Pirie, Antoinette), #308.5]
• Letter from LP [Signed by Joan Harris] to Caroline Ware, RE: Informs that he has spoken with Dr. Wetherill who feels unable to prepare the necessary section for the chapter. Says he is cannot recommend anyone else to write the section. [Letter from Ware to LP October 26, 1959] [Filed under LP Correspondence: (W: Correspondence, 1959), #444.7]
• Letter from LP [Signed by Joan Harris] to G. M. Teutsch, Academy of Human Rights, RE: Discusses the accuracy of a specific statement in the general workings papers on human rights sent by Teutsch. [Letter from Teutsch to LP August 19, 1959] [Filed under LP Correspondence: (T: Correspondence, 1959), #411.4]
• Letter from LP [Signed by Joan Harris] to Shoichi Sakata, Nagoya University, RE: Explains that he will be unable to prepare an article for the Chubu Nippon Press unless he may submit the article in mid December. [Letter from Sakata to LP October 26, 1959] [Filed under LP Manuscripts of Articles: 1959a2.4]
• Letter from LP [dictated by LP and signed in his absence by Joan Harris] to David Cohen, RE: LP is referring Cohen to the paper on dietary calcium levels and retention of radiostrontium in the growing rat by Professor Comar in Science. Also a statement by Comar will be contained in the Report on Fallout from Nuclear Weapons Tests by the Special Subcommittee on Radiation of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy. That published report contains 41 references. [Cohen's letter October 29, 1959] [Filed under LP Peace: (Materials re: Strontium-90, June 1959-November 1959), Box #7.012, Folder #12.17]
• Letter from LP to Dr. Alexander Shapiro, London Conference on the Scientific Study of Mental Deficiency RE: Say it is possible he may attend the London Conference, but he is not planning to read a paper at present. [Letter from Shapiro to LP September 17, 1959] [Filed under LP Correspondence: (American Association on Mental Deficiency (AAMD), 1956-1957, 1959, 1962), #9.4]
• Letter from LP to Dr. Kerr. [Filed under LP Peace: (Materials, re: Fallout and Radiation Shelters, and Civil Defense, 1954-1961), Box #7.007, Folder #7.1]

  30 October 1959

  Dr. A. E. Kerr, President

  Dalhousie University

  Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

  Dear Professor Kerr:

  I am deeply perturbed to learn from Professor J. Gordin Kaplan that Professor Eugene P. Wigner should have written to you, complaining about an action that Professor Kaplan had taken, in publishing a short article in the journal Science.

  The article published by Professor Kaplan was a criticism of the announcement issued by the General Advisory Committee of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission about the biological effects of radioactive fallout from the testing of atomic weapons. It is my opinion that Professor Kaplan was justified in publishing his critical statement about the report issued by the General Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission, and that he rendered a service to the world by doing so. On the other hand, I deplore the action taken by Professor Wigner, in writing to you. If he were dissatisfied with the article by Professor Kaplan, he should have replied to it, in the pages of Science. I cannot find ethical justification for his apparent effort to suppress free discussion of an important matter by working through you, the President of the university in which Professor Kaplan carries on his work.

  Professor Kaplan is not the only one who has made strongly critical statements about the action of the General Advisory Committee of the A.E.C. Very strong criticism is made by Dr. Ralph Lapp in the last issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. I myself, in an address to a public meeting of over 3,000 people in Carnegie Hall in New York City, given on 25 October 1959 (last Sunday), also made very strong statements about this action of the General Advisory Committee of the A.E.C.

  I know the members of this Committee. I pointed out in my public address that none of the members of the Committee is a biologist or has had a good background of experience in biology. In particular, I know Professor Wigner, and I know that he does not have the background of knowledge of biology and medicine to discuss these questions in a very reliable way.

  The statement made by the General Advisory Committee of the A.E.C. seemed to me to be clearly a whitewashing of the atomic bomb tests, probably part of a propaganda campaign to permit the resumption of atomic bomb tests by the United States. The statements made would in general reassure the reader in an unjustified way. Many of the statements are seriously misleading. For example, to say that fallout radiation is less than five percent of natural background radiation, without also stating that natural background radiation is responsible for a considerable fraction of all congenitally defective children born in the world, is misleading. To say that the amount of strontium-90 found in food and water is less of a hazard than the amount of radium normally present in the

  Dr. A. B, Kerr

  Page 2

  30 October 1959

  public drinking water supply in certain places in the United States, without saying that nobody knows how many cases of cancer are produced by this radium in the some hundreds of thousands of people who drink the water, is seriously misleading.

  For five years, during the whole of the fallout controversy, the General Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission remained silent about this question. Only now, when an effort is being made by the A.E.C. to prevent the formulation of an agreement to stop the testing of all nuclear weapons through the negotiations of the representatives of the nuclear powers in the Second Bomb-test Conference in Geneva, has the General Advisory Committee taken action, by the issuance of a statement that seems clearly designed to work to prevent this agreement from being made and to permit the A.E.C. to resume the explosions of nuclear weapons.

  The situation seems to me to be made clear by the speech of Senator Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota in the Senate of the United States on Tuesday 18 August 1959. Mr. Humphrey voiced his grave concern lest through indecision and internal differences our government might contribute to the breakdown of the negotiations. He said "Our negotiators are burdened by obstacles which have been built primarily by the Atomic Energy Commission and to a lesser extent by the Defense Department. The A.E.C. seems to have difficulty in remembering that it was not created to be a policy-making body in the area of foreign relations. Although I think that the A.E.C has overstepped the bounds of its functions in this instance, nevertheless, I cannot dispute its right to argue its case. The A.E.C. is allowed to continue to oppose the official position of the United States and to inject its own views on foreign policy due to a lack of leadership at the top."

  He also said "The A.E.C. and the Pentagon evidently are so eager to resume testing that they are promoting and fostering newspaper reports to that effect," He further said "We could conceivably claim that tests should be resumed because there are no harmful effects of fallout and that the test ban talks are not asking progress, two of the lines of argument being advanced by the A.E.C. The facts on the former are uncertain, as I have said, and the facts on the latter are to the contrary."

  I may discuss the two points raised by Professor Wigner. The first point refers to the second paragraph of the article by Professor Kaplan. Professor Kaplan says "That the total quantity of radiation reaching the whole body from outside is far greater is largely irrelevant to the question of the potential dangers of fallout from nuclear tests." He says that throwing rubber balls at a person is not an intelligent way of finding out what would happen were he to swallow one. Professor Wigner says that the rubber ball analogy is inept.

  I am not sure myself that the rubber ball analogy is the best one that Professor Kaplan could have used, but I am afraid that Professor Wigner does not know the facts about biological damage by radioactive elements. For example, the damage done by carbon-14 inside the human body is without doubt greater than the amount that one would calculate from consideration of the radiation alone: that is, if the same amount of radiation came from outside the body.

  Dr. A. E. Kerr

  Page 3

  30 October 1959

  There is another effect-damage to a molecule by the radioactive change of an atom in that molecule. In my estimate of the genetic and somatic effects of carbon-14, I decided that the latter effect is only ten percent of the former effect. However, three Atomic Energy Commission scientists, Drs. Totter, Zelle, and Hollister, in their discussion of carbon-l4 concluded that the latter effect is equal to the former effect. Their estimates agreed closely with mine with respect to the damage done by the radiation effect, but their estimate as to the second effect was ten times as large as mine. Accordingly there is a greater amount of damage done to human beings by radioactive elements inside the body than by radiation from outside equal in amount to the radiation liberated by the radioactive elements inside the body.

  Professor Wigner, in the third paragraph of his letter, also states that Dr. Kaplan has uncritically accepted a single published number, which is probably incorrect. It is not evident from Professor Wigner's letter what the possibly incorrect published number is, but Professor Kaplan apparently thinks that it is the number 0.0001 microcuries of strontium-90 per gram mentioned by Engstrom and collaborators as related to the development of osteosarcoma in dogs three years after injection of the radiostrontium. I am not able to say whether this number, which is correctly quoted by Professor Kaplan from the book by Engstrom and associates, is correct or erroneous. From the paper by Professor Kamb and me on the effects of strontium-90 on mice it can be seen that a significant increase in incidence of bone tumors in mice is produced by injection of 0.02 microcuries of strontium-90 per gram; that is, about 200 times the amount mentioned. Probably dogs are more susceptible than mice because of their larger volume and larger number of cells, any one of which may become cancerous. Accordingly I think that it was justified for Professor Kaplan to quote the figure given in the book by Engstrom and collaborators, even though there is the possibility that an error was made in the book.

  Professor Wigner concludes his letter with the sentence "What I am objecting to is the tone of his article, which is abusive and lacks scientific spirit and detachment." I have a very similar complaint to make about the report by the General Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission: it is that this report lacks scientific spirit and detachment and is immoral, in that it is worded in such a way as to seriously mislead the people of the United States about a very important question.

  Again let me say that I thoroughly approve of the action taken by Professor Kaplan in publishing his article in Science, and I strongly criticise Professor Wigner for his apparent effort to cause trouble for Professor Kaplan by writing to you.

  Sincerely yours,

  Linus Pauling: jh

  CC: Professor Eugene P. Wigner

  Professor J, Gordin Kaplan

  Enclosures 2

  P.S. - Under separate cover I am sending a copy of my book No More War! to you

• Letter from LP to Professor Dr. W. Hanle, Naturwissenschaftlich-Philosophische Fakultät, Justus Liebig-Universität Giessen RE: Says as he doesn't have a plan of visiting Germany soon he can't accept his invitation to give a lecture at the Justus Liebig University, and hopes he will be able to visit them at a later time. [Letter from Hanle to LP September 19, 1959] [Filed under LP Correspondence: (H: Correspondence, 1959), #167.4]
• Letter from LP to Professor Wigner, RE: LP was shocked to receive a copy of the letter sent to Kerr from Wigner. LP considers the action of writing to Kerr is incompatible with the fundamental principles of ethical behavior. [Wigner's reply November 5, 1959] [Filed under LP Peace: (Materials, re: Fallout and Radiation Shelters, and Civil Defense, 1954-1961), Box #7.007, Folder #7.1]
• Letter from LP to Robert Joseph, Stanley Kramer Pictures RE: Gives the names of people and their organizations that he has discussed the possibility of another showing of "On the Beach" with, and hopes a showing of the film for all of them can be arranged. (Attached: large card for invitation to a special showing of "On the Beach" at 8:45 p.m., Thursday, November 19th, 1959) [Memo from Langmuir to LP October 30, 1959] [Filed under LP Correspondence: (K: Correspondence, 1959), #201.3]
• Letter from LP to Stephanie Flagg RE: Says that as humans differ from each other in biochemical make-up, substances present in foods affect different people differently, explains this is what makes him skeptical about nutritional replacement, and says if someone finds out that some foods are not good for him it is best to eliminate those from his diet. [Letter from Flagg to LP October 29, 1959] [Filed under LP Correspondence: (F: Correspondence, 1959), #129.3]
• Letter from Robert B. Lewis, Materials Preparation, Secondary School Biological Sciences Film Series of the American Institute of Biological Sciences, to LP RE: Says they have been informed that he doesn't have the negatives or the art work from a list of photographs, hopes he will be able to put him on the track of these materials as it would add to their discussion of the protein molecule, and encloses some material describing their project. [Letter from Corey to Lewis November 10, 1959] [Filed under LP Correspondence: (Hayward, Roger), #152.9]
• Letter from Stanley Kramer, Stanley Kramer Pictures, to LP RE: Says he is grateful to be able to approach him through Dr. Robert V. Langmuir who is the Secretary for the American Association of Professor, says he thought LP would want to see "On the Beach" as he is interested in the problems of human welfare, says it will be premiering on December 17th in 18 cities throughout the world, and asks LP to accept the enclosed invitation to a special showing of "On the Beach" on November 19. [Memo from Langmuir to LP October 30, 1959, Letter from LP to Joseph October 30, 1959] [Filed under LP Correspondence: (K: Correspondence, 1959), #201.3]
• Letter from Victor Reynolds, Cornell University Press, to LP RE: Describes the Press's progress in meeting LP's requests for copies of the third edition of The Nature of the Chemical Bond. Encloses copies of correspondence from 1953 and invoices regarding the Press's agreement to contribute $500 to the preparation of illustrations for the book. [Letter from Reynolds to LP November 3, 1959] [Filed under LP Books: 1960b5.3]
• Memo from LP to Professor Sturdivant, RE: Attached is a letter from the Department of the Navy. LP thinks it refers to the contract about research on metals, but has not succeeded in getting it taken care of before leaving for Australia. A report is asked for by 1 December 1959. Asks if Sturdivant could check up on items a, b, c, and d listed. [Filed under LP Science: (Office of Naval Research: Correspondence, Memoranda, Notes and Assorted Materials re: "The Structure of Metals and Intermetallic Compounds," Contract Nonr 220(33) (Chemistry 43), 1958-1963), Box #14.035, Folder #35.1]
• Memorandum form LP to Personnel of Ford Foundation Project RE: Provides clarification of the organizational structure of the project and each individual's responsibilities. [Filed under LP Science: Orthomolecular Medicine and Mental Health: Materials re: Ford Foundation grants for the study of mental disorders, 1955-1966: Box #11.089, Folder #89.11]
• Note from Frais Kalhe Wibahaun to LP RE: Written in German. [Filed under LP Correspondence: (W: Correspondence, 1959), #444.7]
• Rough Draft RE: LP's rough draft on his calculations about the phenylalanine tolerance tests and his resulting conclusions. [Filed under LP Science: Orthomolecular Medicine and Mental Health: Materials re: Ford Foundation grants for the study of mental disorders, 1955-1956: Box #11.089, Folder #89.14]