ART/JB 6th May, 1952.
Professor Linus Pauling,
California Institute of Technology,
Pasadena 4,
California,
U.S.A.
Dear Linus,
I was very much upset to receive your letter of 28th April on my return from a brief lecture visit to Holland. I need
hardly say that Alison and I are extremely disappointed that you and Helen are not going to be with us this month. In
particular we are very angry indeed at the reason for your staying at home. I do not know whether you have yet seen it
or not, but Robinson had a letter in the "Times" yesterday about it in which he stated in quite forthright terms what he thought
about the action of your State Department, and I heartily agree with him. Indeed, if he had not written I was proposing
to do something about it myself. There is, I suppose, nothing we can do about it at the present time, but the whole thing
is so silly.
Thank you for your congratulations - I am not at all sure that commiserations are not more appropriate, but I am hoping that
it will work out reasonably well. I think the demands on my time can be kept within bounds, and if they cannot then I
shall simply resign, because I do not want to have my ordinary scientific work crippled by outside work of this type.
Actually it probably sounds worse than it is because, of course, I am not doing it on a whole time basis like Tizard, and
it is much more like the Chairmanship of an ordinary Government Committee than the kind of thing which, for example, Joe Koepfli
is doing in Washington.
Our work here goes well, and I hope we may have an opportunity some time soon of discussing things, especially if as I hope
you are getting interested in the macromolecular structure of the nucleic acids.
With best regards,
Yours sincerely,
Alex
