April 10, 1978
Dear Tracy,
I have your letter inquiring about my willingness to "arrange for the safe deposition" and "surveying and inventoring" materials of historical interest in genetics. When it arrived I was very busy teaching and could not give it the thought it warranted. Since then I read the list of documents historians would like to have and realized what an ambitious task that would be. Very frankly I just could not undertake anything along those lines now. As for making arrangements to leave all my files, memorabilia etc. I would gladly do so if I had been conscientious about saving things throughout the years. However I wasn't and whatever I could leave would only be a fragmentary record at best.
So, while I don't have any reason for withholding what records I have, I don't think I have very much that's useful(or interesting) and I'm not eager to begin to collect what I do have for "future historians".
Sincerely yours,