20th November, 1974
Dear Paul,
I have a letter from Don Brown and have written to him agreeing to come earlier to Stanford to get together with him and Dave Hogness.  It would be very nice to spend some time at Stanford and give a seminar. In principle, I am keen to do that but could I leave the exact dates until January when I can see how my other commitments turn out?
I have written to Don Brown pressing him again to see that the Edinburgh group is represented at the meeting and I hope that they are included in the list.
You may be interested to hear that the Ashby Committee hopes to report soon and that we know unofficially that they will say that all experiments can be carried out using normal bacteriological containment procedures.  But perhaps one should wait for the official report which is being drafted, at the moment, by Michael Stoker and Hans Kornberg.
I had a rather disturbing conversation with an MRC official; apparently the bureaucracy here are worried about the official status of your meeting and do not know whether it is sponsored by NIH or NAS, or whether it is private.  If it has official sponsorship it would be politically wise to make this abundantly clear so that whatever we accomplish does not lose any impact because of criticism that the meeting only represents the participants.
It will be good to see you again in February,
Yours,
Sydney
Sydney Brenner