Re rp)

August 29, 1980.

 

MEMORANDUM TO: - J. Lederberg Arthur W. Brill

Dr. Gustave Nossal Stuart Peerce
Dr. Herman Sokol John Whitehead
Mr. Martin Segal Peter Whitehead

Susan Whitehead
FROM: Edwin C. Whitehead L

RE: WHITEHEAD MEDICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE
Trip to Stanford University
August 26, 1980.

Tuesday morning, August 26th, Josh Lederberg and I met with

Dr. Donald Kennedy, President of Stanford University, and
Professor Kenneth Melman, Chairman of the Department of Medicine.
We had a pleasant lunch, over which Dr. Kennedy indicated that
Stanford had very much changed its attitude towards having the
Institute there. The points covered were:

1. He had no tenseness whatsoever about the Institute having
independent governance.

2. There was no problem whatsoever about faculty appointments.

He felt that, wherever it was appropriate, Institute faculty members
would be appointed to the Stanford faculty. Where it was not appro-
priate, there was no problem with the Institute hiring whomever they
wished.

3. He felt, as a general outline for a deal, Stanford University
would make real estate available to us. The quod pro quo would be
that the Institute would build sufficient laboratory space to house
some of their basic sciences which are now pressed for space. The
impression was that this would be the entire quod pro quo for the
Institute.

4. He assured me that there would be no problems with the Stanford
board, the faculty, or anyone else in bringing this off -- in fact,
quite the reverse was true.

We discussed candidates for Director and he expressed the view that,
if we were able to get David Baltimore, both he and the Institute
would be enthusiastically received, and he would immediately be
appointed to a faculty tenured position at Stanford.
Two.

Interestingly, in the past they had tried unsuccessfully
to recruit Baltimore as head of their Microbiology Department.

I told Dr. Kennedy that I was not willing to negotiate with
Stanford on other than global issues of a very general nature,
preferring not to negotiate any details without a Director. He
understood this, and was very sympathetic.

After lunch, Dr. Melman and I visited potential sites. There
are two excellent sites available:

One immediately contiguous to the Medical Center which is one
huge building accommodating both the Medical School and the Hospital.

The other is a huge area where we could probably have as much

acreage as we wanted, but separated by a parking lot from the

Medical Center. The problem with this latter site is that it is some-
what removed from the Medical Center, a distance of probably 200-

300 feet.

The problem with the first location (which I prefer) is that it would
not house as large a building.

The contiguous site could be located very, very close to their new
Microbiology Building which would be very useful indeed. The

latter site would be in the same area as their new Cancer Institute

and could be contiguous to it, but somewhat removed from the Institute.

I believe that either of these sites would be superb.

All in all, this was a most successful visit and left littie doubt
2 : a .

in my mind that the welcome we would receive at Stanford would be
very warm indeed and they are willing to bend the rules in any way
possible in order to have us come there.

The only negative is the exhausting nature of the trip from the
east coast. However, that might be considered a purely personal
bias and probably should not carry any weight in the siting of the
Institute.

ECW/pgp