ScHOOL OF MEDICINE
STANFORD UNIVERSITY, STANFORD, CALIFORNIA 04505

JOSHUA LEDERBERG
JOSEPH D. GRANT PROFESSOR - February 7, 1978
OF GENETICS

Dr. Roger M. Herriott
Department of Biochemistry
The Johns Hopkins University

615 North Wolfe Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21205

Dear Roger:

Thank you for your very kind and warm letter of January 26.
Obviously in my own way I must share your feelings about Rockefeller
University to find it the very interesting challenge that it is.

You mentioned "to make it better than it is:" if you have any
more concrete thoughts about what is required, in your own esti-
mation, I hope you will be forward with them.

I was particularly interested in your recollections of July 1946.
In fact I have been trying to recreate some authentic historical
record about the discovery of the K12 system and its presentation
to the scientific community. I have some trouble trying to recall
the details of that great debate so I wondered if I could call
upon you to open up with an uninhibited stream of consciousness
about your own recollections of that circumstance. Please just
trust me that any use I may make of your imp: e-sitons will be entirely
discrete and that I am really appealing to you to be absolutely
uninhibited in your characterizations. I won't say any more just
now but will be glad to try to check my own racall against yours
after hearing what you have to say about it.

I have not even found it possible to pin down the precise
date of that presentation since it does not appear in the published
volume and most of the records pertaining to that era seem to have
disappeared. They are avowedly not in the collection of Demerec's
papers at the American Philosophical Society. I hope that there is
a more self conscious historical sense these days although there is
no good reason to believe it.

WS ane A
Dr. Roger M. Herriott -2- February 7, 1978

If by chance you do happen to have preserved correspondence
dating back to the forties that may bear on this question or on
the ones addressed in the enclosure, I would be most grateful to
you to hear about it.

Again my thanks for having expressed your confidence.

Your sincerely,

Joshua Lederberg
Professor Of Genetics

JL:ek-f