SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
STANFORD UNIVERSITY. STANFORD. CALIFORNIA 94305

JOSHUA LEDERBERG
JosePu D. GRANT PROFESSOR March 27 , 1978

V

OF GENETICS

Dr. Roger M. Herriott
Department of Biochemistry
The Johns Hopkins University
615 North Wolfe Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21205

Dear Roger:

I was very grateful to you for your letter and recollections
of February 28th. I was amused at your recalling Max reading the paper.
Jim Watson used to do the same thing to others later on, with the
additional provocation of holding it upside down.

If it would help jog your memory for still more detail, I would
urge you to think about writing up an account of this history.
The fact is that I am not aware that anything whatever has been
written about those Cold Spring Harbor Symposia.

You made one remark about Ed Tatum, that I wonder if you can
illuminate as a point of fact. Was it that Ed was absent from the
meeting or that he was present but chose hot to speak up? If the
latter, I suspect he was just giving me the opportunity to take that
responsibility feeling quite comfortable that I would be able to
handle it. Certainly that was very much his style! I certainly have
no recollection myself of any sense of abandonment. But anyhow I
wonder if you can remember what the actual circumstance was.

If you could go back to the published volume I wonder if it is
even possible for you to remember which day of that week our
presentation came. I just can't recall even what the other papers
were although I believe that A/. Hershey talked about recombination
in phage early in the week and this was one of the reasons we were
pleased to have an opportunity to tell this story.

Once again, my thanks.

Yours sincerely,

JL/gel

vu Lp pe 12H