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vy, om June 27, 1979

JOSHUA LEDERBERG

PRESIDENT

Mr. John E. Swearingen
Chairman

Standard Oil Company (Indiana)
200 East Randolph Drive
Chicago, Illinois 60601

Dear Mr. Swearingen:

I was very glad to have a chance to chat with you
at lunch the other day since there really are a sur-
prising number of points of common interest. I will be
disappointed if we do not find an opportunity when it
might be convenient for us to get together with a couple
of your colleagues and talk about how we can provide a
firmer foundation for the global-economy-driving impli-
cations of comparative toxicology.

This note, however, is to introduce still a dif-
ferent subject, which is embodied in a letter that Gordon
MacDonald and a few others of us have sent on to The White
House. It concerns Tommy Gold's proposition that the
Planet Earth is not yet fully outgassed, and that this in-
sight may have an important bearing,on further development
of energy resources. This is an issue I have had a small
opportunity to think about during the last 20 years (ad-
mittedly mostly from the point of view of where and how
to look for life on other planets). Whatever the outcome
of this proposition it is already a surprising reminder
of how surprisingly interconnected are many practical and
theoretical issues. Anyhow, I thought you might wish to
have an opportunity to see this even before it becomes
more widely available as I suspect it may through the
public media.

 

Yours sincerel

nd

oshua Lederberg

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