Cedar Mountain, NC 28718
03 Janaary, 1977

Dr. Joshua Lederberg

Department of Genetics

Stanford University School of Medicine
Stanford

CA 94305

Dear Dr. Lederberg:

First of all, I have to correct the date of the party at which George
beadle announced the isolation 6f the eye color hormone. It was actually

18 February. I got somewhat mixed up in the dates, My son was born on

the 16 of Februarg, and the party was two days later. I attended the party
without my wife, of course.

Thef course, that Ed started was given for the first time in the spring of
1941. I know that, because it was the last year that I was to be at Stanford,
and I had already gotten some training from Kees van Niel in teaching
comparative biochemistry, as Ed had. But, Ed déd never mention in the

course the story of Neurospora, That was supposedly a closely guarded secret
by Beadle, It strck me very forcefully at that time, because it was so
reminegcent of the atmosphere in Kégl's institute, of absolute secrecy.

We were told by K§gl that we gould not talk about our research with anybody
else, and I was kind of suppr¢@sed to find the same attitude with Beadle,

Laboratory werk with Neurespora started in the Spring of 1941, Let me be a
little bit more accurate, it started in February 1941, It was then, that

Beadle came to my quarters to use the X ray machine, and did not want to tell
me what he was doing.

AD jan (20 ty

   
 

bad

vy fam a
i