THE ROCKEFELLER UNIVERSITY

1230 YORK AVENUE NEW YORK, NY 10021

June 1, 1988

 

JOSHUA LEDERBERG

PRESIDENT
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Dr. Victor Freeman
P. O. Box Sit 639

Milbrae, California 94030
Dear Dr. Freeman:

Neal Groman was kind enough to give me your address. I
am writing to ask if you can clear up the early history of
your discovery of lysogenic conversion in Corynebacterium
diphtheriae in 1951. Enclosed are two slightly divergent
anecdotes from Neal Groman and Lane Barksdale respectively.
While they are not incompatible they leave me slightly
confused about what may have been in your mind in conducting
that epochal experiment. If you have written about this
closer to the event, or if you can give me the benefit of
your spontaneous recall, it would be fun to have the defini-
tive version of that creation. My wife, Marguerite, who
practices psychiatry at Memorial Hospital, would (but would
not have to) remind me of the difficulties of reconstruction
after such an interval -- something I discovered from my own
experience at retrospection. I leave it to you to put what-
ever qualifications you think are appropriate; but I hope
you will also give me leave to quote whatever you can tell
me at this point.

I understand that you left microbiology for psychiatry
not long after that discovery, which I have been citing since
1952. As I was at Stanford for 20 years, from 1959 through
1978, I am sorry that it is only now that I have discovered
that you were nearly a neighbor.

Yours sincerely,

Jgghua Lederberg

Encl. P269

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