Date: Mon, 17 Jul 89 11:54:34 EDT

From: "Richard M. Burian; Department Head" <RMBURIANSVTVM2.BITNET@VTVM1.CC.VT.EDU>
Subject: Thanks

To: Joshua Lederberg <JSL@CASP1.rockefeller.edu>

Thank you very much for the copies that you sent me -- they are a great
help. In particular, I want to follow up on your piece in J. Cell. Comp.
Physiol. 52 (1958); BE. WAS at that conference (indeed, he gave one of
the papers that your summary comment addresses). As it happens, there is
a fairly long, complex, and difficult interaction among E., Nanney, and
Sonneborn over that paper and its relation to a preceding conference in
Gif. If your comment about the genetics of somatic cells took with E.
they may have influenced some of the changes in his research program at
about that time. If you can think of useful pathways to reconstruct more
of the context I would like to hear about it. (I already have thought of
a few, but can’t deal with them now anyhow -- I’m in the midst of running
an NEH Summer Seminar and badly overbooked.}

Again many thanks. The things you sent were very helpful.

P.S. I am 99% sure that the original of the handwritten letter that
you have the bad copy is not in the material in Slonimski’s lab. That's
the only significant stash of E’s letters from that time that I’ve been
able to get my hands on. I will keep my eye out for it and recheck my
notes and photocopies which were made in great haste.