September 7, 1955
Dear Kim:

Thank you for your comment on my letter. I have sent it to Science, but have
no idea if or when it will be published. I have a mumber of copies now, one is
anclosed if you care for it. (It is changed only by the addition of two sentences
to explain what the SCIENCE editorial said.)

I hope you will consider Detrick very carefully, eppecially before accepting it.
If 4t is such an admirable setup, why did Werner prefer to leave? I won't forget
patriotic motivations either, but if you turn out unhappy there, everyine will be
the loser. ¢

I want to renew the topic I brought up in an earlier letter, not having realized
then he pressure of tims. To put it bluntly, there is an outside chance that
the idea of a medical genetics department can ba put over here, at Wisconsin.
This would not necessitate, at the start, an activity in human genetics per se,
though this ought to be brought in eventually. It should mean a person with some
clinical background and interest, who might put scue life intc 2 brief course
(Z would imagine about 15 lecture hours), and more important, who could educate
his colleagues. They are a pretty wide awake bunch here, especially when it comes
to chemistry and physiology, but genetics has been overlooked at the medical school
probably became no one has put any steam into it.Tour researsh vould, of course,
have to be your own business. I had thought of trying to play a full, direct role
4n such a program, but doubt that I would be well enough qualified, at the clinieal
side. It may take some time to get this proposal under way, but ay preliminary
talks with Dean Bowers have been very satisfactory.You nead take no part or interest
in this early maneuvering, except to tell me explicitly to stop if I'm wasting
my time as far as you are concerned.

What are the chances of your paying ua an early visit, the sooner the better?
The chances are, I can arrange for support from the University Lectures Committee;
if not, and you're not too extravagant, we can scrape up your plane fare some other
way. This would have no overt connection with the previous subject, but I would
like very mich to have a chance to talk to you about this and innumerable other
things. There are any mumber of people here who would be anxious tc hear your
work on radiation effects, ani welve hadmall too few chances to assess the state
of the world ourselves. But concretely, let m know if there any time between
about September 20 and November 1 that you could pay us a visit.

Sinceraly,

Joshua Lederberg