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TO:  John Henry Edman                   From: Joshua Lederberg       
     Co B 50 Signal Battallion                50 Haven Avenue
     APO  307   c/o PM                        New York, 38 NY
     New York, N.Y.
                                              3?  August 1945
Dear Chuck:

     I suppose it would be unethical for me not to mention that this
is more or less by way of being a 'round-robin', or rather that I am
sending carbon copies to the other guys in that ancient and revered
society of 'Chuck....s'.  I was coming home past 172nd St and Haven
Ave, Manhattan, which old and familiar scene reminded me that I owed
each of you a letter for longer than I care to remember.  Rather
than shirk the impossible task of writing three letters  that would
more or less duplicate each other anyhow, I thought to do this.  You
fellows naturally don't say too much about how and what you're
doing, especially Bob Mavis.  Arnold writes to me about the spirit 
of Germany and the soft job he'd pulled for a while as an interpreter.
Jack hasn't written anything at all in a long time; I'm afraid he's
becoming a GI Joe.  He's certainly the veteran among us.  And who's
the goldbrick?  Me, of course.

     We're well into the second year of Med School now, and it's no
cinch to sit, awake, in those hot, unaired, dark rooms while some old
geezer talks on and on and on about measles or Tuberculosis. Medicine
is spoon fed; if you've been exposed at all, you can't help having
quite a bit of it shoved into your system, but it isn't much of a
science, not so much that it doesn't use scientific techniques as that
it has a very narrow approach.  Cure the patient, and as a result,
probably less patients are cured in the long run.  I don't like it,
and probably will not practice very long after I get out.  Instead
I've finally gotten myself deeply involved in some fundamental
research, and ambitions, and people are melting out of my world, which
is the way I have always pretended that I wanted it to be.  I haven't
made any new friends really, since you guys, and I know damn well that
even that can never be the same again...  That's my price for having
sat out this war.  There's no sense talking about the research as I
have been prone to do; it really doesn't matter; but the laboratory
is more than just a dull place where you wash test tubes.  There,
and not on the dance floor, drill field, or battleground, I'm at my
best, so perhaps you'll forgive me if I can't repeat all the witty
jokes I've heard this last week, for I can't entertain you.  And even
if you still care, Jack, I couldn't argue with you about James Joyce,
or about the price of onions and China with Arn or Bob.  The sun is
setting now, beyond the George Washington Bridge, and I can see my
road converging into nothingness in the distance.  How about you
guys?
                                      Joshua