March 25, 1959

Dr. Hugh Odishaw

National Academy of Sciences
2101 Constitution Ave. N.W.
Washington 2h, D. C.

Dear Dr. Odishaw:

Since our last conversation we have had our second WESTEX meeting
at the Jet Propulsion Laboratories and you will of course have returned
from COSPAR. You will receive reports of our meetings as they are
prepared. The main result of our second meeting was a considered re-affir-
mation of the principles outlined in the reports of the first meeting.
As we were fortunate in having Or. Urey with us on this occasion, | am
particularly pleased at this result. In addition, Sinton was there to talk
to us about the Infra-red spectra of Mars and his results are, to say the
least, highly persuasive of the existence of some vegetation. It is
reasonably obvious that almost the only information we can possibly gain
from safe approaches will be via spectrometry of the planetary surfaces
and atmospheres. Apparently a great deal has to be done with laboratory
models to support this type of investigation.

In conversations with Rossi and with Jastrow, we have already taken
up the question of continued support of our group. { am enclosing a copy
of a statement to which | hope you can give considered attention.
Duplicated of this have gone to Rossi and to Schilling at NASA. Jastrow
had referred our correspondence to him.

| will be waiting for advice on the procedure for reimbursement
of various peoples expense accounts. I! assume you are ready to do this
by accepting individual accounts. Do you have some forms for these
statements?

You will note that we have gone ahead with plans for another meeting
to be held May 3rd. Will you be able to continue your subsidy? If we
do not get support, we can still go ahead and finance this as a terminal
meeting.

Alexander has sent me a copy of the current CETEX Report. From
his own remarks, | judge that the report was already tempered to some
extent by expediency but it is gratifying that COSPARis getting along
with the problem.
| heard at third or fourth hand that Porter still ralsed some
objections to the CETEX Report. | am not clear whether this epplies
to CETEX's own statement or to the Argus-inspired amendment directed
against nuclear explosions in space near the earth.

Our committee will review this CETEX Report in some detail at our
next meeting. There are a few items that can well be cleared up, but
of course | can only blame myself for not having attended. We will

require your advice concerning appropriate channels for communication
with COSPAR.

Yours sincerely,

Joshua Lederberg
Professor of Genetics

Enclosure