STANFORD UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
STANFORD MEDICAL CENTER
PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA 94304

DEPARTMENT OF GENELICS Area Code 415
321-1200
Professor Harold P. Green
Professor of Law
George Washihington University
Washington, D. C. Januery 31, 1969

Dear Professor Green--

I was hoppy to note your letter to the editor in the dan.
18 issue of the Washington Post. I sey this without irony,
for it certeinly wes not my intention to provoke any personel
polemics. If the press reports were such a distortion, it is
a service to public understanding (even more then to your own
reputation) thot there unreliability be underscored. You will
note that I did emphasize the source of the quotetions, end
elsewhere in the column attenpted to distinguish the possible
(but too prevalent) misunderstanding of remarks like“stretchout
of technology” from your own, certainly less sinplicistic views.

My immedistereaction, however, is thet we are still poles
spart ong one issue of social philosophy. Your reaction to
technological disharmony is to speak for a stretchout (though
you regard it as xexk unpeslistic). Mine is to demand that
our social snd political thinking be brousht into the present
century. A technological stretchout is not going to alleviate
globel malnutrition; more intensive studies of hunsn (and agri-
cultural) biology msy be able to help. Perhaps more importent,
the moin embarressment that science often imposes on our social
(and msy I say lezal) institutions is by exposing evils once
cloaked in ignorance or excused by impotence.

However, I am again committing the sin of which you complain,
qunking reacting to your statements in the press, possibly out
of context. Would you favor me with a complete copy of your
talk at Dallas?

Yours sincerely,
hw Lone
(doshine Lederberg

Professor of Genetics

P.S. Realistic of not, pless for stretchout are often echoed
in Congress and must have sone influence on precarious budgets
for basic science.

LT. J. P. KENNEDY, JR. LABORATORIES FOR MOLECULAR MEDICINE, DEDICATED TO RESEARCH IN MENTAL RETARDATION
MOLECULAR BIOLOGY HEREDITY NEUROBIOLOGY DEVELOPMENTAL MEDICINE