September 19, 1973

Mr. William Austin.
Doubleday & Company Inc.
277 Park Avenue

New York, New York 10017

Dear Mr. Austin,

Thank you for your letter of September 17th concerning my
introduction to Joseph Fletcher's "Morality and Genetic Control”.

I, of course, understand that the special relationship of this
writing to Dr. Fletcher's book argues against my own customary insistence
on reserving all the rights to my ow intellectual productions that are
not essential for a given publishing project. I have been concerned for
some time that the customary contracts are generally wnfair to authors
with respect to the disposition of possible future gains but this is
hardly the place to persevere in my private campaign. Let me try to
spell out what my specific concerns might be and ask you to put them in
language appropriate to a contract, and I hope consistent with your own
needa. I had anticipated te possibilities for the use of this writing in
other contexts. Neither of them is very probable but I thought it important
for obvious reasons of prudence to take them into account.

1. A comprehensive collection of my own writings on various subjects,
which might help to display the evolution of my critical thought on just
such matters as are the subject of Dr. Fletcher's book.

2. The reworking of perhaps a page or so of the seme kind of arguments
for other articles. Since I would hardly want to capitalize on the
introduction having been embedded in a fine work by another author, a
anticipated reworking that I can now imagine would be so extensive that
it probably would not be in conflict with the rights you would retain.

I do not see how either of these projects could be in conflict with the
promotion of Dr. Fletcher's book; rather to the contrary, they would be
more than likely to help advertise it.

I guess then my formal concern really centers only on number 1.
If you can give me some assurance that there would be no substantial

impediment,on your part to such a project, I would be more than pleased
to proceed.

I have spent many hours in critical review of this manuscript
and I would hardly believe that I am asking an exorbitant fee.
Sincerely yours,

Joshua Lederberg

Professor of Genetics
JIL/rr