June 4, 1973

Dr. R. D. Owen

Biology Department

California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, California

Dear Ray,

ument: Josh has recently requested in a letter co Jin Crow information concerning
the circumstances of his recruitment here. This letter embodying your judgement
of Lederberg's potentialities and those of your colleagues at Cal Tech, had a
major influence on our decision, and so is directly relevant to Josh's inquiry.
Would you be agreeable to Supplying Lederberg with a copy of either (1) the
complete letter or (2) a Partially excised version. If you prefer the latter,
‘then what parts should be stricken?

Josh Lederberg's recruitment to the Genetics staff,of course, was a majcr event
during my term as departmental chairman. A copy of your letter, about Josh will
be included in wy report to the special Archives Committee.

As you will recall, opinion wag Strongly divided within our departmental
gtoup concerning the desirability of adding Lederberg to our staff. Your thought-
ful and incisive letter and an appraisal of Josh fron E. W. Sinnott, then Dean
of the Graduate School at Yale, and formerly on the agricultural staff at Storrs,
Conn. , tipped the balance among my associates in favor of voting to invite Josh to
come to Wisconsin, Particularly Significant under the circumstances’ was the group's

Josh's appointment was in inflection point in the development of am experimental
biology at W&sconsin. Your letter wag decisive at the time and it is an important
historical document now. Should it be transmitted to Josh, and in what form?

(continued...)
Dr. R. D. Owen wJeo June 4, 1973

This spring has been excessively wet here, so that we finished corn planting
only a few days ago. Hope this year to learn whether passing a transposable
element through a maize locus sometimes has a stable residual effect at the locus,
Another question in which I am interested is whether Ds (one of McClintock's
controlling elements) can be used to generate a spectrum of mutations at the
Opaque~7 locus on chromosome 10 of possible economic value. The single opaque-3..
mutant now available conditions high lysine content of the endosperm proteins,

&@ valuable characterir:tié which, however, is offset in part by undesirable
changes in endosperm texture expressed as slow drying of the kernels at maturity
and susceptibility to molds. To what extent can lysine content and seed texture
be genetically varied independently of each other? I shall probably have to be
reincarnated to get the answer to this question, because (to get the experiment
in gear) I have first to obtain the transposition of Ds to OJ from R locus about
25 crossover units distant. This form of mutagenesis however, has major pos-
sibilities in this instance s0 I am going to try for the transposition, even
though the probability of success is low.

* Let me say again how much Joyce, her mother, and I enjoyed our visit with

you and June last winter. It was a delightful visit for all of us.
Our best wishes to both of you,
ordially yours,
R, A. Brink
Eweritus Professor of Genetics

Encl,