XXAKRAKAK
Department of Genetics

February 20, 1959

Department of Chemistry
Harvard University
Cambridge, Mass.

Dear Colleagues:

What can | tell you about Francis Crick that the world doesn't already know?
Do you really think you can lure him from paleo-Cambrt@ge? 1 envy you the oppor-
tunity.

Pernaps the only thing you may have to fear the(mistaken)impression of Is
this: his contribution in analysis of DNA structure was at once so simple and
so immense that some may wonder If it weren't just a one time stroke of lightning,
a flash In the pan. Can you believe he's ‘'that good!'?

Well, I think so. He's one of the most exciting and informative people | know,
and he has a grasp of a fundamental orderliness in the chemistry of living organisms
that rates him, in my own opinion, as one of the most profound thinkers and greatest
scientists on the contmporary scene. At any rate, every conversation | have with
him is a lesson and a treat at the same time.

! wish there were some way to beat you at your own game and try to lure him
cut here, but | suspect that if there Is any other place he'd leave Cambridge for
it would be Cambridge. Ity will be Britain's loss if you succeed, but we may feel
the gain even across the continent, and to some extent share it with you. | am
sure his leaving Britain would generate some pain and resentment, but If the
old fogies at Cambridge don't know better how to treasure perhaps thelr outstanding
scientist, It may serve them right.

if this serves to nourish His own productivity as well as tiarvard's prestige
and our mutual adventage, all success to you. You might as well be done with it
and see him move to a position where he'll no longer be distracted about thinking
whether to move,

Can I say more?

Yours trulys”

\
Joshua Lederberg .
Professor of Genetics