IN YOUR REPLY PLEASE QUOTE FILE NO... cece eer e ccc ece nen ereees NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL CANADA MARITIME REGIONAL LABORATORY HALIFAX, N.S. 11 April 1955S. Dr Joshua Lederberg, Department of Genetics, 'miversity of “isconsin, Madison, Wis. Rear Josh, It gives one a great feeling of comfort to receive a letter like yours of April 6, and to feel that at least sore of the Mighty are batting for one. This, then, is the situation as it stands at present. Officially my appointment ends in three weeks, but Dr Young has assured me that I can stay on for a few more months if need be.¥ In view of the fact that the Lalor Fellowship people have had such a third-rate croup of anplicants this sumer, they have awarded me a fellowship at Woods Hole, and we'll be going there for the summer. (Tentative dates: 1 June - 1 Sept.) Then we plan to go to Michigan to give talks at the A.1I.3.S. - there is to he a symposium on sex in alreae, at which I shall endeavour not to repeat myself too obviously. At one of these vlaces, if not both, we look forward to a warm reunion with you and Esther. From then on the crystal hall becomes opatescent, but by mo means completely dark, and the following loom as dim possibilities. 1. Assist. Prof. under Jack Myers, Austin, Texas: Botany. 2 2? 9 2? " Kelner, Brandeis, Waltham, Mess.: Riology. 3. 2 2 2 " Gifford Pinchot, Dept. of Geology, Columbia University (where Ewing is setting un in marine microbiology if funds become available). Me 2? 2? 9 at Coral Gables, 1. of Miami, where they may be settine funds for more work with Red Tide. 5. Phycolosist, Stazione Zoolosica, Naples. (Lomtano de Napoli non si pub stare!) - & 7. Tentative offers of support for ea few months at Scripps Institution for Oceanograrhy, La Jolla, and at the RBerimda Biological Station. None of these is more than a varue vossihil ¥ have acvantaces anc Cisadvantares, as you can imesine: and I have sufficient optimism to feel that they can't all fall through. Your offer of help is greatly avpreciated, ana I dontt think one ought to turn such things down, but I think it would be premature to tale action at this juncture. A year or two of work in Wisconsin would undoubtedly be extremely stimulating, nevertheless: and I shall certainly write to you acain if matters set critical. * Uumecessavy in He civcumstances. My present post has been on a 1l2=month basis, anc the salary has been $5000 p.a. Joyce was a Guest Research Worker (cr at least a guest research worker), unpaid, but with permission to use laboratory facilities. If we loots upon ourselves as holders of two $2,500 post-doctoral fellowships, we can't grumble. Ours has been a most profitable stay in Canada from the research point of view: we may not have promoted the frying of potato-chips, the storage of fish fillets, the smelting of iron or the pulp and paper industries of the Maritimes, but we feel that, in our humble way, we have added motes to the sum total of useless but interesting information in the Pure Science category. (My colleagues, who work on the utilization of Irish moss, and on the projects mentioned above, have been more pliant in the matter of research, which is why the majority of them are remaining. But it gave us some sardonic comfort to learn that at least one of them is leaving this autumn, for the same reasons as ours.) «. I don't know what rumours have reached you: but, to put matters in perspective, I misht say that I can sympathize with the position of the N.R.C. We have half a million unemployed in this little country of ours, anc it seens only fair that the national finances should be applied chiefly to the promotion of industry. I had asked about these things before I left Yale, but at that time policy hadn't crystallized and Dr Young still thought we could concentrate on algal research. If Itd done a bit of shop-fronting - or if he had hed tne vaguest inkling of what I'm working on and its possible, ultimate applications - the N.R.C. mirht have been made to see things in a different Light: but on my part I should nave felt this a bit of dishonest bluff, and on his it might have antagonized his superiors. He's not as young or as mobile as I am. You have now, in the military idiom, been put into the picture. The business of packing up hangs over our heads: what a business! I nope all goes well with you and Esther. Joyes sends her best resards, and she, too, thanks you for thinkins of us. Yours, Ratoh & . Lewin.