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VERLAG HANDELSBLATT G-M-B-H -DOSSELDORF - PRESSEHAUS

Professor Dr. J. Lederberg |

Department of Genetics

Medical Center, Stanford University

Palo Alto, California April 7, 1961
U.S.A. Dr. Me./Co.

Dear Professor Lederberg:

Please excuse my delw in answering your kind letter of
March 8. I wish to thank you sincerely for it, and for the
permission to use your picture in my work.

Your remarks regarding my quotation from FORTUNE have been
very interesting to me, since I have only now found out that there
exist two different versions. FORTUNE has brought out the series
"Great American Scientists" in book form, and I have taken the
quotation “inhospitable to science" from there, while the original
article - as you pointed out - reads "insufficiently hospitable to
science", Thank you for setting me right. I certainly realize
that there is a tremendous difference in meaning between the two
wordings.

The last paragraph of your letter has been of great value to
me. There lies a lot of truth in these few words when you talk,
for instance, of "the futility of an attempt to summarize American
culture in a brief word". What you have written in this small

paragraph, dear Professor, is the best I have heard or read so far
on the subject.

-2-

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After all, the situation is the following: During my trips
around the world I was told over and over again, especially in the
underdeveloped countries, that the Russians perform greater
achiewnents in the scientific field than the Americans. In such
cases I had to explain to these people (government officials,
executives of industrial development corporations, etc.) that the
American society, as you put it, represents a very broad spectrum
of interest in scientifie and cultural matters, and that, therefore,
their research work is spread over many fields, while the Russians
are limited to those subjects directed by the Kremlin, e.g. rocket
research, etc.

I wish to use this opportunity, dear Professor, to ask you
very kindly to write me a few lines on this problem. My question
is: “Can the'very broad spectrum in scientific and cultural matters"
which we observe in the Western countries and particularly in the
US be justified in the long run from a political standpoint, and,
if not, which remedies would you advise?"

During my last informative trip through the Sovietunion I read
a sentence on a wall in the University of Moscow that I would trans-
late as follows: "Science requires labor and passion". The dean
of the chemical faculty accompanying me at that time told me that
it was the main duty of the teachers to implant the students this
passion for science, and I have, in fact, found the enthusiasm for
science among the students with whom I had the chance to talk.

How is the situation in this respect in the United States?
We in the Western hemisphere, that means the Americans as well as
the people in Western Europe, are accused that our young people
in the scientific jobs think in the first place of earning money
and consider their profession only as a means to this end. Is it
at all possible to express such a generalization? What do you say,
dear Professor Lederberg?

I should be extremely grateful to you if you would give me an
answer to these questions. It is certainly not curiosity on my part,
but my contacts in East and West have given me a lot to think about,
and I should like to hear something on the subject from a competent
American.

Hoping to hear from you soon, I remain, dear Professor,

yours sincerely,

< > .
Ta

(Dr. A. Metzner)