This July, I am completing my fourth seven-yearterm at NIH.

It seems as exhilarating and certainly asworthwhile as in the summer of 1953, when

my wife and I arrived in Bethesda.

The last six years, however, I must confess,have been spent in the relentless company

of the administrative burdens of the Director.

I have decided with great difficulty and muchambivalence, that it's time for me to shed

those burdens for a while, lest I forget completelyhow to be a scientist and a physician.

And therefore, yesterday I sent to the Presidenta letter containing these sentences:

Dear Mr. President,I respectfully request that on the first day

of July you accept my resignation as Directorof the National Institutes of Health.

It is for personal reasons that I take leaveof this position, which I have been honored

to hold these past six years.

Before then, I was also privileged to spendmuch of my scientific career at the National

Institutes of Health.

I am most grateful, I wrote, for the continuingtrust which you and Presidents Ford and Carter

have extended in allowing me to lead thisremarkable institution.