July 10, 1959
 
 

Dr. J. Lederberg
Genetics Dept.
Stanford Univ.
Stanford, California

Dear Dr. L:

This is Saturday evening and I just received your note to which a hasty reply --

I can see that there is an awful lot of good time going into reviewing grants, etc. so I can fully appreciate your desire to withdraw from a Study Section.

As regards CC -- take it easy. When the time seems ripe to you why we'll do what is necessary. Yes, I can easily check who gets CC at Stanford -- the answer is no one. You are the first one to my knowledge.

At several med schools we have sent the entire staff a review copy along with a letter which we ran off but which one prof prepared. This really did the trick at Northwestern -- 34 signed up. Same thing at places like Columbia. When you have the time for it I'll send you out some samples of the different letters that have gone out. We have just prepared one for Tufts. The librarian is helping us there. Some schools want copies mailed to each faculty member -- in which case it costs a few dollars more. Others prefer the bulk mailing.

I guess we won't hear from NSF for a while as Dr. Gray is in Europe. Dr. Katherine Wilson was in my office on Thursday together with Dr. Earl Green from Bar Harbor. Very nice people these geneticists, although Gordon Allen wrote me that he certainly didn't get unanimous approval of CI from the Amer. Society -- he said response was cool. Anyhow, Dr. Wilson and Green were here to find out if we could cover more genetics in CC and I said yes by all means. They are trying to get more clinical people to use the genetics literature. I don't think we'd have much trouble covering the rest of the important journals. Dr. Wilson was not up on CI so I tried to explain it to her and to Dr. Green. I hope to follow this up later. In the meantime they are more interested in CC so I showed them my proposal to NIH concerning a reduction in sub rate.

Yes, time and energy are limited -- can't even afford the luxury of brevity -- I hope that my long-windedness has not taken too much of your time. I shall keep you posted on CI. In the meantime I hope you have a pleasant summer. I know that section very well -- my oldest son was born in Stanford Hospital in SF -- incidentally and coincidentally my most recent acquisition is named -- Joshua. He's a big fellow -- 20 pounds and not yet four months old.

Sincerely,

Gene Garfield