WILSON ON "THE DOUBLE HELIX

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

The front-page news story in Tuesday's CRIMSON [on 'The Double Helix'] is reasonably accurate, although I might complain of a couple of direct quotations made out of context. Nor can I object in general to the tenor of the editorial which appears in Wednesday's CRIMSON. But the editorial is in some parts definitely unfair and inaccurate.

The sentences reading, "Last spring, however, Pusey unexpectedly decided to get involved. He had just received outraged letters from . . . Crick and Wilkins . . .," are at best misleading. The letters from Crick and Wilkins, which caused President Pusey's concern, arrived in the late fall of 1966. I, as director of the Press, was immediately informed; I was kept in constant touch with the correspondence; and there was nothing unexpected about the President's decision to intervene. He considered the matter one of overall University policy; I think he was right in so viewing it, though I completely and emphatically disagree with the decision he and his colleagues reached which forced the Press to give up the book.

More misleading, in my view, is the paragraph in the editorial which begins, "Following the rejection of Watson's book . . .," and ends, ". . . for his successor Mark S. Carroll." This passage puts me, and indirectly Professor Watson and his book, right in the middle of what appears to be the CRIMSON's campaign against Mr. Pusey; we don't belong there. It is not true that I was "antagonized by Pusey's move;" I was grieved by it, disappointed, and, as I have said above, I disagreed with it. But I certainly did not feel that he was exceeding the scope of his authority and that of the Corporation. I believe Professor Watson's reaction was the same.

Two other points: first, the implication that there could be a connection between the Watson incident and my resignation from Harvard is absurd, as I thought I had made clear to Mr. Joel Kramer. In the early fall of 1966, quite a bit before the President had heard from Crick or Wilkins, I told Mr. Pusey that I would have to leave before normal retirement in order to support my young children. My actual resignation came in February and I signed a contract with Atheneum at the same time; this was approximately four months before the Corporation vetoed the publication of the Watson book by the Press and at a time when I (mistakenly) thought the work sure to be issued under the Harvard imprint.

The final point is that I think it ridiculous to suggest that Mark Carroll's position as director of the Press has been "weakened" by the intervention of the President and Fellows. The Board of Syndics of the Press and I were overruled by our proprietor, the Harvard Corporation, only once in 21 years. If Mr. Carroll is as fortunate, he and I will have been singularly lucky as chief executives of publishing houses owned by others.... Thomas Wilson