The Annotated and Illustrated Double Helix

Home , Hugh Huxley, Maurice Wilkins, The Double Helix

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Cambridge city center, early 1950s. Detail of a map published by W. Heffer & Sons. 000_FrontMatter_DH_Double Helix 9/17/12 10:12 AM Page iii

JAMES D. WATSON

THE ANNOTATED AND ILLUSTRATED DOUBLE HELIX

Edited by Alexander Gann & Jan Witkowski

SIMON & SCHUSTER New York London Toronto Sydney New Delhi 000_FrontMatter_DH_Double Helix 9/27/12 3:59 PM Page iv

Simon & Schuster 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020 Copyright © 1968 by James D. Watson Copyright renewed © 1996 by James D. Watson New annotations, illustrations, and appendixes Copyright © 2012 by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, Cold Spring Harbor, New York. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition November 2012 SIMON & SCHUSTER and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc. For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or [email protected]. The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com. Designed by Denise Weiss Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Watson, James D., date. The annotated and illustrated double helix / James D. Watson ; edited by Alexander Gann & Jan Witkowski. — 1st Simon & Schuster hardcover ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. I. Gann, Alexander. II. Witkowski, J. A. (Jan Anthony), date. III. Watson, James D., date. Double helix. IV. Title. [DNLM: 1. Watson, James D., date. 2. DNA. 3. Genetic Code. 4. Molecular Biology. QU 58.5] 572.8'6––dc23 2012037483 ISBN 978-1-4767-1549-0 ISBN 978-1-4767-1551-3 (ebook) Portions of this book were first published in Atlantic Monthly. 000_FrontMatter_DH_Double Helix 9/17/12 10:12 AM Page v

For Naomi Mitchison 000_FrontMatter_DH_Double Helix 9/17/12 10:12 AM Page vi 000_FrontMatter_DH_Double Helix 9/17/12 10:12 AM Page vii

Contents

Preface to Annotated and Illustrated Edition ix Sir Lawrence Bragg’s Foreword to the Original Edition xiii Preface to the Original Edition xv Prologue from the Original Edition 1 Chapters 1–29 3 Epilogue from the Original Edition 239 The Nobel Prize 241 Appendix 1: The First Letters Describing the DNA Model 257 Appendix 2: The Lost Chapter from The Double Helix 269 Appendix 3: Watson and the Merck Fellowship Board 273 Appendix 4: Writing and Publishing The Double Helix 283 Appendix 5: Chargaff’s Review and the Ensuing Controversy 303 Acknowledgments 309 Bibliography 313 Sources 317 Photo Credits 333 Index 337

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Preface to Annotated and Illustrated Edition

n Cold Spring Harbor’s Blackford Bar, one evening in June 2010, Sydney IBrenner suggested looking through the papers he had recently donated to the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Archives. Among his own papers were, he knew, some of Francis Crick’s correspondence that had become muddled in with his during the 20 years they had shared an office in Cambridge. A few days later we discovered that the trove included letters to and from Crick written during the period when he and Jim Watson at Cambridge, and Mau- rice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin in London, were searching for the structure of DNA. Mislaid some 50 years earlier (“thrown out by an over efficient secretary,” Crick believed), these letters had escaped the attention of the historians of molecular biology who first started looking into this new field in the mid- 1960s. The letters provided some new insights into the proceedings, and in particular the personal relationships of the protagonists in the DNA story. The most celebrated account of that story is The Double Helix, Watson’s novelistic version of the events as they appeared to a 23-year-old American in Cambridge in the early 1950s. Written not in the tone of a formal autobiography nor in the measured language of the historian, his racy and thriller- like telling was reviled by some and praised by many upon publication in 1968. In writing our article on the lost Crick correspondence, we naturally re- read The Double Helix. We were struck by how Watson’s account in the book accurately represented the vivid, contemporary descriptions of people and events found in the letters, and not just those of Crick and Wilkins, but Wat- son’s own. The social whirl of parties, tennis, French lessons, holidays, and other events that featured prominently in the book—the “gossip,” as Crick characterized it—were recorded in the weekly letters Watson wrote to his

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sister Elizabeth during his time in Cambridge. And the science covered in the book was also discussed in contemporary letters to Max Delbrück and other friends, and not just the DNA work, but Watson’s research on bacterial genetics and tobacco mosaic virus, projects that figure prominently in the story. In all of this contemporary correspondence, the character of Watson himself—the brash, self-confident yet at times also self-deprecating, young man portrayed in his book—was transparent. We became intrigued to see all the contemporary accounts we could find—not just those revealed in the letters of Watson, Crick, and Wilkins, but of Franklin, Linus Pauling, and others as well. We also noticed just how many other characters appear in The Double Helix—many unrelated to the central scientific story. Watson, eager to keep the narrative moving, often provides only the briefest of information, sometimes not even identifying the most intriguing of minor characters. We don’t get to learn the interesting story of the “local doctor” who had rowing oars mounted on the wall of his surgery, or the identity of the “antiquarian archi- tect” who kept his house free of gas and electricity—or anything much about Bertrand Fourcade except that he was the “most beautiful male” in Cam- bridge. And what was the novel of ill-judged sexual indiscretions of Cam- bridge dons that Watson reads at one point in the story? We wanted to know. And so the idea of an annotated edition of The Double Helix took shape, a version in which an array of viewpoints and voices would be added as com- mentary, together with background information and illustrations to enrich the text. The current volume is the result. In addition to the numerous photographs (a number being published for the first time), we have reproduced many letters and other documents in full or in part as facsimiles. One of the pleasures of visiting archives is to see and handle original documents and while we cannot match that experience, we hope that readers will enjoy seeing letters and manuscripts as their original recipients saw them. The sources of material used in our annotations are many, both published and unpublished. Of the former, we used many books—including the histo- ries and biographies of the field. These are listed in the bibliography at the 000_FrontMatter_DH_Double Helix 9/17/12 10:12 AM Page xi

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end of the book. Among unpublished sources, Watson’s letters to his sister and also his parents are a major source of information about his Cambridge life and have not been used before, except by Watson, while his letters to Delbrück, Luria, and others provide scientific content. In addition to Wat- son’s papers, we have drawn on those of Crick, Wilkins, Pauling, and Franklin among others. We have also included reminiscences written by Ray Gosling specially for this edition. Gosling worked with both Wilkins and Franklin in those years and actually took the most famous and influential diffraction pictures of DNA. The source for each annotation is included in a reference list at the back of the book. In addition to the annotations and illustrations, we have added a number of other pieces. We have included Watson’s account of winning the Nobel Prize, previously published in his later book, Avoid Boring People. This seems, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of that award, a fitting conclusion to the tale. We have also added five appendices. These include one in which we reproduce facsimiles of the first letters Watson and Crick each wrote in 1953 describing the discovery, and another in which we publish for the first time a chapter from the draft manuscript of The Double Helix which was left out of the published book. While not describing anything new about the work on DNA, the missing chapter fills in the story of Watson’s summer spent in the Alps in 1952. We have corrected some errors of fact by adding annotations where necessary, but Watson’s original text is unchanged. It will be clear that this edition is not an exhaustive academic treatise. Rather, we chose items that appealed to us and hope that this somewhat quirky selection will prove useful and enjoyable to both new readers and those familiar with the original text.

Alexander Gann Jan Witkowski Cold Spring Harbor 2012 000_FrontMatter_DH_Double Helix 9/17/12 10:12 AM Page xii 000_FrontMatter_DH_Double Helix 9/17/12 10:12 AM Page xiii

Sir Lawrence Bragg’s Foreword to the Original Edition

his account of the events which led to the solution of the structure of TDNA, the fundamental genetical material, is unique in several ways. I was much pleased when Watson asked me to write the foreword. There is in the first place its scientific interest. The discovery of the structure by Crick and Watson, with all its biological implications, has been one of the major scientific events of this century. The number of researches which it has inspired is amazing; it has caused an explosion in biochemistry which has transformed the science. I have been amongst those who have pressed the author to write his recollections while they are still fresh in his mind, knowing how important they would be as a contribution to the history of science. The result has exceeded expectation. The latter chapters, in which the birth of the new idea is described so vividly, are drama of the highest order; the tension mounts and mounts towards the final climax. I do not know of any other instance where one is able to share so intimately in the researcher’s struggles and doubts and final triumph. Then again, the story is a poignant example of a dilemma which may confront an investigator. He knows that a colleague has been working for years on a problem and has accumulated a mass of hard-won evidence, which has not yet been published because it is anticipated that success is just around the corner. He has seen this evidence and has good reason to believe that a method of attack which he can envisage, perhaps merely a new point of view, will lead straight to the solution. An offer of collaboration at such a stage might well be regarded as a trespass. Should he go ahead on his own? It is not easy to be sure whether the crucial new idea is really one’s own or has been unconsciously assimilated in talks with others. The realization of this difficulty has led to the establishment of a somewhat vague

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code amongst scientists which recognizes a claim in a line of research staked out by a colleague—up to a certain point. When competition comes from more than one quarter, there is no need to hold back. This dilemma comes out clearly in the DNA story. It is a source of deep satisfaction to all intimately concerned that, in the award of the Nobel Prize in 1962, due recognition was given to the long, patient investigation by Wilkins at King’s College (Lon- don) as well as to the brilliant and rapid final solution by Crick and Watson at Cambridge. Finally, there is the human interest of the story—the impression made by Europe and England in particular upon a young man from the States. He writes with a Pepys-like frankness. Those who figure in the book must read it in a very forgiving spirit. One must remember that his book is not a history, but an autobiographical contribution to the history which will some day be written. As the author himself says, the book is a record of impressions rather than historical facts. The issues were often more complex, and the mo- tives of those who had to deal with them were less tortuous, than he realized at the time. On the other hand, one must admit that his intuitive understand- ing of human frailty often strikes home. The author has shown the manuscript to some of us who were involved in the story, and we have suggested corrections of historical fact here and there, but personally I have felt reluctant to alter too much because the fresh- ness and directness with which impressions have been recorded is an essential part of the interest of this book. W. L. B.

Sir Lawrence Bragg (1890–1971) was the director of the Cavendish Laboratory of Cambridge University at the time of the discovery of the double helix. He and his father, William Henry, the originators of X-ray crystallography, received the Nobel Prize in 1915. 000_FrontMatter_DH_Double Helix 9/17/12 10:12 AM Page xv

Preface to the Original Edition

ere I relate my version of how the structure of DNA was discovered. In Hdoing so I have tried to catch the atmosphere of the early postwar years in England, where most of the important events occurred. As I hope this book will show, science seldom proceeds in the straightforward logical manner imag- ined by outsiders. Instead, its steps forward (and sometimes backward) are often very human events in which personalities and cultural traditions play major roles. To this end I have attempted to re-create my first impressions of the relevant events and personalities rather than present an assessment which takes into account the many facts I have learned since the structure was found. Al- though the latter approach might be more objective, it would fail to convey the spirit of an adventure characterized both by youthful arrogance and by the belief that the truth, once found, would be simple as well as pretty. Thus many of the comments may seem one-sided and unfair, but this is often the case in the incomplete and hurried way in which human beings frequently decide to like or dislike a new idea or acquaintance. In any event, this account represents the way I saw things then, in 1951–1953: the ideas, the people, and myself. I am aware that the other participants in this story would tell parts of it in other ways, sometimes because their memory of what happened differs from mine and, perhaps in even more cases, because no two people ever see the same events in exactly the same light. In this sense, no one will ever be able to write a definitive history of how the structure was established. Nonetheless, I feel the story should be told, partly because many of my scientific friends have ex- pressed curiosity about how the double helix was found, and to them an incomplete version is better than none. But even more important, I believe, there remains general ignorance about how science is “done.” That is not to say that all science is done in the manner described here. This is far from the case, for styles of scientific research vary almost as much as human personalities. On the

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other hand, I do not believe that the way DNA came out constitutes an odd ex- ception to a scientific world complicated by the contradictory pulls of ambition and the sense of fair play. The thought that I should write this book has been with me almost from the moment the double helix was found. Thus my memory of many of the signifi- cant events is much more complete than that of most other episodes in my life. I also have made extensive use of letters written at virtually weekly intervals to my parents. These were especially helpful in exactly dating a number of the incidents. Equally important have been the valuable comments by various friends who kindly read earlier versions and gave in some instances quite detailed accounts of incidents that I had referred to in less complete form. To be sure, there are cases where my recollections differ from theirs, and so this book must be regarded as my view of the matter. Some of the earlier chapters were written in the homes of Albert Szent-Györ- gyi, John A. Wheeler, and John Cairns, and I wish to thank them for quiet rooms with tables overlooking the ocean. The later chapters were written with the help of a Guggenheim Fellowship, which allowed me to return briefly to the other Cambridge and the kind hospitality of the Provost and Fellows of King’s College. As far as possible I have included photographs taken at the time the story occurred, and in particular I want to thank Herbert Gutfreund, Peter Pauling, Hugh Huxley, and Gunther Stent for sending me some of their snapshots. For ed- itorial assistance I’m much indebted to Libby Aldrich for the quick, perceptive remarks expected from our best Radcliffe students and to Joyce Lebowitz both for keeping me from completely misusing the English language and for innu- merable comments about what a good book must do. Finally, I wish to express thanks for the immense help Thomas J. Wilson has given me from the time he saw the first draft. Without his wise, warm, and sensible advice, the appearance of this book, in what I hope is the right form, might never have occurred. J. D. W. Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts November 1967 000_FrontMatter_DH_Double Helix 9/17/12 10:12 AM Page xvii

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Prologue from the Original Edition

n the summer of 1955, I arranged to join some friends who were going Iinto the Alps. Alfred Tissieres, then a Fellow at King’s, had said he would get me to the top of the Rothorn, and even though I panic at voids this did not seem to be the time to be a coward. So after getting in shape by letting a guide lead me up the Allinin, I took the two-hour postal-bus trip to Zinal, hoping that the driver was not carsick as he lurched the bus around the nar- row road twisting above the falling rock slopes. Then I saw Alfred standing in front of the hotel, talking with a long-mustached Trinity don who had been in India during the war. Since Alfred was still out of training, we decided to spend the afternoon walking up to a small restaurant which lay at the base of the huge glacier falling down off the Obergabelhorn and over which we were to walk the next day. We were only a few minutes out of sight of the hotel when we saw a party coming down upon us, and I quickly recognized one of the climbers. He was Willy Seeds, a scientist who several years before had worked at King’s College, London, with Maurice Wilkins on the optical properties of DNA fibers. Willy soon spotted me, slowed down, and momentarily gave the impression that he might remove his rucksack and chat for a while. But 1 Willy Seeds’ remark provided Watson all he said was, “How’s Honest Jim?” and quickly increasing his pace was with the title he originally wanted to soon below me on the path.1 use for what became The Double Later as I trudged upward, I thought again about our earlier meetings in Helix. See the handwritten title page from an early draft (shown overleaf) London. Then DNA was still a mystery, up for grabs, and no one was sure and Appendix 4. who would get it and whether he would deserve it if it proved as exciting as we semisecretly believed. But now the race was over and, as one of the winners, I knew the tale was not simple and certainly not as the newspapers re- ported. Chiefly it was a matter of five people: Maurice Wilkins, Rosalind Franklin, Linus Pauling, Francis Crick, and me. And as Francis was the dom- inant force in shaping my part, I will start the story with him. 1 pp079-088_CH12_DH_Double Helix 9/17/12 10:22 AM Page 79

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gave John and Elizabeth Kendrew the scoop about DNA when I joined Ithem for breakfast on Monday morning.1 Elizabeth appeared delighted 1 Kendrew had married Elizabeth, the that success was almost within our grasp, while John took the news more widow of a close friend who was calmly. When it came out that Francis was again in an inspired mood and I killed in World War II, in 1948. Eliza- had nothing more solid to report than enthusiasm, he became lost to the sec- beth was a physician who qualified in 1951. The Kendrews divorced in tions of The Times which spoke about the first days of the new Tory gov- 1956. ernment. Soon afterward, John went off to his rooms in Peterhouse, leaving Elizabeth and me to digest the implications of my unanticipated luck. I did not remain long, since the sooner I could get back to the lab, the quicker we could find out which of the several possible answers would be favored by a hard look at the molecular models themselves.

This is the headline in The Times of October 30, reporting the early days of the new Tory government. In the General Election of October 23, 1951, the Labour government of Clement Attlee had been ousted and Sir Winston Churchill became Prime Minister for the second time. 79 pp079-088_CH12_DH_Double Helix 9/17/12 10:22 AM Page 80

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Both Francis and I, however, knew that the models in the Cavendish would not be completely satisfactory. They had been constructed by John some eighteen months before, for the work on the three-dimensional shape of the polypeptide chain. There existed no accurate representations of the groups of atoms unique to DNA. Neither phosphorus atoms nor the purine and pyrimidine bases were on hand. Rapid improvisation would be necessary since there was no time for Max to give a rush order for their construction. Making brand-new models might take all of a week, whereas an answer was possible within a day or so. Thus as soon as I got to the lab I began adding bits of copper wire to some of our carbon-atom models, thereby changing them into the larger-sized phosphorus atoms.2 Much more difficulty came from the necessity to fabricate representations of the inorganic ions. Unlike the other constituents, they obeyed no simple- minded rules telling us the angles at which they would form their respective

Sven Furberg, 1950.

2 Watson refers to Sven Furberg’s determination of the structure of cytidine in the caption of this figure (right). Pub- lished in Nature in 1949, it is recognized as a tour-de-force. Furberg was a Norwegian physical chemist who spent two years with Bernal at Birk- beck College. pp079-088_CH12_DH_Double Helix 9/17/12 10:22 AM Page 81

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Furberg’s paper on the structure of cytidine (Nature, July 2, 1949). pp079-088_CH12_DH_Double Helix 9/17/12 10:22 AM Page 82

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Rosalind Franklin’s copy of Furberg’s deﬁnitive paper on the structure of cytidine. Furberg’s barely legible note beneath his signature reads “Hope you have been able to interpret your beautiful ﬁbre diagram of Na-thymonucleate.” Unfortunately we do not know when Franklin received this reprint.

chemical bonds. Most likely we had to know the correct DNA structure before the right models could be made. I maintained the hope, however, that Francis might already be on to the vital trick and would immediately blurt it out when he got to the lab. Over eighteen hours had passed since our last 3 The novel was A Perch in Paradise, by Margaret Bullard (Hamish Hamilton, conversation, and there was little chance that 1952). Bertrand Russell enjoyed it, too. the Sunday papers would have distracted him In a letter to Bullard on April 10, 1952, upon his return to the Green Door. he wrote: His tenish entrance, however, did not “If Cambridge is as you represent it, it bring the answer. After Sunday supper he had must have become more amusing since I was an undergraduate, which was in again run through the dilemma but saw no the early ’90s. In those days we were quick answer. The problem was then put all strictly celibate, which cannot be aside for a rapid scanning of a novel on the said of your characters. I am finding sexual misjudgments of Cambridge dons. The your novel amusing and pleasant reading and am hoping that it gives a true book had its brief good moments, and even picture of Cambridge life.” in its most ill-conceived pages there was the A Perch in Paradise. pp079-088_CH12_DH_Double Helix 9/17/12 10:22 AM Page 83

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Herbert (Freddie) Gutfreund ﬂanked by Crick and Watson, outside Clare Hugh Huxley, Kendrew’s Ph.D. student and Ann Cullis, College, 1952. Max Perutz’ assistant, 1950s.

question of whether any of their friends’ lives had been seriously drawn on in the construction of the plot.3 Over morning coffee Francis nonetheless exuded confidence that enough experimental data might already be on hand to determine the outcome. We might be able to start the game with several completely different sets of facts and yet always hit the same final answers. Perhaps the whole problem would fall out just by our concentrating on the prettiest way for a polynucleotide chain to fold up. So while Francis continued thinking about the meaning of the X-ray diagram, I began to assemble the various atomic models into several chains, each several nucleotides in length. Though in nature DNA chains are very long, there was no reason to put together anything massive. As long as we could be sure it was a helix, the assignment of the positions for only a couple of nucleotides automatically generated the arrangement of all the other components. The routine assembly task was over by one, when Francis and I walked over to the Eagle for our habitual lunch with the chemist Herbert Gutfreund. These days John usually went to Peterhouse, while Max always cycled home. Occasionally John’s student Hugh Huxley would join us, but of late he was finding it difficult to enjoy Francis’ inquisitive lunchtime attacks. For just prior to my arrival in Cambridge, Hugh’s decision to take up the problem of how pp079-088_CH12_DH_Double Helix 9/17/12 10:22 AM Page 84

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muscles contract had focused Francis’ attention on the unforeseen opportunity that, for twenty years or so, muscle physiologists had been accumulating data without tying them into a self-consistent picture. Francis found it a perfect situation for action. There was no need for him to ferret out the relevant experiments since Hugh had already waded through the undigested mass. Lunch after lunch, the facts were put together to form theories which held for a day or so, until Hugh could convince Francis that a result he would like ascribed 4 The Rock of Gibraltar is the promon- to experimental error was as solid as the Rock of Gibraltar.4 Now the con- tory, 1400 feet high, bordering Spain struction of Hugh’s X-ray camera was completed, and soon he hoped to get ex- and guarding the entrance to the perimental evidence to settle the debatable points. The fun would be all lost if Mediterranean. It has been in British hands since the Treaty of Utrecht in somehow Francis could correctly predict what he was going to find. 1713. Despite numerous sieges, the But there was no need that day for Hugh to fear a new intellectual inva- Rock has never been captured, hence sion. When we walked into the Eagle, Francis did not exchange his usual rau- the expression used by Watson. cous greetings with the Persian economist Ephraim Eshag, but gave the undistilled impression that something serious was up.5 The actual model build- 5 Eprime Eshag was an Iranian econo- ing would start right after lunch, and more concrete plans must be formulated mist, an ardent follower of John May- to make the process efficient. So over our gooseberry pie we looked at the pros nard Keynes, who came to Cambridge to work for a Ph.D. thesis on the his- and cons of one, two, three, and four chains, quickly dismissing one-chain he- tory of monetary theory. He worked lices as incompatible with the evidence in our hands. As to the forces that held for the United Nations before joining the chains together, the best guess seemed to be salt bridges in which divalent Wadham College, Oxford. According to cations like Mg++ held together two or more phosphate groups. Admittedly his obituary he was also “an unrepen- tant man of many girlfriends” who there was no evidence that Rosy’s samples contained any divalent ions, and so married late, in 1992, dying 6 years later at the age of 80.

How Mg++ might be used to bind negatively charged phosphate groups in the center of a compound helix. pp079-088_CH12_DH_Double Helix 9/17/12 10:22 AM Page 85

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6 This is the first page of a memoran- dum Crick wrote soon after Franklin’s colloquium, setting out the principles which would guide Watson and him in devising a structure for DNA. In con- trast to Franklin’s view that experimental data were paramount, they would try “…to incorporate the mini- mum number of experimental facts” while acknowledging “…that certain results have suggested ideas to us.” Crick emphasized that care had to be taken not to reject a model just “…because of some difficulty which will sort itself out at a later stage.”

First page of Crick’s memo on their triple helix model.

we might be sticking our necks out. On the other hand, there was absolutely no evidence against our hunch.6 If only the King’s groups had thought about models, they would have asked which salt was present and we would not be placed in this tiresome position. But, with luck, the addition of magnesium or pp079-088_CH12_DH_Double Helix 9/17/12 10:22 AM Page 86

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possibly calcium ions to the sugar-phosphate backbone would quickly gener- ate an elegant structure, the correctness of which would not be debatable. Our first minutes with the models, though, were not joyous. Even though only about fifteen atoms were involved, they kept falling out of the awk- ward pincers set up to hold them the correct distance from one another. Even worse, the uncomfortable impression arose that there were no obvious re- strictions on the bond angles between several of the most important atoms. This was not at all nice. Pauling had cracked the α-helix by ruthlessly fol- lowing up his knowledge that the peptide bond was flat. To our annoyance, there seemed every reason to believe that the phosphodiester bonds which bound together the successive nucleotides in DNA might exist in a variety of shapes. At least with our level of chemical intuition, there was unlikely to be any single conformation much prettier than the rest. After tea, however, a shape began to emerge which brought back our spirits. Three chains twisted about each other in a way that gave rise to a crystallographic repeat every 28 Å along the helical axis. This was a feature demanded by Maurice’s and Rosy’s pictures, so Francis was visibly reas- sured as he stepped back from the lab bench and surveyed the afternoon’s ef- fort. Admittedly a few of the atomic contacts were still too close for comfort, but, after all, the fiddling had just begun. With a few hours’ more work, a pre- sentable model should be on display. Ebullient spirits prevailed during the evening meal at the Green Door. Though Odile could not follow what we were saying, she was obviously cheered by the fact that Francis was about to bring off his second triumph within the month. If this course of events went on, they would soon be rich and could own a car. At no moment did Francis see any point in trying to simplify the matter for Odile’s benefit. Ever since she had told him that gravity went only three miles into the sky, this aspect of their relationship was set. Not only did she not know any science, but any attempt to put some in her head would be a losing fight against the years of her convent upbringing. The most to hope for was an appreciation of the linear way in which money was measured. Our conversation instead centered upon a young art student then about to marry Odile’s friend Harmut Weil. This capture was mildly displeasing to pp079-088_CH12_DH_Double Helix 9/17/12 10:22 AM Page 87

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Members of the M.R.C. Biophysics Unit at the annual Cricket match (1950s). From left to right: Maurice Wilkins, William (Willy) Seeds, Bruce Fraser, Mary Fraser, Ray Gosling (standing), Geoffrey Brown.

Francis. It was about to remove the prettiest girl from their party circle. 7 Alexander Todd (pictured on page 46) Moreover, there was more than one thing cloudy about Harmut. He had come went to Frankfurt in 1929 to do re- 7 search for his Ph.D. He recounts in his out of a German university tradition that believed in dueling. There was autobiography how he attended a also his undeniable skill in persuading numerous Cambridge women to pose duel, at 5 a.m., the object of which for his camera. was for each opponent to inflict a All thought of women, however, was banished by the time Francis wound on the face of the other. After- wards, the combatants and observers breezed into the lab just before morning coffee. Soon, when several atoms “despite the early hour consumed had been pushed in or out, the three-chain model began to look quite rea- vast quantities of beer” at a nearby sonable. The next obvious step would be to check it with Rosy’s quantitative inn. measurements. The model would certainly fit with the general locations of the X-ray reflections, for its essential helical parameters had been chosen to fit the seminar facts I had conveyed to Francis. If it were right, however, the model would also accurately predict the relative intensities of the various X-ray reflections. A quick phone call was made to Maurice. Francis explained how the helical diffraction theory allowed a rapid survey of possible DNA models, and that he and I had just come up with a creature which might be the answer pp079-088_CH12_DH_Double Helix 9/17/12 10:22 AM Page 88

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we were all awaiting. The best thing would be for Maurice immediately to come and look it over. But Maurice gave no definite date, saying he thought he might make it sometime within the week. Soon after the phone was put down, John came in to see how Maurice had taken the news of the break- through. Francis found it hard to sum up his reply. It was almost as if Mau- rice were indifferent to what we were doing. In the midst of further fiddling that afternoon, a call came through from King’s. Maurice would come up on the 10:10 train from London the fol- lowing morning. Moreover, he would not be alone. His collaborator Willy Seeds would also come. Even more to the point was that Rosy, together with her student R. G. Gosling, would be on the same train. Apparently they were still interested in the answer. pp118-126_CH17_DH_Double Helix 9/17/12 10:24 AM Page 119

Chapter 17

inus, however, was blocked from descending on London. His trip Labruptly terminated at Idlewild through the removal of his passport.1

1 Initially named after the golf course The State Department did not want troublemakers like Pauling wandering it displaced, Idlewild was renamed about the globe saying nasty things about the politics of its onetime invest- John F. Kennedy International Air- ment bankers who held back the hordes of godless Reds. Failure to contain port on December 24, 1963, one month after the assassination of Pauling might result in a London press conference with Linus expounding President Kennedy. peaceful coexistence. Acheson’s position was harassed enough without giving McCarthy the opportunity to announce that our government let radicals protected by U.S. passports set back the American way of life. Francis and I were already in London when the scandal reached the Royal Society. The reaction was one of almost complete disbelief. It was far more reassuring to go on imagining that Linus had taken ill on the plane to

Idlewild Airport observation deck, late 1940s. 119 pp118-126_CH17_DH_Double Helix 9/17/12 10:24 AM Page 120

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2 Letter from Ruth B. Shipley, Chief of the Passport Division of the State De- partment, to Pauling, February 14, 1952. Addressing him as “My dear Dr. Pauling,” she nevertheless denies his application for a passport “since the Department is of the opinion that your proposed travel would not be in the best interests of the United States.” Shipley was chief of the division from 1928 until 1955, and wielded almost complete power over who got a passport and who didn’t. Franklin Roo- sevelt described her as a “wonderful ogre,” Secretary of State Dean Ache- son said the Passport Division was her “Queendom of Passports,” and in De- cember 1951 Time magazine claimed Letter from Shipley to Pauling. she was “the most invulnerable, most unfirable, most feared and most ad- mired career woman in Government.” New York. The failure to let one of the world’s leading scientists attend a completely nonpolitical meeting would have been expected from the Rus- sians. A first-rate Russian might easily abscond to the more affluent West. No danger existed, however, that Linus might want to flee. Only complete satisfaction with their Cal Tech existence came from him and his family.2 Several members of Cal Tech’s governing board, however, would have been delighted with his voluntary departure. Every time they picked up a newspaper and saw Pauling’s name among the sponsors of a World Peace Conference they seethed with rage, wishing there were a way to rid South- ern California of his pernicious charm. But Linus knew better than to ex- pect more than confused anger from the selfmade California millionaires pp118-126_CH17_DH_Double Helix 9/17/12 10:24 AM Page 121

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Letter to The Times.

3 The withholding of Pauling’s passport received comment on both sides of the Atlantic. On the left, a piece printed in the Los Angeles Examiner from May 12, and, above, a letter from Los Angeles Examiner article. Sir Robert Robinson, former President of the Royal Society, to The Times on May 2. Probably because of such whose knowledge of foreign policy was formed largely by the Los Ange- press attention, the State Department 3 les Times. reversed its decision soon afterwards, The debacle was no surprise to several of us who had just been in Ox- allowing Pauling to travel later that ford for a Society of General Microbiology meeting on “The Nature of Viral summer (see Chapter 19). Multiplication.” One of the main speakers was to have been Luria. Two weeks prior to his scheduled flight to London, he was notified that he would pp118-126_CH17_DH_Double Helix 9/17/12 10:24 AM Page 122

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Although Luria’s name and article appear in the published volume of the Sym- posium proceedings, he was refused a visa and did not attend the meeting. pp118-126_CH17_DH_Double Helix 9/17/12 10:24 AM Page 123

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4 In a letter to his sister on April 3, 1952, Watson writes: “I have just learned from mother that Luria will not be coming. I do not know the reason but I would suspect passport difficulties. I am quite sorry that he isn’t coming since I had hoped to discuss my future with him. Now I shall have to do some involved letter writing.”

Left-leaning attitudes among scientists weren’t restricted to Pauling and Luria, nor fear of them exclusive to the U.S. authorities: Maurice Wilkins had been investigated by MI5 and the FBI. They suspected that one of nine scientists from New Zealand or Australia had leaked A-bomb secrets. Wilkins was one of the nine suspects, having worked on the Manhattan project (see Chapter 2). The investigation began in 1945, but was still going on in 1953, as indicated by this request that the H.O.W. (Home Office Warrant, which allowed his mail to be searched) be transferred to his new address. His phone was also tapped. All this despite an informant suggesting around One of many documents in Wilkins’ MI5 ﬁles. the same time that while Wilkins was “a very queer fish,” he was probably a socialist rather than a communist. not get a passport. As usual, the State Department would not come clean about what it considered dirt.4 Luria’s absence thrust upon me the job of describing the recent experiments of the American phage workers. There was no need to put together a speech. Several days before the meeting, Al Hershey had sent me a long letter from Cold Spring Harbor summarizing the recently completed experiments by pp118-126_CH17_DH_Double Helix 9/17/12 10:24 AM Page 124

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5 François Jacob, then still a student with Lwoff, encountered Watson for the first time at this meeting at Oxford, record- ing the incident in his autobiography The Statue Within.

“At that time, to a French student who had not yet been inside an American university or seen its denizens, Jim Watson was an amazing character. Tall, gawky, scraggly, he had an inimitable style. Inim- itable in his dress: shirttails flying, knees in the air, socks down around his ankles. Inimitable in his bewildered manner, his mannerisms: his eyes always bulging, his mouth always open, he uttered short, Martha Chase and Al Hershey, 1953. choppy sentences punctuated by ‘Ah! ’ Ah! Inimitable also in his way of entering which he and Martha Chase established that a key feature of the infection of a a room, cocking his head like a rooster looking for the finest hen, to locate the bacterium by a phage was the injection of the viral DNA into the host bac- most important scientist present and terium. Most important, very little protein entered the bacterium. Their exper- charging over to his side. A surprising iment was thus a powerful new proof that DNA is the primary genetic material. mixture of awkwardness and shrewd- Nonetheless, almost no one in the audience of over four hundred mi- ness. Of childishness in the things of life and of maturity in those of science.” crobiologists seemed interested as I read long sections of Hershey’s letter. Obvious exceptions were André Lwoff, Sey- mour Benzer, and Gunther Stent, all briefly over from Paris. They knew that Hershey’s experiments were not trivial and that from then on everyone was going to place more emphasis on DNA. To most of the spectators, however, Hershey’s name carried no weight. Moreover, when it came out that I was an American, my uncut hair provided no assurance that my scientific judgment was not equally bizarre.5 Dominating the meeting were the English Max Delbrück (left) with André plant virologists F. C. Bawden and N. W. Pirie. Lwoff at Cold Spring Harbor, 1953. Watson in shorts, Cold Spring Harbor, 1953. No one could match the smooth erudition of Bawden or the assured nihilism pp118-126_CH17_DH_Double Helix 9/17/12 10:24 AM Page 125

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F. C. Bawden. N. W. Pirie (second from left).

of Pirie, who strongly disliked the notion that some phages have tails or that 6 Having met at Cambridge in the late TMV is of fixed length. When I tried to corner Pirie about Schramm’s ex- 1920s, Frederick Bawden and Norman periments he said they should be dismissed, and so I retreated to the politi- Pirie subsequently worked together cally less controversial point of whether the 3000 Å length of many TMV for many years at Rothamsted Experi- particles was biologically important. The idea that a simple answer was mental Station at Harpenden. They collaborated first on potato virus X preferable had no appeal to Pirie, who knew that viruses were too large to and then, starting in 1936, on TMV. 6 have well-defined structures. They worked with Bernal and If it had not been for the presence of Lwoff, the meeting would have Fankuchen (see Chapter 16) on deter- flopped totally. André was very keen about the role of divalent metals in mining the chemical nature of TMV, and were the first to show the pres- phage multiplication and so was receptive to my belief that ions were deci- ence of RNA in the viral preparations. sively important for nucleic-acid structure. Especially intriguing was his François Jacob’s autobiography de- hunch that specific ions might be the trick for the exact copying of macro- scribes them at this meeting as “…old cronies who loved to play the buffoon, molecules or the attraction between similar chromosomes. There was no way trading jokes and metaphysical apho- to test our dreams, however, unless Rosy did an about-face from her deter- risms, all in a rapid, choppy English mination to rely completely on classical X-ray diffraction techniques. which left me in a cold sweat.” At the Royal Society Meeting there was no hint that anyone at King’s Pirie’s later interests in a broad range of had mentioned ions since the confrontation with Francis and me in early De- scientific and social issues are reflected cember. Upon pressing Maurice, I learned that the jigs for the molecular in his picture above, which shows him leaving the Soviet Embassy with J. B. models had not been touched after arriving at his lab. The time had not yet Priestly and others after talks on nu- come to press Rosy and Gosling about building models. If anything, the clear armament in September 1961. pp118-126_CH17_DH_Double Helix 9/17/12 10:24 AM Page 126

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squabbling between Maurice and Rosy was more bitter than before the visit to Cambridge. Now she was insisting that her data told her DNA was not a helix. Rather than build helical models at Maurice’s command, she might twist the copper-wire models about his neck. When Maurice asked whether we needed the molds back in Cambridge, we said yes, half implying that more carbon atoms were needed to make models showing how polypeptide chains turned corners. To my relief, Mau- rice was very open about what was not happening at King’s. The fact that I was doing serious X-ray work with TMV gave him assurance that I should not soon again become preoccupied with the DNA pattern.

Watson in Paris on his way to the Riviera, spring 1952. He wrote to his sister (April 27): “I’m enclosing a photo of myself in Paris. It rather horriﬁes me since I did not realize how much hair I have. Needless to say I no longer have a crew cut.” pp337-346_Index_DH_Double Helix 9/17/12 2:16 PM Page 337

Index

Page references in italics refer to information found in the annotations and figure legends.

A Luria’s opinion of, 32 description of by Watson, 37, 37, 38 Abbaye at Royaumont, 140, 140, 141, 143, non-research work, 69 encourages Watson and Crick to re- 147, 151, 269 photos, 71, 112 sume model building, 185 Acheson, D., 119, 120 support of The Double Helix, 291, 292, misjudged polypeptide configurations α-helix model 293 paper, 73–74, 73, 74 Bragg humiliated by Pauling’s success, TMV X-ray work with Fankuchen, move to the Royal Institute, 239, 239 73–74 112–115, 112, 115, 116, 125 Nobel Prize winner, 3, 4 helical theory of, 57, 60–61, 62, 71, work with Furberg, 80–81, 80–81 photos, 4, 51, 95 89–91, 181 Beskow, Bo, 256, 256 problems with Crick, 5, 55 Pauling’s work on, 29–32, 29, 30, 31 Bessel functions, 89, 90, 129 sending DNA papers to Nature, 222, Perutz tests Pauling’s model, 35, 35 Bevan, Edward, 159 232, 235 strategy for deducing molecular struc- Bexhill-on-Sea, 90 soap bubbles interest, 99, 99 tures, 44, 46, 48, 64, 86 Beyond This Limit (Mitchison), 106 views double helix model, 217 Amis, Kingsley, 284 Big Bang Theory, 132, 245 writing the foreword to The Double Armstrong-Jones, Anthony, 226 Biochemistry of Nucleic Acids (Davidson), Helix, 285, 290, 293–294, Astbury, W.T., 15, 32, 48, 48, 49, 118 194, 203 294 Athenaeum, London, 37, 38 Blackwell’s bookshop, 76, 76 Bragg, William Henry, 4 Atlantic Monthly, 295 BLAST magazine, 106 Brains Trust, The (radio program), 69 Avery, Oswald T., 7, 7, 8, 17, 130, 138 Blunt, Anthony, 189 Brenner, Sydney, 284, 299 Bohr, Niels, 3, 19, 272 Bronowski, Jacob, 299 Bondi, Herman, 131, 132 Brown, Geoffrey, 87 B Bonifas, V., 19 Brown, Greta, 246–247 Bacteriophages (phages), 16–21, 124, Boot, H.A.H. “Harry,” 23 Bullard, Margaret, 82 125, 151, 151, 230 Born, Max, 133 Burgess, Guy, 189 Ballet School (painting), 256 Boulat, Pierre, 187 C Barrington Brown, Antony, 226 Bragg, Lawrence, 35, 61, 63, 100, 118, Bath Hotel, 159, 159 142, 152, 153, 167, 171, 173, 207, C2 space group, 196 Bawa, Geoffrey, 190 226, 229, 233, 236, 272, 273 Cairncross, John, 189 Bawden, F.C., 124–125, 125 approval for building DNA model, Caius College, 6, 6, 55 Beadle, George, 138 185 Campbell, Commander, 69 Bell, Florence, 48, 49 ban on Watson and Crick working on Carradale House, 103–107, 105, 284 Bennett, Christine, 161 DNA, 95–99, 95, 97 Caspersson, Torbjörn, 39 Benzer, Seymour, 124 Cavendish work, 4 Cavalli-Sforza, 147, 148, 150, 171 Bernal, J.D. congratulations offered to Watson and Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge communist sympathies, 112 Crick on Nobel Prize, 244 University, 3, 3 and Franklin, 154, 155, 182, 240 Crick’s anger over the hemoglobin Cavendish machine shop, 186, 186 Franklin’s opinion of, 170, 170 paper, 51–52, 51, 55, 57 Cavity magnetron, 23 337 pp337-346_Index_DH_Double Helix 9/17/12 2:16 PM Page 338

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Chargaff, Erwin, 137 ban on Watson and Crick working on gene replication as the “perfect biologi- base ratios (Chargaff’s Rules), 130– DNA , 95–99, 95–98 cal principle,” 132 131, 130, 131, 135, 150–151, 205, base ratios, thinking about the signifi- helical theory for protein structure, 57– 208, 217 cance of, 131, 135 58, 60–61, 61–62 opinion of Watson and Crick, 136–137, bases, discussions with John Griffin Hodgkin, Dorothy, visits with Watson, 227 about interactions between, 131– 71, 71 photo, 130 136, 134 home, “Green Door”, 58, 59, 82, 86 review of The Double Helix, 195, 299, bases, experiments to examine interac- home, Portugal Place, 160, 161, 161, 303, 304, 306 tions between, 150–151 236 supplies DNA to Wilkins, 50 Bragg, conflicts with, 5, 51–52, 51, 55, importance of Watson to, 43 visit to Cambridge, 135–136, 136 55, 74, 74, 95, 172, 185 Kreisel, George, friendship with, 77, What Is Life?, influence of, 7 building model of a DNA triple helix, 77, 152 Chase, Martha, 124, 124 80, 82–88, 85 laugh, 4, 6, 52, 77, 153, 171 Christina, Princess, 256 building the double helix model, 208, marriage to Odile, 58, 58, 59 Clare Bridge, 212, 212 211–219, 214 Nature of the Chemical Bond, Christ- Clare College, Cambridge, 36, 43, 83, 157, builds model of A form of DNA, 230, mas gift to Watson, 101, 101 157, 158, 158, 188, 194, 201 232 Nature of the Chemical Bond, source Clarke, Hans, 39, 278 C2 space group, sees implications of, for sizes of ions, 75–76, 75 Cochran, Bill, 57, 57, 60–61, 61, 71 196 Nature paper, correspondence about Cohen, Seymour, 230, 230, 231 career after the double helix, 239, 240 and publication of, 222, 222, 223, Cohn, Waldo, 137 coiled-coils, research on proteins, 100, 232, 233–234, 235 Coiled-coils, 100, 100, 151–153, 152 100, 151–153, 152 Nobel Prize, 241–243, 243, 248, 250, Cold Spring Harbor, 17, 18, 18, 39, 123, correspondence with Wilkins, ban on 251, 253, 254, 254, 255 124, 130, 138, 148, 245 Watson and Crick working on Pauling, Linus, interactions with, 61, Conrad, Joseph, 284 DNA, 96–98 236–238 Corey, Robert, 165 costume parties, 60, 118 Pauling’s triple helix, impact of, 165, α-helix work with Pauling, 30, 31, 118 Crick, Gabrielle (daughter), 185, 250, 167, 171–175 coiled-coils work with Pauling, 152 254 Pauling’s writing style, influence of, 31 photo, 225 Crick, Jacqueline (daughter), 185 personality, 5–6, 5, 83–84 three hydrogen bonds in DNA Crick, Michael (son), 59, 59, 257, 258 personality, Watson’s descriptions of, determination, 207 discusses TMV structure with Watson, 3–6, 43, 43, 138 triple helix, 166, 172, 173, 224 113, 115–117, 130 photos, 5, 43, 52, 58, 61, 135, 161, 185, Cornford, Frances, 186 discusses two or three chain models 211, 226, 236, 240, 250, 251, 254 “Cozy corners” and TMV (tobacco mosaic based on photograph 51, 187–191 Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, 153, virus), 116, 117, 130 dislikes Watson’s like-with-like base 171, 215, 216 Creeth, James Michael, 197 pairing model, 205 reads “dark lady” letter from Wilkins, Crellin Laboratory of Chemistry, Caltech, early life and career, 53, 53, 55, 55, 59, 218, 219, 219 169 59 reads MRC report, 194, 195 Crick, Francis, 1, 13, 15, 44, 46, 63, 68, 79, fellowship of a college, 6, 6 reluctance to compete with Wilkins, 106, 107, 119, 125, 140, 142, 147, Franklin is misinterpreting her A form 9–10 154, 157, 162, 163, 178, 180, 181, diffraction picture, 179 research for Ph.D. thesis, 52–53, 55, 182, 183, 184, 186, 193, 198, 200, Franklin’s A form photograph would 55, 95, 99, 100, 150 207, 221, 248, 272, 280 have worried him considerably, 179 role in Cavendish polypeptide structure asks Wilkins for permission to restart Franklin’s pleasure in discussing crys- fiasco, 73–74 DNA model building, 191, 191 tallography with, 223–224 secret of life, discovery of, 209, 209 pp337-346_Index_DH_Double Helix 9/17/12 2:16 PM Page 339

INDEX 339

self-replication of the gene as the campaigns on Watson’s behalf over 189–191, 194, 221– 224, 223, 232, perfect biological principle, NRC fellowship, 275, 278 236, 240 131–132 comments on Watson’s “folly” in pub- Bragg’s decision to end Watson and shows double helix model to visitors, lishing bacterial genetics paper, 201, Crick’s early modeling attempts, 217, 221–222, 225–227, 227 201 95–99 Strangeways Laboratory, 53, 53, 54 double helix model, description in a let- C2 space group significance, 196 strategy for tackling DNA structure, ter from Watson, 219, 225, 257, chemical structure by Todd, 45 43–49 265–267 discovery of base pairing, 207–208 The Double Helix, favorable assess- lack of interest in biochemistry, 17, 32, discovery of dry (A) and wet (B) ment after publication, 299–300 138 forms, 65 The Double Helix, trying to prevent letter from Pauling conceding Watson Donohue’s contribution to the model, publication, 283, 284–287, and Crick are probably correct, 237 221–222 290–291, 291, 292, 293–295, letters from Watson, 20, 43, 77, 111, experiments by Avery, 7, 8 296–298, 298 131, 137, 151, 161, 202, 227, 229, Mg++ ions and divalent metal content, visit of King’s group to see incorrect 230, 238 84–85, 84, 91, 93, 151, 217 triple helix DNA model, 88–93, 91 letters to Watson, 201, 201, 224, 230 model of double helix, 221, 226 Vogue, preferred to The Times for like-with-like base pairing, description orientation of the helix, 214 breakfast reading, 59, 59 in a letter from Watson, 201–202, original demonstration model, 221 war work for Admiralty, designing 225 phage work by Hershey, 123–124 mines, 53, 53 paper with Pauling on intermolecular publication of the structure, 232, 233– Watson’s misremembers Franklin’s forces, 133, 133 235, 235 data on DNA water content, 71–73, passes news of the double helix to Paul- schematic of the double helix, 215 71 ing, 229, 229, 230 self-replication, 227 What Is Life?, influence of, 7, 14 phage research with Luria, 17, 17, 18, triple helix model of Pauling and wine tasting, 58 19 Corey, 164, 170–175, 172, 173, 178 women, enjoyment of, 60, 60, 61 photo, 124 triple helix model of Watson and Crick, Crick, Gabrielle, 185, 250, 254 reports to Watson on Pauling’s triple 80, 82–87, 85, 89–93 Crick, Jacqueline, 185 helix model, 224–225 Watson and Crick’s success in finaliz- Crick, Michael, 59, 59, 257, 258 Watson complains about lack of women ing details of the model, 211–217 Crick, Odile (née Speed), 58–60, 58, 59, in Cambridge, letter to, 161 X-ray diffraction pictures of DNA, 25, 86, 106, 118, 147, 153, 157, 159, Watson enthuses about Crick to, 43, 138 48, 182 160, 161, 162, 167, 186, 186, Watson reports frustration with the DNA bases 214–216, 216, 236, 240, 250, 287 King’s College group in a letter to, 5-hydroxy-methyl cytosine confirms Cuban missile crisis, 244, 246 111 base pairing, 230, 231 Cullis, Ann, 83, 240 worries about the double helix unwind- base plate used in the original model, Cytoplasm viscosity, 54 ing during DNA replication, 227 214 Demerec, Milislav, 18 Chargaff and base ratios, 130–131, 131, Deoxyribonucleic acid. See DNA 135, 136, 136, 151, 208 D Department of Genetics, Carnegie chemical structure of, 47–48, 47, Dachinger, Hugo “Puck,” 190 Institute, 18 204–205 Daily Worker, The (newspaper), 69 DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) Crick’s focus on forces between bases, Dark Lady letter, 218, 219 A form (“crystalline”), 65, 179, 180, 150–151 Darlington, C.D., 68 181, 182, 196, 230, 232, 240, 242 Crick’s interest in base forces involved Davidson, J.N., 194, 194, 202, 203 anti-helical views of Franklin, 178, 179 in DNA replication, 132–136, 134 Delbrück, Max, 127, 137, 142, 144, 151 B form (“wet”), 65, 179, 180–182, 187, enol and keto forms of, 202, 204–205 pp337-346_Index_DH_Double Helix 9/17/12 2:16 PM Page 340

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DNA bases (continued) Eckardt, Maggi, 187 MRC Report and, 194 problem of fitting the bases into the Edmond de Rothschild, 143 Nobel Prize, 242–243 model, 194, 196–200, 199, 200 Edouard de Rothschild, Baroness, 143 origin of nickname “Rosy,” 10, 10 Watson’s growing realization that the Edsall, John, 291, 293–295 photograph 51, giving to Gosling, 181, enol base forms were incorrect, 202, Ehrensvaard, G., 19 182 203, 204–206, 206 Enders, John Franklin, 256, 256 photos, 10, 64, 113, 177, 240 Dodd, Doreen, 59 Enders, Thomas, 256 portrayal in The Double Helix, Wilkins’ Dohrn, Anton, 22 Ephrussi, Boris, 138, 138, 144, 149, 227 comment, 287, 289, 290 Donohue, Jerry, 202, 203, 204, 205, 205, Ephrussi, Harriet, 138, 141, 227 position of at King’s, 10, 11, 46 206, 207, 208, 221, 221, 226, 236 Eshag, Eprime, 84, 84 record of an X-ray diffraction Doty, Helga, 243, 246 Experientia, 131 experiment, 180 Doty, Paul, 243, 246, 291, 293 TMV research at Birkbeck, 239–240 Double Helix (sculpture), 157 F unhappiness over move to London, 12 Double Helix, The (Watson) use of King’s data by Watson and Falkman, Kai, 249, 249, 256 Bragg’s writing of the forward to The Crick, 74, 84–87, 217, 236 Fankuchen, Isador, 112, 112, 115, 115, 116, Double Helix, 285, 293–294 use of Signer DNA, 50, 180 118, 125 Chargaff’s review of, 299, 303–304, visit to Cambridge to see triple helix Fell, Honor, 12 308 model, 88–93 Feynman, Richard, 132, 248, 248, 291 Crick’s objections to the book, 294– Watson misreports her talk to Crick, 71 Fourcade, Bertrand, 186–190, 187, 198, 295, 296–298 Watson’s description of, 63–64, 64 212, 219 Crick’s reaction to the book when it Wilkins, conflict with, 13, 49–50, 69, Fourcade, Dominique, 187 was published, 299–300 151, 151, 153, 218 Fourcade, Vincent, 187 dedication to Naomi Mitchison, 299 writes paper with Gosling, 223, 232, Fourcade, Xavier, 187 Harvard University Press reneges on 234 Frank, Frederick Charles, 116, 116, 117 publishing, 295 Fraser, Mary, 87 Franklin, Rosalind “Rosy,” 167, 175, 234, manuscript changes made to Fraser, R.D.B. (Bruce), 87, 181, 181, 232, 236 accommodate others, 290–291 234 acceptance of double helix model, search for a publisher, 284–285 Fry, Margery, 69 222–224 success of the book, 301 Furberg, Sven, 80, 81, 82 Adrienne Weil, letter to, 170 supporters of publication, 291, altercation with Watson, 177–180 292–293, 293 G Ann Sayre, letters to, 12, 66, 67, 154, title choice, 284, 286 155, 170 Gamow, George, 132, 245, 245 Watson’s determination to publish C2 space group, importance of, 196 Genetics of Bacteria and Their Viruses without Crick’s approval, 291 colleagues, comments on, 66, 67 (Hayes), 147 Watson’s response to Crick’s Colloquium November 1951, 63–66 Gibbs, James, 213 complaints, 290 “Dark Lady” letter from Wilkins to Gibbs Building, 212, 213 Watson’s writing of, 283–284 Crick, 218 Glaser, Don and Bonnie, 247–248 Wilkins’s objections to the book, 287, “Death of a Helix” postcard, 179 Gold, Tommy, 131, 131, 132 288–290, 291 discovery of A and B forms of Goldwasser, Eugene, 27 Driesch, Hans, 22 DNA, 65 Goldwasser, Florence, 33 Dueling, 87, 87 Furberg, copy of his paper, 82 Gordon Conference on Nucleic Acids and model building, dislike of, 64, 100, Proteins, 113 E 125–126, 191, 272 Gosling, Ray, 48, 125, 180 Eagle, The (pub), 52, 52, 58, 83, 84, 89, move to Birkbeck College, London, becomes Franklin’s student, 11 162, 175, 209, 209, 212, 300 154, 155, 170, 170, 218 C2 space group, importance of, 196 pp337-346_Index_DH_Double Helix 9/17/12 2:16 PM Page 341

INDEX 341

“Death of a Helix” postcard, 179 Heffer and Sons bookshop, 213, 213 K DNA X-ray diffraction pictures taken Heisel, Jytte, 27 Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes for Biochemistry with Wilkins, personal account, 25 Heisenberg, Werner, 133 and Biology, 115 Franklin, description of, 64 Hemingway, Ernest, 106 Kalckar, Herman, 15, 25, 32, 239, 273 Haldane and “untwiddle-ase enzyme,” Hemoglobin, 43–44, 51–52, 55, 74 Naples meeting, 15, 22, 24 227 Hershey, Al, 18, 123, 124, 124, 230 photos, 18, 19, 27, 33 photograph 51, giving to Wilkins, per- Hill, A.V., 53, 53, 55 Watson’s attempt to learn biochemistry sonal account, 181, 182 Hodgkin, Dorothy, 71, 71, 76, 112, 196 under, 16–20, 20, 27 photos, 87, 89, 93 Hoff-Jorgensen, E., 27 Watson’s desire to work in Cambridge, to tell Watson that Wilkins “has left Honest Jim, 1, 10, 284–287, 291, 295, 299 38, 38, 39, 273, 277–278 country,” 27 Horace Mann Grammar School, 246, 247 Karolinska Institutet, 241, 241, 244 visit to Cambridge to see Watson and Houghton Mifflin, 284–285 Keilin, David, 118 Crick triple helix model, 88–93 Hoyle, Fred, 131, 132 Kendrew, Elizabeth, 41, 79, 79, 158, 159 visit to Cambridge to see Watson and Huggins, Charles, 241, 241 Kendrew, John, 37, 79, 79, 100, 144, 152, Crick triple helix model, personal Hughes, Arthur, 54 163–164 account, 91 Hughes, Henry Stuart, 244, 244 association with Watson in Cambridge, women in the King’s MRC Biophysics Huldt, Ellen, 256 32, 32, 35, 53, 275, 276, 280 Unit, 12 Huxley, Hugh, 51, 61, 83, 83–84, 117, 127, hosts Chargaff’s visit to Cambridge, writing paper with Franklin, 222, 223, 166, 167, 239, 239 135–136 223, 233, 234 Huxley, Julian, 69 later career, 239 X-ray diffraction equipment, 25 Hyden, H., 19 misjudged polypeptide configuration Graves, Robert, 69 paper, 73, 73 Green Door, 58, 59, 82, 86, 161 I myoglobin research, 44, 44 Griffith, John, 131–133, 134–136, 134, Nobel Prize win, 245, 245, 254 150, 151 Idlewild Airport, 119, 119 Indiana University, 15, 15, 16, 32 opinion of Watson, 280–281 Grumbold, Thomas, 212 photos, 32, 44, 61, 240 Gulland, J.M., 197, 197 International Biochemical Congress, 137, 143 provides lodging for Watson, 41, 41, Gustaf VI Adolf, 251 118, 158 Gutfreund, Herbert “Freddie,” 83, 83, International Poliomyelitis Conference, 32, 33 publication of The Double Helix, 292– 157, 161 293, 294, 294 supervises Francis Crick, 51–53 H J writes to Maurice Wilkins about the Haeckel, Ernst, 22 Jacob, François, 124, 125 double helix model, 219 Haldane, J.B.S., 69, 76, 103, 103, 227 Jarnum, Audrey, 27 Kennedy, Edward M., 244, 244 Halliwell, Leslie, 193 Jencks, Charles, 157 Keynes, John Maynard, 6, 84 Hammarskjöld, Dag, 249, 256 Jennings, Lady, 161 Khrushchev, Nikita, 112, 246 Hammersmith Hospital, 147, 153, 154 Jerne, Niels “Taj,” 33, 151, 151 King’s College, Cambridge, 6, 6, 35, 35, Hammond, Nicholas G.L., 158, 158 Joad, CEM, 69 212, 213, 284 Harker, David, 153, 153, 216 John F. Kennedy International Airport, 119 King’s College, London, 9, 9, 12, 23, 43 Harrison, R.G., 22 Jones, Monica, 284 Kjeldgaard, Niels Ole, 27 Harvard University, 285 Jones, R.V., 116 Klein, George, 291 Harvard University Press (HUP), 285, 290 Jordan, D.O., 197, 197 Klenow, Hans, 27 Hawksmoor, Nicholas, 213 Jordan, Pascual, 133, 133 Klug, A., 155, 196, 223, 240, 294 Hayes, Bill, 147, 147, 153, 154, 171, 171, J. Press (shop), 248 Kornberg, Arthur, 241, 241 175, 257 Judson, Horace Freeland, 12, 136, 179, 219 Kreisel, George, 77, 77, 78, 152 pp337-346_Index_DH_Double Helix 9/17/12 2:16 PM Page 342

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L Massey, Harrie, 14 MRC (Medical Research Council) report, Lamarr, Hedy, 193, 194 Matthew & Son Ltd., 58, 58, 213 194, 195, 196, 305, 306–308 Landau, Lev, 245, 245 Maxwell, James Clerk, 3 Muller, Hermann, 15, 16, 133, 148 Langmuir, Irving, 153 McCarthy, Joseph, 119 Munro, Hamish N., 113 Lapp, C.J., 38, 273, 274, 277 McClintock, Barbara, 18 Murdoch, Iris, 77 Larkin, Philip, 284 McCullough, W.D.H., 69 Myoglobin, 32, 44, 44, 100, 111, 245 Latarjet, R., 19 McIntosh, Denis, 103 McLean, Donald, 189 Lebowitz, Joyce, 290 N Lederberg, Esther, 148 McNutt, Walter, 27 Lederberg, Joshua, 147–149, 148, 149, Medawar, Peter, 299 National Research Council, 20, 109, 273. 150, 171 Medical Research Council (MRC) report, See also Merck Fellowship Board Leopold, Urs, 149 194, 195 of the NRC Lessing, Doris, 107 Mellanby, Edward, 37 Nature, 31, 185, 185, 303 Lewis, Wyndham, 106, 106 Merck & Co., 20 Cochran-Crick paper on the Fourier α London, Ephraim, 295 Merck Fellowship Board of the NRC transform of an -helix, 61–62 Lord Jim, 284 award of Merck Fellowship to Crick’s essay on the 21st anniversary of Los Angeles Examiner, 121 Watson, 20 the double helix, 300 Los Angeles Times, 121 cancelation of Watson’s original fellow- Crick’s paper on coiled-coils, 152–153, Lucky Jim, 284 ship, 39, 108–109, 109, 278, 279 152 Luria, Salvador, 219, 257 conflict over Watson’s unauthorized double helix papers, 181–182, 222, phages study, 16–17, 16–17 move to Cambridge, 38–41, 273–281 229, 232, 233, 235 scheme with Watson over the Merck Kalckar’s recommendation for Watson Furberg’s paper on the structure of Fellowship, 39, 39, 40, 108, 109, to go to Cambridge, 38 cytidine, 80–81 α 127, 275–278, 280 Mering, Jaques, 64 Perutz’ paper supporting Pauling’s - support of Watson learning X-ray Meselson-Stahl experiment, 241 helix, 35 diffraction, 32, 32 Meyer, Vibeke “Vips,” 20 spoof paper on “Terminology in ++ withholding of his passport, 121–123, Mg ions and DNA structure, 84, 84–85, Bacterial Genetics,” 138, 149 122, 123 91, 93, 151, 217 Nature of the Chemical Bond (Pauling), 75, Luzzati, Vittorio, 64, 155 MI5, British Security Service, 123 75, 100, 101 Lwoff, André, 124, 124, 125, 140–142, Mitchison, Avrion “Av,” 76–78, 76, 103, New York Times, 301 140, 145, 227 104, 106, 107, 108 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine Mitchison, Gilbert “Dick,” 103, 103, 104, (1962) 105, 107 announcement and celebration, 242–244 M Mitchison, Graeme, 299 events, ceremony, and dinner, 249–252 Maaløe, Ole, 19, 19–21, 21, 33, 38, 151, Mitchison, Lois, 107 fellow winners, 242, 245 257 Mitchison, Murdoch, 104, 107, 107, 108, formal addresses, 255 Maddox, Brenda, 11, 179 189 Nobel week itinerary, 244–245 Maddox, John, 291 Mitchison, Naomi, 103, 103, 104, 106, nomination, 241 Magdalen College, 76, 77 106, 107, 107, 108, 299 racing Linus Pauling, 198, 212 Manhattan Project, 14, 23 Mitchison, Val, 103, 104, 107 speeches, 252–254 Maid of Morren, The, 103 Molecular Biology of the Gene (Watson), visits to Chicago and San Francisco, Markham, Roy, 32, 39, 39, 118, 135, 174, 284 246–248 275–277 Monod, Jacques, 140, 150, 241 week’s conclusion, 255–256 Martin, Lorna, 108 Morgan, T.H., 22, 138 North, Tony, 285 Martin, Major-General, 108 Mott, Nevill, 3 Nye, John, 99 pp337-346_Index_DH_Double Helix 9/17/12 2:16 PM Page 343

INDEX 343

O Watson and Crick race to beat, 150, Philby, Kim, 189 Orgel, Leslie, 76 151, 174, 175, 181, 183, 183, 185, Photograph 51, 182 Oster, Gerald, 13 212 Pippins & Pies, 60 Watson compares Crick to, 34, 138 Pirie, N.W., 124–125, 125 P writes to Wilkins asking to see diffrac- Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, 153, 216 Paestum, Greece, 26 tion pictures, 12, 13, 13 Pomerat, Gerard, 236 Paolozzi, Christina, 187 Pauling, Peter, 161, 163, 183, 188, 189, Popsies, 60, 60, 136 Parsons, J. Graham, 256, 256, 257 191, 193, 198, 212, 221, 235, 238, Portugal Place, 160, 161, 166, 167, 186, Pauling, Ava Helen, 139, 141–143, 142, 239, 285, 290, 291 189, 236 237 Ava Pauling and Watson discuss, 142, Potato virus X, 116, 125 Pauling, Crellin, 142 143 Preston, R.D., 15 Pauling, Linda, 142–143, 142 coiled coils controversy, 151, 152 Price, Vincent, 27 Pauling, Linus, 61, 73–75, 137, 191, 201, Linus Pauling’s triple helix, 164–165, Prior, Camille “Pop,” 161–162, 162, 186, 204, 205, 221, 225, 225, 230, 240, 165, 170–173, 177, 224 186, 188, 193, 206, 212, 237 242, 272, 290, 291, 294 Linus Pauling’s visit to Cambridge, Proceedings of the National Academy of α-helix polypeptide structure, 29–31, 235–236 Sciences, 21, 30, 171, 173, 175, 29–31, 32, 35, 35, 43–45, 48, 57, photos, 142, 165 201, 245 64, 73, 86, 212, 242, 242 Perch in Paradise, A (Bullard), 82 Profumo, John “Jack,” 103 coiled-coils and dispute with Crick, Perfect Cosmological Principle, 131, 132 Pusey, Nathan M., 244, 244, 256, 290– 100, 151–153, 152 Perutz, Max, 43, 55, 55, 80, 83, 89, 106, 291, 294 Crellin Laboratory of Chemistry, 138, 153, 157, 158, 161, 167, 171, Caltech, 189 174, 185, 188, 213, 294, 303 R error in triple helix paper, 173–175, decision to end Watson and Crick’s 224, 224 early modeling attempts, 95, 96, 97, Randall, John, 24, 25, 155, 222, 224, 236 intermolecular forces paper with 99 career of, 23 Delbrück, 133, 133 helical theory, 57, 60, 61, 61 cavity magnetron development, 23 model building strategy of, 43–45, 48, later career, 239, 239 ending of Watson and Crick’s early 49, 64, 86, 111 misjudged polypeptide configuration modeling attempts, 96, 97 Nature of the Chemical Bond, 75, 75, paper, 51–53, 73, 74 Franklin leaving King’s, 170, 182 101, 101 MRC report given to Watson and Crick, hiring Franklin to work on DNA, 10, 11 Nobel Prizes of, 175 194, 195, 299, 303, 306–308 MRC report, 194, 195 passport difficulties of, 119–121, 120, Nobel Prize, 44, 239, 245, 245, 250 Pauling’s DNA work and, 13, 166 121, 138, 139, 139 Pauling writes to about Crick’s coiled- photos, 23, 68 photos, 12, 45, 142 coil theory, 152 reputation for hiring women, 12 reaction to the double helix model, 229, photos, 4, 61, 245 Raverat, Gwen, 186 229, 235–236, 237 proves α-helix correct, 35, 35 Rayleigh, Lord, 3 shows three hydrogen bonds between recounts how Bragg saved his career, Rex cinema, 193 guanine and cytosine, 207 37 Rich, Alex, 166, 167, 214 triple helix model of, 164, 165, 165, response to Chargaff review, 299, Richardson, Albert Edward, 188 166, 167, 169–173, 172, 173, 177, 306–308 RNA Tie Club, 132, 245, 248 178, 181, 181, 183, 224, 224 role in Watson coming to Cambridge, Robbins, Frederick, 256 visit to Cambridge to view double helix 32, 32, 35, 37, 38, 38, 39, 39, 109, Robinson, Robert, 121 model, 234, 235–238 273, 275, 277 Rock of Gibraltar, 84, 84 visit to the Abbaye at Royaumont, What Is Life?, opinion of, 7 Roosevelt, Franklin, 120 141–143 Phage Course, Cold Spring Harbor, 17 Rothamsted Experimental Station, 125 pp337-346_Index_DH_Double Helix 9/17/12 2:16 PM Page 344

344 THE DOUBLE HELIX

Rothschild, Victor, 188, 189 T letters from her brother, 32, 36, 37, 39, Roughton, Alice, 118 Tea time for British academic 41, 49, 76, 104, 108, 123, 126, 144, Roughton, F.J.W., 118 institutions, 5 150, 157, 162, 186, 193, 273, 275, Roughton, Geoffrey, 118, 118 Thomson, J.J., 3 276, 278 Rous, Peyton, 241 Time, 120, 226 Paris visit, 238 Royal Postgraduate Medical School, 154 Times, The, 59, 59, 72, 72, 79, 79, 121, photos, 27, 33, 104, 186 Russell, Bertrand, 82 141, 158, 213 types Nature paper, 232, 235 Rutherford, Lord, 3, 3, 127 Tiselius, Arne, 252 Watson, James Tissieres, Alfred, 1 altercation with Franklin over DNA structure, 177–180 S TMV (tobacco mosaic virus) “cozy corners” and, 116, 117, 130 arrival at Cambridge to learn X-ray Sans Souci, 143, 143 Schramm’s evidence for protein build- techniques, 35–37 Sayre, Anne, 12, 66, 67, 154, 155, 170 ing blocks and, 113, 114, 115 attempt to learn biochemistry under Schachman, Howard K., 113 start of Watson’s work with, 111, 111 Kalcker, 18–20 Schomaker, Verner, 173, 224, 225 Watson’s pursuit of evidence of a TMV bacterial sexes work on, 147–150, 150, Schramm, Gerhard, 113, 113, 114, 115, helix, 116–118, 117, 126, 127–130, 171 115, 125 128, 129 bacteriophage work with Luria and Schrödinger, Erwin, 7, 7, 14 X-ray work by Bernal and Frankuchen, Maaløe, 16–21 Science, 133, 133, 195, 299, 303–308 112–113, 115, 115–116, 116, 125 base pairs insight, 207–208 Seeds, William “Willy,” 1, 1, 10, 87, 88, Todd, Alexander, 45, 46, 46, 87, 217, 225– biochemical congress, 134–145 93, 93, 284 227, 227 Bragg’s decision to end Watson and Sepia sperm, 180 Tolkien, J.R.R., 103 Crick’s early modeling attempts, Shipley, Ruth B., 120 Tompkins, C.G.H., 245 95–99 Sibylla, Queen, 256 Topoisomerase, 227 Bragg’s eventual permission to make a Signer, Rudolph, 50, 180 Trenches, Great War, 4 model, 185 Snow, C.P., 283–284 building a correct model of DNA, 207, Snowdon, Lord, 226 U 209, 211–219 Solutions Three (Mitchison), 299 building a wrong model of DNA, 80, “Untwiddle-ase enzyme,” 227 Solvay, Ernest, 229 82–87, 85 Solvay Conference, 207, 229, 229, 235 V Christmas holidays at Carradale, 103– Spear, Frederick, 5 107 Spiegelman, Sol, 140, 145, 145 Vand, Vladimir, 57, 57 complains to Delbrück about lack of Statue Within, The (Jacob), 124, 125 Varsity, 226 women in Cambridge, 161 Stazione Zoologica Napoli, 22 Visconti, N., 19, 140 costume party, 118 Steady State Theory, 132 Vogt, Marguerite, 201 criticisms of his bacterial genetics Steinbeck, John, 245, 249, 250, 250, 252, Vorticists, 106 paper, 201 252, 256, 256 enthusiasm for tennis, 193 W Stent, Gunther, 19, 19, 20, 27, 124, 303 excitement over Wilkins’s DNA work, St. Lucia, 256, 256 Walking in the Shade (Lessing), 107 25–27 Stokes, Alex, 11, 49, 90, 90, 179, 181, 182 Watson, Elizabeth, 188, 193, 212, 236, fellowship renewal issues. See Merck Stokes-Cochran-Crick Theory, 62, 72, 181 239, 242, 295 Fellowship Board of the NRC Strangeways, Thomas Pigg, 53 attendance at Nobel events, 248, friendship with the Mitchisons, 76–77, Strangeways Laboratory, 5, 53, 53, 54, 55 248–249, 256 76, 108 Sturtevant, A., 201 Carradale visit, 104, 104, 106–107 frustration over not being allowed to Szilard, Leo, 14 first meeting of Wilkins, 26–27 work on DNA, 111 pp337-346_Index_DH_Double Helix 9/17/12 2:16 PM Page 345

INDEX 345

holiday in Italian Alps (1952), 144, trip to Naples, 22, 23–24 lack of urgency in working on DNA, 145, 269–272 walk with Doris Lessing, 107 10, 100, 169–170, 183, 225 housing situation in Cambridge, 41, 41 Watson Sr., James, 242, 248, 248, 249 later career, 239, 240 ideas on DNA-RNA-protein relations, Waves at Bessel-on-Sea, 90 MRC report, 194, 195, 303, 306, 308 162, 163 Weidel, Wolf, 19, 20 Naples, meeting Watson, 15, 15, 23–27, impressions of Franklin and her talk on Weigle, Jean, 29, 29, 30, 149 25 DNA, 63–66, 64 Weil, Harmut, 86–87 Nature paper, correspondence about influence of Pauling’s style on, 31 Weill, Adrienne, 170 and publication of, 222, 223, 232, interest in Magdalen College, 76–77, Weiss, Paul, 39, 40, 109, 275–278, 280 233, 234 77 Weller, Thomas, 256 Nobel Prize, 242, 243, 248, 250, 250, investigations of divalent metal content Westergaard, M., 19 252, 253, 255 of DNA, 151 What Is Life? (Schrödinger), 7, 7, 14 “ownership” of DNA, 9–10, 111, 191 Jacob’s impression of, 124 What Mad Pursuit (Crick), 74, 300 Pauling’s request for data, 12, 13, 13 letter to Delbrück after DNA structure Whim, The (restaurant), 158, 158, photograph 51, 180–181, 182 discovery, 265–267 201, 212 photos, 9, 49, 68, 87, 113, 190, 250 letters to his sister, 32, 36, 37, 39, 41, Wilkins, Maurice, 1, 15, 23, 29, 32, 46, 65, reaction on seeing double helix model, 49, 76, 104, 108, 123, 126, 144, 72, 74, 86, 90, 141, 150, 167, 175, 221–222, 221–222 150, 157, 162, 186, 193, 273, 275, 177, 178, 180, 181, 183, 186, 214, role in DNA research at King’s, letter 276, 278 217, 230 from Randall to Franklin, 11 life at Clare College, 157, 157–159, avoiding Watson, 27 Signer DNA given to Franklin, 49–50, 50 161, 161–162 co-authorship with Watson and Crick, trip to Brazil, 140, 140 like-with-like base pairs, 198, 199, rejects, 222 visit to Cambridge to see triple helix 200–205, 200 correspondence with Crick, ban on model, 87–93, 91 Nobel Prize win. See Nobel Prize for Watson and Crick working on war work, separating uranium for Physiology and Medicine DNA, 95, 95, 96–98, 100 atomic bomb, 13, 14 opinion of Crick, 43 Crick asks permission to restart DNA What Is Life?, influence of, 7 on Pauling’s appearance at the bio- model building, 191, 191 Wilkinson, Denys, 158, 158 chemical conference, 138–143 “Dark Lady” letter to Crick, 218, 219, Wilson, E.B. (biologist), 22 Ph.D. project change to phages, 16 219 Wilson, E.B. (editor), 201 photos, 15, 19, 27, 43, 108, 124, 126, “Death of a Helix” postcard, 179 Wilson, Herbert, 180, 181 141, 150, 247, 248, 249, 250, 251 Double Helix, The trying to prevent Wilson, Tom, 285, 290, 294, 295 publication of his book. See Double publication, 283, 285–287, 288, Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 77, 159 Helix, The 289, 290, 294 Wollman, E., 19 realization that the Pauling triple helix early DNA photograph by Gosling and Wright, Barbara, 19, 20, 33 model is wrong, 173–175 Wilkins, 25, 48 Wyatt, Gerry, 230, 230, 231 response to the Chargaff review, 306–308 Franklin, conflicts with, 10, 10, 11, 12, Wyman, Jeffries, 141, 141, 142 spoof paper on genetic terminology, 149 13, 49–50, 66, 69, 126, 151, 151, start of work with Perutz, 35 153–154, 155, 170, 179–180, 184, Z TMV work. See TMV 224 triple helix model unveiling results, 89–93 investigated by MI5, 123 Zinder, Norton, 148