FDA Oral History Interview, Goddard

James L. Goddara Interviewee: Dr. James L. Goèèard Interviewer: Dr. James Farvey YOUEg Date: April 30 to JUEe 19, 1969 Place: AtlaEta, Ga. SessioE 1 Pages 1-79 James L. Goddara This is the transcript of interviews conducted with James Lee Goddard, M.D., between April 30 and June 19,1969, as part of an oral history project sponsored by the National Library of Medicine relating to the history of food and drug regulation in the United States. Dr. Goddard served as Commissioner of Food and Drugs between 1966 and 1968. James Harvey Young, Ph.D., the interviewer, is professor of history, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Goddard provided for photoduplication the cards of his daily appointment schedules, which accompany this transcript. By terms of the State~ent of Gift signed by Drs. Goddard and Young on March 14, 1970, the transcript is restricted from any examination and use until March 14, 1985. James L. Godda ra Dr. Y.: This is an interview with Dr. James L. Goddard being held on April 30, 1969, at his home at 1090 Churcbill Downs Drive in Atlanta, Georgia. I am James Harvey Young of tbe Department of History of Emory University. Jim, we've known eacb other for quite a while. I consider tbis a wonderful opportunity to see your career as a whole, and particularly as it reached a climax tbat's important for tbis oral bistory project while you were Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration from January 1966 tbrougb June 1968. And I'd like to start out this morning by seeking to understand bow it is you got interested in medicine and then in Public Healtb medicine and look at your earlier career before you came to tbe Food and Drug Administration. How was it that you got interested in medicine? Dr. G.: It started back during World War II. At that time, the Army bad a training program, the Army Specialized Train- ing Program, where they took enlisted men and sent tbem to university campuses, primarily tor traininl in eUiineer- ina. I was selected from a basic training group in the Air Corps in Florida, I suspect just on tbe basis of the fact James L. Godda ra 2 I that had been in college prior to entering tbe service. Dr. Y.: You had enlisted in the Air Corps? Dr. G.: No, I...well, yes, in tbe Army. The Air Corps was part of the Army. Dr. Y.: Right. Dr. G.: I wasn't drafted. I volunteered tbrough tbe draft mecban- iSIll, bowever. That was tbe easiest way to do it. I siaply left college one week, turned up at tbe draft board and asked them bow soon I could enter tbe service and they said, "Will next Friday do?" And so, tbe following Friday, I went in. At any ra te, I was in bas ic training when I was selected and shipped to what was called a "Star Center" where tea ting was carried out and I passed apparently the test in basic enlineering, and we were sent to Wasbington and Lee Univer- sity. That was in, oh, early summer of 1943. Late tbat fãll, or early in tbe winter, I would imagine it was in November, the Army apparently had, some little time preYiously, becoae concerned about the possibilities of a shortage of medical James L. Godda ra 3 officers if the war were prolonged, and so they decided to úaple8ent a program to take students through pre-med and med school, also under ASTP. Tbe Navy had a compar- able program, V-S, V-12 program. They ad8inistered a medical aptitude test at all tbe colleges and universities where tbere were ASTP units, and they gave one at our institution. Six of us that made the bighest scores were tben selected and sent to Temple University, and a pre-med group was foraed from people sent fro. otber in- stitution3. Tbis bappened at a number of universities that were selected for their ability to train pre-medical students. Well, that was how I got into pre-med. Now, I wasn't a very good student in pre-med, not because I was totally disinterested, or because I wasn't capable, but simply I was young. I had never lived in a big city like Philadelphia before. I was really having a time of it. I didn't study as mucb as I should. But, nonetbe- les3,...in fact, I came up to a certain point where a decision was to be made as to whetber or not eacb individ- aal was to be continued and sent to medical scbool, and I ba. to go before a review board made up of civilian phys- icians because my grades were so bad. Fortunately tbese doctors were rather understanding people, and they asked I I I me if thought could make it in medical school. sa id , James L. Godda ra 4 "Yes," and so they approved me to go in spite of the bad academic record. So I was assigned then to go to George Washington University School of Medicine, but because of the class starting date there was to be an eleven-months period of time that I would work at Walter Reed Hospital as a corpS1l8n. That turned out to be very significant in my life, as I'll tell you later. And so, a group of us were sent to Walter Reed. As I recall, from that pre- med group in Philadelphia, Temple, there were four of us assigned for George Washington, four for Howard Univer- sity, and four for Georgetown. The four for Hovard were Negroes, and they went immediately. Their class cycle was such that they didn't go into Walter Reed to work as corpsmen. The eight of us...the four for G. W. and the four for Georgetown...were assigned to the medical detachment of Walter Reed to work as corpsmen, and I was assigned then to work on the neuropsychiatric service of Walter Reed Hospital as an attendant and office clerk I in the N. P. section. It was there that met nay wife. Dr. Y.: Oh, she was working there at the time. Dr. G.: She was an Army nurse and had been overseas. This was in James L. Godda ra 5 November of '44 and she was working in the neuropsychiatric see tion. We met that November and we were married the following May. I started medical school in Septem- ber of '45 just after V-J Day. Being married was an important influence on my stability as a student, and I did compile a good record in medical school. I graduated in the honor society group, the Smith-Reed-Russell Society. We didn't have an AOA chapter at G. W. By the ti.. I graduated, we had two children and my wife was pregnant wi th the third. It was an exciting four years. In look- ing back on it, we had very little income. We were for- tunate we had the G. I. Bill, because the war ended, of course, and I was discharged in March of '46. The program was dropped then and, fortunately, the Veterans Bill came through and we received, I think, ninety dollars a month. And that, plus the fact that I worked two and three jobs simultaneously the last three years in medical school and my wife was able to draw unemployment compensa- tion and work one suamer as a nurse, that was tbe way we got through medical school. We had no other financial assistaDce, but it was a great and exciting time for us. We had loti of fun and worked bard. That was how I got into medicine. Now, I had an early interest in it back before I went into the Army in World War II. Our next James L. Godda ra 6 door neigbbor was a professional man in my home town of Warren, Ohio. Dr. Y.: Warren, Ohio? Dr. G.: Yes. That's where I grew up. I was born in Alliance, Ohio, thirty-six miles away fro. Warren, and most of my mother and father's family lived in Alliance. Dr. Y.: And that's where you went to college? Dr. G.: Yes. I went to Mount Union College for one year before going into the service back in Alliance, Ohio. So, I had observed this young, professional man, as I say, the next-door neighbor, and I bad decided that that was an excellent kind of career, but frankly, at that point in time, I couldn't visualize having the financial assist- ance or capability of getting through a professional school. Dr. Y.: Had you read anything in tbe way of books that bent you toward medicine? James L. Godda ra 7 Dr. G.: I Oh, my. Yes. Oh, yes. was an omnivorous reader as a c.hild. I still am. I started out, we lived in the east end of Warren, and by the t~e I was twelve I think I I had read my way through the East End Library, and don't think that, if you read a great deal in those days, you could escape reading books that had some, certainly some book. that were, c.ertainly MalDificent Obsession or, let me see, Sinclair Lewis' books. Dr. Y.: Did you read Arrowsmith? Dr. G.: Oh, indeed, Just great. I real all of his books. I would go on an author binge. I would discover Thomas Wolfe and then do nothing but read Thomas Wolfe until I had read everything that I could lay my hands on that he had written.

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