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Current CX3mrnents’ EUGENE GARFIELD INSTITUTE FOR SCIENTIFIC INFORMATIONCJ S501 MARKET ST PHILADELPHIA, PA 19104

The Restoration of FrantMek ~orm: Prolific Czech Scientist Obeyed HISConscience and Became a Nonperson

Number 15 April 13, 1992 ABSTRACT The life of FrantiSek ~orrn is examined, particularly during the period when he was president of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences and director of its Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry. His scientific achievements are discussed and an account is given of his political actions in 1968, which led to hk fall from authority. Nobelist Vladimir Prelog and Carl Djerassi contribute remembrances.

“Human uniqueness, human action, and the human spirit must be rehabilitated.”1 These are the moving words of Vaclav Have], President of , speak- ing last month at the World Economic Fo- rum in Davos, Switzerland. They aptly ap- ply to the late FrantiSek Sorm, the subject of this essay, former president of the Czeehoslovak Academy of Sciences, and director of the Institute of Organic Chem- istry and Biochemistry. Sorrn was a prolific, highly cited Czech chemist whose life came apart on , 1968, when Soviet tanks led a force into the narrow cobblestone streets of the baroque city of . $orm, of course, is only one of a legion of con- science-obeying scientists deserving of re- habilitation in . But his tale perhaps is typicrd.

Frantifekform Who Was Franti3ek germ? At the end, stripped of his academy presi- for having voted in Parliament against le- dency and the institute directorship because galizing the Soviet occupation of Czecho- of his criticism of the , he ended . He also voiced his protest against his days “a sad and lonely man,” according the invasion in a letter to the president of to a coworker. He remained a scientist in the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Finally, the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Bio- after suffering two heart attacks, he died chemistry, but he had few personal con- on November 18, 1980. tacts with other people. In the eyes of At the height of his administration, he officialdom, he was a nonperson, os@acized I was a man who would engage in snowball

51 battles with coworkers on noon walks to During World War II, Sorm worked as lunch. Or, in the Prague spring, climb a research chemist for a large chemical con- through ground-floor windows like a stu- cern in Prague, the Association for Chemi- dent to enter a laboratory. Initially, he be- cal and Metallurgical Production. Rudolf haved, colleagues recall, as if he were “fwst Lukei, a noted chemist, and later a profes- among equals.” His attitude to fellow sci- sor of organic chemistry, was the head of entists, however, was grounded in his per- the association laboratory and later taught sonal assessment of their abilities and quali- both Prelog and Sorm at the university. ties and sometimes quite biased. He often Prelog, who lived in Prague for nearly 10 openly criticized those he felt were inept. years, recalled his relationship with Sorm Thus, in the balance of his life, the scales “Our relationship was warm at the start, were tipped with many enemies. but cooled later on because $orm embraced At Davos, Have], once a nonperson play- the Soviet science educational system to wright himself, commented. “ which I was opposed,” In pmicular, Prelog was not defeated by force, but by abhorred the separation of teaching tmiver- life, by the human spirit, by conscience, sities ffom research institutions. Prelog was by the resistance of Being and man to awarded the 1975 Nobel Prize for his con- manipulation.” tributions to the understanding of stereo- chemistry-the spatial arrangement of at- The Process of oms and molecules.3 (p. 957) His recently completed autobiography was translated By 1990, the political pendulum for %IM from German by Otto Theodor Benfey of had swung to rehabilitation. On the tenth the Beckman Center for the History of anniversary of his death, led by the present Chemistry in Philadelphia.z director, Karel Martinek, the Institute of Like the majority of Czech students, Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry held Sorm was attracted by leftist political ideas a commemorative session to honor its and drawn to the then-. He founder. Former pupils and colleagues became a member of the Czechoslovak placed a memorial plaque to ~orm in the Communist Pwty. The party arranged for hall of the institute. Sorm to visit , and he returned im- But a plaque does not a life make. Let’s pressed by the science effort there, often Iook a little closer. Not much information lecturing on that subject. His stature thus is available on his early days. He was born grew within the party apparatus as a trusted in 1913. “Franta,” as he was sometimes science representative. called, attended the Technical University Following the communist putsch in 1948, in Prague during the early 1930s, graduat- the party, following the Soviet pattern, de- ing in 1935. He is remembered as a bright, cided to establish an Academy of Sciences. ambitious, and diligent student, “probably Sorm helped organize the new body and, the best in his class.” eventually, was rewarded with the post of I talked by telephone with the Swiss Chief Scientific (managing direc- Nobelist Vladimir Prelog, now 86, in tor) when it opened in 1952. That same Zurich. He attended the Chemical Engi- year, he assumed the directorship of the neering School of the Institute of Technol- Institute of Organic Chemistry and Bio- ogy in Prague in the late 1920s.2 (p. 7) chemistry. Prelog recalls that Sorm, who occasionally visited him in Zurich, “was not a man about Very Broad Scientific Interests whom you could easily tell anecdotes.” He was “very serious, a strong Communist, a Sorm’s scientific interests, according to fundamentalist.” Martinek, were very broad. in the field of 52 bioorgrmic chemistry, he advanced kuowl- 850 papers from 1945 to 1980, as observed edge of sesquiterpenoids, with medium-ring in the Science Citation Ina’ex@-’.His most- molecules, and explained the structure of cited first-author paper appeared in different isoprenoid compounds. He also Neoplasma, in 1964, and had 97 cites initiated the study of natural peptides, es- through 1991.4 His most-cited second- pecially neurohypophyseal hormones and authored paper, written in 1968, had 163 their analogues, some of which were shown cites by 1991.5When we published our list to be of major clinical importance. of the 1,000 most-cited contemporary au- His school of protein chemistry estab- thors in 1982, ~orm’s papers had a total of lished the primary structure of chymotryp- 4,890 citations.b From 1964 to 1967, he sin and trypsin. While studying the amino served on the editorial advisory board of acid sequence in polypeptide chains, Sorm, Index Chemicus@ published by the Insti- for the first time, deduced a tentative ge- tute for Scientific Information@-’since 1960. netic code. His studies of antimetabolites During the early years of his director- of nucleic acid constituents as potentird ship, $orm often wrote large segments of cancerostatics or virostatics led to the syn- his papers himself. Later, he would select thesis and determination of the mechanism the topic and guide the development of the of several highly active compounds, for ex- paper, eventually editing and correcting the ample, 5-azacytidine and 6-azauridine. Fi- final manuscript. In this phase, he still felt nally, he was active in the field of insect entitled to first authorship status. He never juvenile hormones. asked directly to be author when the sub- Martinek recrdls that ~orm was not a di- ject was outside his field; however, he rector who stuck to his office. He fostered clearly indicated his pleasure when his daily personal contact with the scientists name was included as a secondary author, working in the laboratories. Always eager and his displeasure when it was “forgot- to be the first to hear about new data and ten.” original evidence, he was considered to be An early riser, $orm expected his co- an outstanding theoretician as well as a workers to be on the job in the laboratories chemist and somewhat autocratic adminis- at an early hour. He liked to see his staff of @ator. some 150 scientists running severrd syn- Martinek remembers ~orm as being very theses at once. Reading newspapers in the much of a family man. His widow, Zora lab was a mortal sin, punishable by traus- ~ormov& was head of the Department of fer to a less prestigious institution. He ex- Biochemistry within the institute. A short pected library research to be done on week- time after Sorm’s dismissai as director, she ends. retired for reasons of health. Their daugh- ter, Zora, today is a physician, and their Djerassi Reeds ~orm Meetings son, Milan, a sculptor. A gmd pianist k I have more than once visited Prague on W= fond of music, particularly the work of business. But I never had the occasion to Jan&k. Duringhis lastyears,he enjoyedcook- meet ~orm. During my visit to Prague two ing unconventionalmeais for his family. years ago to give a paper at an intern- ationalconference, I attempted unsuccess- Author of 1,(KIOPapers fully to locate his widow and children. I Sorm was a voracious reader, often also had an appointment with Martinek, but spending his weekends keeping abreast of he was unable to keep it because of an the scientific literature and writing. Indeed, automobile accident. He and others have his name appears as fwst author on more supplied the details for this $orm portrait. than 150 papers, and second author on over Perhaps one day a qualified biographer will 3 do justice to his turbulent carexx.The Ameri- me not to go, but 1 was curious to learn can chemist Carl Djerassi has documented fust-hand what was going on. ~orm was two anecdotes concerning Sorm in his just- personally charming and scientifically open, published autobiography entitled The Pill, but when it came to Hungarian events, he Pygmy Chimps, and Degas’ Horse.7 mouthed the Party line—in keeping with ‘The eighteenth [Pugwash] conference the distracting picture of Stalin (his ctm- in Nice, [France] in 1968, turned out to be ning eyes seemed to follow me whichever extremely contentious. Many of the dis- way I sat during our conversation) that hung cussions—inside the working groups and on the wall behind his desk .... outside-concerned an item not on the “And now in 1968, another major politi- original agenda: the entry of Soviet troops cal disruption was underway-this time in into Czechoslovakia a couple of weeks ear- Czechoslovakia, where I was due to speak... lier. The had been very active in A sense of bravado and even elation ema- Pugwash, notably the microbiologist Ivan nated from the younger men, some of whom Mflek and Frantiiek Sorm, the president had been postdoctorate fellows in my labo- of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences ratory. They still did not believe that the and, without doubt, the scientist with the Russians would stay and a Stalinist regime biggest political clout in that country. Ev- take over. They imagined a slightly more eryone in Nice was expecting an up-to-date conservative version of Dub&k would head report from them. Was the Soviet invasion their government. Like the Chinese students the irrevocable end of the Prague Spring, in Tiananmen Square in 1989, the young as Alexander Dubtek’s was Czechs were still too euphoric to believe then called, or could a compromise still be that an autocratic juggernaut might actu- reached? But the two never showed up, ally crush them. As we drove into town, and the Soviet participants’ stonewalling my hosts pointed proudly to the graffiti and of this issue...outraged many of us.... slogans that had not yet been erased. “I left Nice after the conference was over Stalin’s picture was long gone from Sorm’s to fly by way of Zurich to Prague, where office, having disappeared in 1962, at the earlier in the year Sorm had invited me to time of an international conference held in give a lecture. He was not only the presi- Prague. Sorm was moved by the expres- dent of the Czechoslovak Academy but also sions of support I had brought, and hopeful art organic chemist whom I had gotten to that Western pressure would lead to a com- know well. A group in his laboratory had promise acceptable to everyone. been working on the chemistry of insect “When I met him again, less than a yeaz hormones, and we had initiated a collabo- later,he was deeplydepressed.It was a strange rative research program between Zoecon rr-steting:in Sofia at the centenary celebration and the Czech Academy—the fust such for- of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, a du- mal arrangement between an American cor- plicate in miniature, in terms of power and poration and their academy. Sorm and I hieramhy,of the SovietAcademy.... h still had exchanged reprints of our respective the president of the Czechoslovak Academy publications in two fields of common in- and thus the officialrepresentativeof his cOun- terest: steroids and terpenoids. In 1956, he by, was marching next tome [in a procession had invited me to give some lectures in to a treeplantingceremony]. ‘Watch’ he whis- Prague. A few weeks before my scheduled pered, ‘whenI lay our wreath.They’ll kiss me visit, the Russians had invaded Hungary, on both cheeks,but when 1returnhome, I’llbe and the political climate in Eastern Europe a nonperson.’ had deteriorated dramatically, The Ameri- “He was right. Shortly after his return from can consul in Switzerland strongly urged Sofia he lost his positiom and until his death,

54 he was never again permitted to leave his ;cientists from oblivion. He used his asso- country. Only after the collapse of the ciation with Stalinist party figures to gain Czechoslovak Communist regime was mormous support for young scientists. One Sorrn’s name rehabilitated in a special issue ~zech scientist told me how krm managed of the Collection of Czechoslovak Chemical :0 get him a Western computer, And there Communications. In homage to him, one of ire many similar stories, my graduate students, Christopher Silva, and In the final analysis, however, $&m’s cou- I contributed to this special 1991 number a rageous stand against the Soviet invasion is paper in which we reported the isolation i testimony to what must have been a life of and sh-ucture ehscidation of a new marine unblguity. His final act was heroic although sterol we had named “%rmosterol.”g regarded by some as futile. But how will we tver know how many such acts add up to Struggle Is Not Over the successful overthrow of tyranny? Com- pare Sorm’s gesture of defiance with the The events in Hungary alluded to above silence of many Soviet scientists during the by Djerassi further solidified Antonin coup against Gorbachev and you get a bet- Novotnf’s hold on power in Czechoslova- ter measure of the man FrantiSek ~orm. kia. Novomy’ formally became first secre- The struggle in Czechoslovakia for de- tary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party mocracy is not over, not for politicians or in 1953, and, up to 1960, based his rule on scientists-just as elsewhere in the world. terror, both naked and administrative. More As Have] remarked: “The fall of Commu- than 180 politicians were killed in a series nism can be regarded as a sign that modem of purges that began in 1950 against re- thought—based on the premise that the formers. Thousands of citizens were im- world is objectively knowable, and that the prisoned on charges of “bourgeois nation- knowledge so obtained can be absolutely alism.”g generalized-has come to a final crisis. This From 1960 to 1967, Novotny”s iron grip era has created the first global, or planetary, on the country slowly began to weaken. technical civilization, but it has reached the Dub&k emerged as first secretary of the limit of its potential, the point beyond which party in Slovakia in 1963. Student riots pro- the abyss begins. The end of Communism testing condhions in colleges and police bru- is a serious warning to all mankind. It is a trdity in suppressing the unrest came to a signal that the era of arrogant, absolutist rea- head in 1967. A crisis was sparked when son is drawing to a close .... playwright read a letter at the “The large paradox at the moment is that fourth party con~ess by Soviet novelisl man-a greatcollectorof information-is well Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn criticizing censor- aware of all this, yet is absolutelyincapable of ship. Novotn~ responaed to this act with a dealing with the danger. Traditional science, purge that provoked a leadership crisis with its usual coolness,can describethe differ- Dub&k emerged as national pm leadel ent ways we might destroy ourselves, but it and subsequently initiated the reforms cannot offer us truly effective and practicable known as the Pmgue Spring that would bring instmctionson how to avert[destruction].‘l%e~ Soviet tanks to the capital that August is too much to know; the information is Dub&k called his measures-involving free. muddled or poorly organiz@ these processes dom of the press and reii@on, and the es can no longerbe fully graspedand understood. tablishment of political parties and other so let alonecontainedor halted. cial groups, “ with a human face.’ “We are looking for new scientific reci- As we have seen, $orm, throughout thi$ pes, new , new control systems, period, was a benevolent autocrat. He un new institutions, new instruments to eiimi- doubtedly used his power to save many gocx nate the dreadful consequences of our pre- What is needed, Havel suggests, is the rehabilitation of the forces of spirituality. But it would be foolish to conclude that thk is incompatible with science and in any way justifies the antiscience attitude on the rise in Eastern Europe today.

*****

My thanks to Paul R. Ryan and Eric Thurschwell for their help in the prepara- tion of this essay.

The material above from The Pill, Pygmy Chimps, and Degas’ Horse by Carl Djerassi form in the laboratory. is: Copyright @1992 by Carl Djerassi. Ex- cerpted and reprinted with the permission vious recipes, ideologies, control systems, of the author and Basic Books, a division institutions and instruments..,. [In short], of HarperCollins Publishers. we are looking for an objective way out of 0IW21s1 the crisis of objectivism.”1

REFERENCES

1. Havel V. The end of the medem era. New York Time$ 1 March 1992, p. E 15. 2. Prelog V. My 132 semesters ojchemimy studies. Pmtiles, Pathways, and Dreams: Autobiographies of Eminent Chemists Series. (Seeman J I, cd.) Washington, DC: American Chemicat Society, 1991.120 p. 3. MagiU F N, ed. The Nabsl Prize winners: chemist?y. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: SsSemPress, 1990. VO1,3:1969-1989. 1246p, 4. %rm F & Vesely J. The activity of a new antimetabotite 5-ar.aeytidine against lymphoid leukemia in AK mice. Neoplasma 11:123-30, 1964. 5. VAvra I, Machov6 A, Hotm?ek V, Cort J H, Zaoral M & ~orns F. Effect of a synthetic analogue of vssopressin in animals aad in patients with diabetes insipidus. L.uncer1:948-52, 1968, 6. Garffeld E. The 1,OWlmost-cited contempmay authors. Pact 2A. Details on authors in the physical and chemical sciences and some comments abaut Nobels and academy memberships. Current Content$ 9:5-13, 1 March 1982, (Reprinted in: Essays of an information scientist. Philadelphia: 1S1Press, 1983. Vol. 5. p. 428-36.) 7, D]eraasi C. Thepill, pygmy chimps, aad Degas’ horse, New York Basic Books, 1992.319 p. 8. Sitva C J & D]eraasi C. isolation, sterccchemistry, and biosynthesis of kmnosterol, a novel cyApropane- containing spnnge sterol. CoUect. Czech Chem. Conantsn. 56:1093-105, 1991, 9. Bradley J F N. Czechoslovakia. Erqcfopaedia Britannica (Macropaedia), Chicago, fL: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1985. Vol. 16. p. %7-8.

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