I suppose it was my membership of A.C.S.P. that first stimulated my interest in the interaction between science and government which is commonly described by the rather loose expression 'science policy'. Until I joined it, I had taken little interest in affairs outside chemistry and the universities with which I had been associated. Certain it is that from about 1947 onwards I became increasingly involved in the problem of providing adequate scientific and technological advice to government, and this has remained a major interest in my career since then, both on a national and international level. The need for governments to be given all available scientific and technological information on any given topic, together with the scientific implications of that information (insofar as they can be foreseen), if they are to take wise decisions in the field of public policy is now, I think, well recognised. The problem is to devise the proper machinery for doing so. That machinery must vary from country to country according to the system of government, but even a generation after recognition of the need, no wholly satisfactory answer has yet been found for any country.
As originally constituted, the Advisory Council on Scientific Policy (A.C.S.P.) had twelve members in addition to its chairman. Of these, three were academic scientists, two were scientific industrialists, and one was an officer of the Royal Society nominated by the President. In addition, there were the three secretaries of the Research Councils, the Chairman of the University Grants Committee, a senior Treasury official, and a chief scientist from a government department. It was later enlarged to include a scientist representing the interests of atomic energy and the Director of the newly formed Nature Conservancy. All appointments were personal, i.e. no alternates were allowed and members were expected to give their own views, and not simply peddle briefs on the part of any organisation to which they belonged. It will be observed that official and non-official members were finely balanced so as to avoid officialdom ruling the roost. The secretariat, which was quite small (in my view, too small), was attached to the office of the Lord President of the Council, the minister responsible for the Research Councils and for general advice to the Cabinet on scientific and technological policy. In the original A.C.S.P., Solly Zuckerman and I were very much junior to the other members with the exception of E. W. Playfair, the Treasury representative, and we tended to play the part of the opposition from time to time, and this was probably no bad thing. I continued as a member and served on various panels or sub-committees until I retired by rotation in 1951 and, during that time, I learned a lot from Henry Tizard about running committees, about balancing opposing viewpoints, and reaching proper decisions. Tizard was an immensely able, and withal an extremely friendly, man with an impish sense of humour and a fine wit. Many are the stories told about him; one of his practices which I remember was his method of choosing members for any A.C.S.P. sub-committee which appeared to have a tiresome and unattractive remit. Tizard used to begin the operation by looking around the conference table and saying 'Well now! Who isn't here today?'
My resignation in April 1951 gave me little respite from A.C.S.P. On 31 March 1952 Tizard retired. Only a few months before he was due to leave, a Conservative government under Churchill came into power again and Lord Woolton, who had made a great reputation as Minister of Food during the war, became Lord President of the Council. I knew and liked Lord Woolton (known, to many of his younger friends at least, as Uncle Fred) who was a fellow member of the Court of the Worshipful Company of Salters. I had a note from him one day in February 1952 asking me to come along and see him at the House of Lords. When I got there, he said there was no point in beating about the bush - would I accept the chairmanship of A.C.S.P. in succession to Tizard? He explained that it had been decided that the new chairman should be an independent scientist working part-time, and that the office should be separated from the chairmanship of the D.P.R.C; liaison between the two bodies would be arranged by having each chairman (or his nominated representative) sit on the other body. This arrangement was, of course, more acceptable to me than that under which Tizard had operated, for I was quite determined not to join the civil service. However, just at that time my researches were forging ahead - we had just solved the nucleic acid structure, completed the synthesis of flavin-adenine-dinucleotide, the first of the complex nucleotide coenzymes, and all sails were set. So I told Woolton that I really was very busy, and that I was trying to cut down commitments rather than take on any more. We talked around the subject for a bit, and then he said 'I'm asking you to do something important for the country. Do I take it you don't want to help your country? After all, you can have my authority to resign from any other government commitment you may have, and stick simply to A.C.S.P. How about it?' Well, I didn't have much option after that, so I said 'All right, I'll do it - but although I will accept an allowance to cover my out of pocket expenses, I will not accept any salary or honorarium, since I feel that, in the position you wish me to occupy, I should be wholly independent of the government or civil service.' He said 'Done!' and that was that. I became chairman of A.C.S.P. and was able to resign the chairmanship of the Chemical Board and membership of the Advisory Council to the Ministry of Supply, and get rid of one or two other small but at times irksome commitments. I never regretted taking on A.C.S.P., whose chairman I remained until just before its dissolution on the advent of a Labour administration in 1964. I shall have occasion to mention the events leading to my resignation later, but I believe that, if we had had associated with A.C.S.P. a full-time scientific adviser in the Cabinet Office, it would have given us a more effective instrument for the development of science policy than anything we have had since. Meanwhile, all sorts of other things had been happening.
In the summer of 1947 I had a visit from an old friend, Joe Koepfli, whom I had not seen since our stay in Pasadena in 1938. He was in London for a spell as scientific counsellor at the U.S. Embassy, and he introduced me to Earl Evans, one of the two professors of biochemistry at the University of Chicago who was going to follow Koepfli in the London position during sabbatical leave from Chicago in 1948-9. The possibility that I might spend a term as a visiting professor at Chicago during his absence was raised by Evans, and, in due course, I was invited to spend the autumn term 1948 as professor of biochemistry in Chicago. The idea of visiting the United States again and renewing contacts was very attractive, so I accepted. I hoped that Alison would be able to accompany me, but having three young children who couldn't come with us was a bit of a complication. However, we managed to find a suitable temporary housekeeper to look after things in Cambridge for part of the term at least, so that I was able to go on ahead, and Alison joined me in Chicago at about the end of October. I had recently become chairman of the Chemical Board of the Scientific Advisory Council of the Ministry of Supply, and I felt it would be a good thing to visit the corresponding American organisation with which we had become closely associated during the war. Accordingly, I travelled to Washington in mid-September 1948 with Dr Fred Wilkins (then Controller of Chemical Defence at the Ministry of Supply and later to follow Sir Harry Jephcott as chairman of Glaxo Laboratories Ltd), and attended various meetings with our American colleagues there and in Baltimore. I regret to say that my only vivid recollection of these meetings is one of a dinner in Baltimore given by senior military and naval staff. As is not uncommon at such events, the bourbon flowed freely before we got as far as the dinner table, where, to my astonishment, I watched a high-ranking officer sitting opposite me solemnly add sugar and cream to his consomme. This remarkable mixture he consumed during the remainder of his meal, giving no indication that it appeared to him to be in any way different from the coffee which his colleagues were drinking!
At the end of the month I proceeded in gentlemanly fashion from Washington to Chicago by the Baltimore and Ohio railroad; it really was quite a delight to travel at a leisurely pace up through the Cumberland Gap and on to Chicago. There I was met by Crawford Failey, the second professor of biochemistry who was to be my colleague for a
term, and we drove off to the University Graduate Club on 59th Street, where I was to live during my stay. I remember that drive well. For one thing we went south on the lakeside driveway at a furious speed three abreast and driving almost bumper to bumper, in a (to me, at least!) most alarming way. Secondly, the first instruction given me by Crawford as we drove along was that I should avoid walking on the Midway (an open space with grass and trees close to the university buildings) after dark, and that, if I did have to do so, I should carry ten dollars with me. He told me that this was important, since I would probably be held up; if I had less than ten dollars I would be beaten up, while if I had more it would be a sheer waste of money! So it seemed there was something in the legends of Chicago after all. To be fair, however, I must say that I never encountered any unpleasantness while I stayed in Chicago, even although there were areas near the university with very dubious reputations, and a number of nasty incidents were reported there during my stay. What did rather surprise me was the indifference displayed by most people I met to violent crime; it seemed to be accepted as part of everyday life.
I liked Chicago. It was an exciting, lively city and Alison and I made many friends - Crawford and Christine Failey, and Phillip Miller, professor of medicine and his wife Florence, together with my organic chemical counterpart, Morris Kharasch and his wife Ethel May - all of whom were particularly kind - and we saw a lot of them. In the month or so before Alison arrived I must have been very busy for, apart from my two lectures each week in biochemistry, I managed to fit in a couple of trips to New York, a visit to the University of Illinois, and a week at Notre Dame University giving the Nieuwland Lectures. When in Chicago, there was always billiards after lunch at the Graduate. Club with Morris Kharasch and Warren Johnson. On Wednesday evenings Morris used to have a seminar, and it always concluded with a challenge match at bridge - Morris and myself versus any two graduate students who would take us on. Morris used to say that he and I made a perfect bridge partnership. As a theorist accustomed to making ingenious theories with very little evidence, he felt he should control the bidding; I, on the other hand, being an expert in doing successful experiments with very little material, was the ideal person to play the hands. Whether that view was valid or not, he and I usually won, consuming a good deal of his favourite tipple, Southern Comfort, while we were doing so. The biochemistry department was a good place to work in, and in addition to Crawford Failey, who was much tied up in administration, we had Frank Westheimer and Konrad Bloch, both of whom later went to Harvard, and who have been fast friends of mine ever since the Chicago days. I also got to know Robert Mulliken quite well, although his theoretical interests were rather far removed from my own. The University of Chicago was a lively place in those days, and I liked Hutchins who was then President. Particularly during my bachelor existence in the first half of my stay, I got around quite a bit in the university and in the city of Chicago. I particularly recall how on Sundays (the Graduate Club having no breakfast or luncheon facilities) I used to proceed in leisurely fashion downtown to the Tavern Club, of which I was a member (thanks to Crawford Failey), and have a vast brunch high up in a skyscraper with a breathtaking view over the lake. It was during my Chicago period that the almost legendary presidential election between Truman and Dewey was fought. I actually got hold of the famous Chicago Tribune edition which jumped the gun by prematurely announcing Dewey's victory; that edition was actually on sale for a brief period in the early morning following the election. In the run up to that election, which somehow seemed to be simultaneous with a lot of other elections in Chicago, I was astonished by the libellous statements about individual candidates which blazed forth from posters put up by their opponents; evidently American law is much more permissive than English.
Shortly before the end of our visit Alison and I flew out to Los Angeles and spent a day or two visiting old friends like the Paulings, Koepflis and Niemanns in Pasadena. It was a very jolly reunion but I am afraid that the massive growth of CalTech and Pasadena made them, although still attractive, less so than they were in in 1938. Los Angeles, then getting afflicted by smog, had deteriorated a good deal more, and, to me at least, had no longer any attraction at all. We returned to Chicago feeling that perhaps our decision in 1938 was the right one, and shortly thereafter we left for the east for a few days in New York and the Boston area. We stayed in Cambridge, Massachusetts with Oliver and Alice Cope, close friends of Alison's family, and had a marvellous few days meeting a lot of friends both of Alison and myself. Oliver Cope, a surgeon at the Massachusetts General Hospital, had worked with Alison's father; indeed the whole area seemed to be full of former associates or pupils of Sir Henry Dale, all of whom knew Alison. On the chemical side I was able to meet again R. B. Woodward; this, of course, I greatly enjoyed.
Although Bob Woodward was ten years younger than I and we lived in different continents, he and I were intimate friends for some thirty years until his sudden and most untimely death in the summer of 1979. He was one of those very rare people who possessed that elusive quality of genius, and was certainly the greatest organic chemist of his generation, and possibly of this century. I believe I first met him fleetingly at a party in Cambridge Massachusetts when Alison and I stopped there on our way home from Pasadena, but my attention was first drawn to him by a paper he published in 1941 (at the age of twenty-four) on the ultraviolet absorption spectra of alpha,beta-unsaturated ketones; it seemed to me to herald a breakthrough in the use of spectroscopy in the study of molecular structure. In this I was right, and Woodward went on from strength to strength. During the war we were in contact and were both involved in the Anglo-American penicillin investigations, but we did not actually meet again until 1947 when he made a brief visit to England. So my visit to Harvard in 1948 was the more memorable because it really marked the beginning of my close association with Bob Woodward.
Back in Cambridge, things were very much on the move. Thanks to Ralph Gilson's efforts, the University Chemical Laboratory had undergone a remarkable transformation; all the anachronisms like gas lighting had gone, laboratories had been remodelled and re-equipped, library, stores and other services had been enlarged and completely reorganised, and a totally new spirit of confidence and enthusiasm pervaded the school. The flood of overseas and of British doctoral and postdoctoral students seeking to join us kept growing to the point of embarrassment and we had indeed to commandeer some of our teaching accommodation to cope with it. By 1948 we had - in addition to British - Australian, New Zealand, Polish, German, Spanish, Indian, Canadian, South African, American, Chinese and Singhalese students, all forming a closely knit group and all working productively. Socially the laboratory was a good outfit too. We used to have a joint cricket team with the technical staff which played for some years in the Cambridgeshire Cricket League, and, in this and other social and sporting activities, there was no distinction made between the most junior laboratory assistant and the professor. My work was increasingly attracting the attention of biochemists, especially in America, where biochemistry teaching was much more grounded in chemistry than it was (at the time) in Britain; indeed, at the time of the International Congress of Biochemistry held in Cambridge in 1949 I remember being approached by a number of American participants, including Carl and Gerty Cori, to persuade our biochemists to get closer to American practice, which seemed to produce much better research schools! There was quite a ferment in Britain at that time about the relationship which should exist between chemistry and biochemistry, and I was viewed with quite unjustified suspicion by leading British biochemists, because I was unable to regard organic chemistry and biochemistry as totally distinct disciplines with fixed boundaries. It was about this time, incidentally, that a young American biochemist came to my laboratory as a postdoctoral fellow and, on introducing himself to me, said ' Professor, I have come to you to be saved.' Some thirty years have passed since then, and it has given me, at least, the greatest pleasure to see the change of heart from those days - a cha
nge which has brought chemistry and biochemistry much closer to one another to their mutual benefit.
While in Chicago, and indeed for some time before that, I had been subject to rather tiresome bouts of indigestion and early in 1949 matters came to a head rather suddenly, and I had to undergo major surgery for removal of my gall-bladder which was completely blocked by a large lump of beautifully crystalline cholesterol. The Dyestuffs Division Research Panel of Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd used to meet on the first Friday in each month at Blackley Works, Manchester, and its three external members - Robert Robinson, Ian Heilbron and myself — used to travel from London by rail on the evening before and stop over at the Midland Hotel in Manchester. When I had recovered from the gall-bladder operation sufficiently to go up again to a Panel meeting, I found myself travelling up on the evening train with Robert Robinson. Robinson, my former teacher and now a close friend, had, as one of his more endearing characteristics, a habit of reacting emotionally and almost violently at times to comments on chemical matters which were brought suddenly to his notice. At the time of which I am writing, he was in the throes of his large-scale effort to synthesise cholesterol - a rather fashionable pursuit which then occupied a number of competing groups throughout the world. Robert proceeded to recount to me that evening a particularly nasty snag that was blocking his path. After we had discussed it for a bit I said 'I'm sorry you are having difficulties - I don't suppose you know it, but I have just completed a synthesis and isolated cholesterol absolutely correct in structure and stereochemical configuration.' He rose to the bait like a trout to the mayfly, and almost shouted 'What do you mean? Why was I not informed that you were working on cholesterol? How long has this been going on?' I replied 'Don't worry, Robert, it's just a little something I did entirely on my own in my spare time' - and with that produced my beautiful gallstone, which I was carrying in my waistcoat pocket. Robert's wrath vanished as quickly as it had come, and was replaced with a roar of laughter; when we got to Blackley next day, I heard him recounting my successful synthesis to all and sundry.
A Time to Remember Page 13
