Brave Genius

by Sean B. Carroll

  Monod shared the decrypted message from Ullmann with Kövesi, as well as a new letter from Ullmann in which she stated that she had received a message from the “former co-workers of Professor [A]ndrews” (the Linz crowd). Ullmann wrote: “They are still working in the same field as before, but I am afraid they are crooks and their work is a danger for biochemistry.”

  By late October, the prospects were becoming dimmer for getting Ullmann and Erdös out safely by boat. Not only was the Linz mob proving unreliable, but cold weather was approaching. The Danube would be impassable in the winter. Kövesi explored a new scheme. He described the plan to Monod:

  I’ve met somebody … who makes miscellaneous business with the countries behind the Iron Curtain. He is not a small-time smuggler, he exports-imports officially with the authorities behind the Curtain and unofficially with those in this side. He, so he says, never took anybody yet illegal through the borders but … he presently considers the idea.

  His possibilities are excellent. He takes a big furniture-transport truck, loads it with what-ever-is-his-stuff under the controls [sic] of a “friendly” custom-officer. The truck passes the Austrian border sealed, undisturbed for Prague or Budapest. There it has a free pass / our man does not even have a visa / and will [be] officially opened in a factory or depot. Then there, or at another place it will be loaded again, sealed by the communist custom-officers, and passes the border again without further disturbance or investigation.

  I beleive [sic], I am going to let him in, if he is willing to try … I beleive [sic] I know your answer … I just need reassurance … for facing present disheartedness and future difficulties …

  Good night, Jacques. My love to you.

  Andre

  Monod approved:

  This new plan sounds rather good, and I believe you should go ahead with it. I am relieved to know that this will not depend on the God damned Danube …

  Concerning warning to our friends, I think it would be better if they did get warned that a new enterprise, completely independent of the Linz one (of which they are scared) was being organized … The best way would be for me to warn them using the “experimental” code … let me know in time when the business is going to be carried out.

  Love and blessings,

  Jacques MONOD

  Kövesi was able to update Monod just a few days later. He wrote that he had given the import-export businessman a “perfectly harmless letter in German,” addressed to Ullmann. But on the back side of the letter, there was a message written in starch that Ullmann would know to develop. It told her about the truck plan and the abandonment of the boat scheme:

  IT IS ABOUT A CAR CONTROLLED AND SEALED BY CUSTOMS IN BUDAPEST. IF THE BEARER TALKS OF ANYTHING ELSE REFUSE CLEVERLY. HE IS SUPPOSED TO SUGGEST A CONCRET [SIC] PLAN. YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO DECIDE BUT PLEASE DO NOT HESITATE LONG. IF YOU DON’T WANT TO MAKE IT NOW OR THAT WAY: IT DOES NOT MATTER. AS ACKNOWLEDGMENT GIVE HIM A VISIT CARD: “SORRY WE ARE BUSY.” YOUR MOTIVES YOU’LL EXPLAIN LATER. STOP. THE WET EXPERIMENT DOES NOT WORK: HERE WE HAD TO THROW THE WHOLE MATERIAL AWAY, YOU SHOULD NOT TOUCH IT EITHER.

  Kövesi explained to Monod that the driver had no idea that he carried the secret message. He would be carrying a Parker pencil that Ullmann had left at Kövesi’s home in September, which would identify him as having been sent by Kövesi. If the driver brought Ullmann and Erdös out, he would be paid $5,000. If they refused to come out, he would be paid $750 if he produced a visit card with the “Sorry we are busy” message on it. The driver wanted to do some reconnaissance, so no specific date was set for the operation.

  While Monod waited, hoping to hear good news, he had to deal with some new problems. One of the financial supporters of the Erdös smuggling plan was very concerned about the loss of money and the failure to get Erdös out of Hungary. Arpad Csapo was a Hungarian-born scientist, a former colleague, and friend of Tamás’s who had emigrated to the United States. In 1959, he was working at the Rockefeller Institute in New York, where Ullmann had contacted him regarding Erdös’s plight. Csapo secured $2,500 from the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) that wound up in Kövesi’s account.

  In late October, Monod wrote Csapo with a detailed account of the history and status of the operation—the bad luck with navigation on the Danube, Ullmann’s having to return to Budapest, the creation of the communication codes, the new plan that did not depend on the river, and the money spent. Monod told Csapo that “the main difficulty is or rather was that almost all the investment which had been put into the enterprise is virtually lost.” But since money was required, Monod informed Csapo that he had personally borrowed $5,000 and put it at Kövesi’s disposal. Monod told Csapo that he was certain that he would recoup the lost money from institutions once Erdös and Ullmann were free. Monod expressed his determination to succeed regardless of the financial or logistical difficulties: “I refuse to believe that all of this effort might remain fruitless and that our friends would have to continue living miserably, in danger and in anxiety for nobody knows how many years.”

  Csapo, however, was not reassured. He wrote Monod to explain that the loss of the money had put him in a “most difficult and embarrassing situation,” as the money was borrowed from the HIAS, and it had to be repaid. Csapo explained that he believed that the HIAS funds would only be used once Erdös was out of Hungary. He told Monod that, in his view, Monod was responsible for the money and the design of the arrangements in how it was used: “I must therefore ask you for reimbursement, since I’m already greatly embarrassed about the delay in returning borrowed money.”

  Monod wrote back immediately to Csapo:

  Dear Dr. Csapo,

  Thank you for your letter of October 28. I am afraid there is a fundamental misunderstanding between us which I would like to clear up.

  You generously offered to A. to help toward T.’s escape. I have no part in the asking or in pursuing you to make this offer. As I understand it, in making this offer, you were moved both by your personal friendship with T. and also by the fact that he helped you efficiently under very similar circumstances. However, you felt that you needed to be certain that this contribution would be used towards this and entirely and exclusively. This is the only guarantee that I could and did give you. In doing so, I took towards you the same responsibility that I have taken towards several other people who also made contributions. All these people were aware of and accepted the risk inevitable in such an attempt …

  If it was at all possible at the present time to reimburse you, it would be done. But this possibility does not exist at present.

  The logician then spelled out the remaining possibilities to Csapo in the same way that he and Jacob spelled out potential results from experiments, and weighed what each would mean for their models:

  There are therefore only two alternatives to be considered:

  a)—T. and A.’s escape does succeed. The first thing they will discover when they arrive in the free world is that their escape has been financed by a number of people, including yourself. Life would be miserable for them if they had to remain in debt towards several people for many years. I therefore propose that when they come out, all their friends … would try to collect a sum of money large enough for them to pay their debts and to start feeling really free in the free world …

  b)—The escape fails once more and any renewed attempt has to be abandoned. In this case, any fund left over should be reimbursed to contributors …

  In the meantime a number of people, and in particular yourself and myself, will have to remain in debt. I fully realize how unpleasant your situation is in carrying such a burden alone …

  Let me again state my reason faith that our friends will be free and that our efforts will not have been in vain.

  After a week, there had been no news about the furniture-truck operation. Kövesi wrote to Monod to let him know that he was coming to France and would be staying north of Paris in Épinay-sur-Seine. He was anxious to get together.

/>   Monod told Kövesi, “I am fantastically busy these days, but I certainly would like to talk to you.”

  THE SWITCH AND THE OPERON

  Monod was indeed extremely busy. There had been some outstanding developments in the lab. The possible acceptor-site mutations Jacob had isolated in the summer, now called “operator” mutations, were proving to have the characteristics that they had predicted.

  One prediction was that operator mutations would cause constitutive expression of galactosidase regardless of whether an inducer was present. This was found to be the case.

  A second prediction was that if the operator was the site for interaction with the repressor, and the operator was necessary for repression of adjacent structural genes, then operator mutations would affect the expression of multiple, adjacent genes on the same chromosome. In the PaJaMa paper published a few months earlier, Jacob and Monod had reported that the structural genes for galactosidase (z) and a second gene, called permease (y), that encoded a protein that allowed lactose into cells, mapped extremely close together on the chromosome, with no known genes in between them. To their delight, Jacob and Monod then discovered that the same operator mutation caused constitutive expression of both galactosidase and permease—both bombs dropped together.

  Changing analogies, the effect of the operator mutations on both galactosidase and permease expression was exactly what was expected if the operator acted like a “switch” through which the genes involved in lactose metabolism were turned on and off. The repressor then acted like a “hand” on the switch, keeping the genes off when no inducer was present, but then releasing the genes to be expressed when an inducer was present.

  The very close proximity on the chromosome of the galactosidase and permease genes, and of the i gene that controlled the synthesis of the repressor, was another striking observation. Three genes all dealing with lactose metabolism were very nearby, apparently right next to one another. This discovery was the first confirmation of Jacob’s notion that there was some level of genetic organization higher than the individual gene (his “units of activity”). The coordinated expression of lactose-metabolizing structural genes, controlled by a common operator and repressor, was further evidence of a higher level of organization. Monod’s and Jacob’s separate studies of another set of enzymes involved in the synthesis of the amino acid tryptophan had also revealed closely linked structural genes under the control of a repressor. All of this evidence suggested that these higher genetic units, groups of genes, were physically organized together to control specific processes.

  A new term entered Jacob’s and Monod’s lexicon. Jacob christened these units, comprised of structural genes controlled by a common operator and repressor, operons.

  There was still more work to do. More results to check and recheck, and the writing of the paper that would introduce the new concept. But in just a little over a year since he first presented his ideas to Monod, the by-product of a daydream in a movie theater, Jacob had seen how the possible became the actual. The entity of the operon was the reward of very clever experimentation, but more important it was a triumph of the imagination. Jacob realized that, contrary to what he had first believed, “the process of science does not consist in explaining the unknown by the known … it aims on the contrary to give an account of what is observed by the properties of what is imagined. To explain the visible by the invisible. And it is … through an appeal to new hidden structures, with hypothetical properties, that science proceeds.”

  No one had seen or purified any of these new entities—the repressor, the operator, or the operon. Those who first imagine such hidden structures infer their properties, then convincingly demonstrate their reality, are very rare in science. Such originality, creativity, and insight may be called genius.

  CHAPTER 31

  UNFINISHED

  Two things rob people of their peace of mind: work unfinished and work not yet begun.

  —SOURCE UNKNOWN

  EVEN WITH THEIR CONQUEST OF THE OPERON, MONOD AND JACOB had important business that remained. For Jacob, the structures hidden inside Crick’s black box, his mysterious “X,” still eluded the brightest minds in biology. And for Monod, there was the as-yet-unfulfilled promise of getting Ullmann and Erdös out of Hungary.

  Monod’s problems were more than logistical. Arpad Csapo was still perturbed by the turn of events, and continued to question Monod. He wrote Monod a long letter in which he detailed their “fundamental misunderstanding.” Csapo complained again that he had only been asked to provide a deposit for Ullmann and Erdös’s use once the two were free in the West; the money was not intended as operating funds for the escape plan. Csapo claimed that he did not authorize Monod to pay the money before Erdös and Ullmann escaped, and for Monod to do so was against Csapo’s judgment. Csapo put two options on the table: either ask the HIAS for an extension of their loan, while informing them in detail of where their money had gone, or repay the $2,500 immediately.

  Monod tried to calm Csapo. He first updated him on where the operation stood. Monod explained again that he had secured $5,000 for fresh attempts to aid Ullmann’s and Erdös’s escape and that there were three potential scenarios for doing so: the first was the current furniture-truck scheme; the second would be the use of the modified Ford Fairlane; and the third was a new possibility. Monod had been invited to lecture at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in early 1960. Monod suggested to Csapo, “If the previous attempt has failed by that time, my trip may help to organize a new one.”

  Monod suggested that Csapo request an extension of the loan and permitted him to use Monod’s name to do so. But Csapo asked for further financial assurances that Monod could not provide.

  Monod was fed up with Csapo’s complaints and demands, and he strained to reply with courtesy:

  Must I point out that T. is your friend, not mine, I have never even seen him. He is your compatriot, not mine. As far as I am concerned, trying to help him for me is a matter of principle, of human interest, and of simple decency.

  I do not regret what I have done, and as you know, I am trying to go on with the job as best as I can—that is to say to the extent of helping materially and morally A.K. who, living in Vienna and being a devoted friend of T., is the only person I know who can do something towards organizing their escape. A.K. is a Hungarian refugee like yourself. He has not acquired, but has applied for Austrian citizenship. Your “inquiries” therefore might hirt [sic] him very much, and force him to abandon this enterprise.

  If you are prepared to take over this job from A.K. and myself, we would both be greatly relieved, and I would place at your disposal the little capital which I have reserved for this purpose. This would mean for you to take a three or six month leave. I believe it might not be impossible.

  However, if you are not prepared to do this, then for Heaven’s sake, let us continue with this work until it is done or given up. Then we shall see where we stand?

  After firing off his letter to Csapo, Monod took a break from both the Hungarian operation and the lab in order to enjoy the New Year’s holiday.

  SEARCHING FOR THE FIRST MAN

  Camus was also feeling the struggle between his commitments and his creative work. As he had feared, the Nobel Prize had brought additional and unwelcome expectations to both facets of his life. The laureate was even more in demand on political matters, especially concerning Algeria. He had continued to provide his private support to the accused and condemned, and he intervened in scores of cases. He wrote appeals to President René Coty, and when it appeared that de Gaulle might be brought back to power, he paid a private visit to the general. Camus talked with him about the risks if Algeria was lost and of the resulting fury of French Algerians. The general did not reveal his intentions regarding the conflict.

  Camus had also taken up a new campaign: the protection of French conscientious objectors who faced long prison terms for refusing to serve in Algeria. He helped draft legislation to establish special status f
or objectors. After de Gaulle became president, Camus wrote to ask for his support for the measure, and de Gaulle pledged to look into the matter.

  Camus continued to pay attention to Hungary. He made a public plea to spare the lives of Sándor Rácz and Sándor Bali, two leaders of the Greater Budapest Workers’ Council who were among the first arrested in Kádár’s roundups in December 1956. Camus stated: “To keep quiet would be to give a free hand to … Kádár.” He also wrote the preface to The Truth About the Nagy Affair, a book that dissected the lies propagated by the Kádár regime.

  All of these political activities did little for Camus’s frustration with his writing. His doubts about his creative powers, which stalked him before the Nobel, had only grown as months and then more than a year passed without progress on his next book.

  While struggling with his original work, Camus managed to pen an adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s novel The Possessed (Les Possédés in French; also known as The Devils or Demons in English) for the stage. Camus considered the novel prophetic in its criticism of the nihilism of left-wing revolutionaries (the devils) willing to commit political murder. The play, also directed by Camus, was a three-and-a-half-hour spectacle that debuted in late January 1959. On Monod’s copy of the published play, Camus offered a little humorous twist: he wrote over the title Les Possédés (the devils) to make it Ces Possédés (these devils) and added:

  qui nous persécutent encore

  avec la fidèle amitié

  Albert Camus

  [who still persecute us / with faithful friendship, / Albert Camus]

  THE PACE OF life in Paris and the constant demands on Camus’s time drained his energy and aggravated his frail health. Camus recognized that he needed to restore both in order to work. He wrote himself a long series of prescriptions in his journal: