UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

            UNIVERSITY PARK

            LOS ANGELES 7

DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY

March 26, 1956

Dr. F. H. C. Crick
Medical Research Council Unit
Cavendish Laboratory, Free School Lane
Cambridge, England

Dear Francis:

   As you may see from the enclosed (one is for Max) I finally got
around to finishing and writing up the base pairings I started 3 years
ago, mainly because it enabled me to get an expense-paid trip to Washington.
I must explain footnote 9, a point you may remember we had not a little
discussion over,with the opposite conclusion. Pauline;, who as a member
of the National Academy, had to approve and submit the manuscript, said he
had wondered about the triple hydrogen bond ever since Jim's and your
structure appeared, and then he decided to take this opportunity to make
this point in print.  I thought it was pointless to explain that we had
gone over this before, so there it is.

    Jack Dunitz told me he had heard (from Dorothy?) that you and Alex
had worked out an RNA structure, but no details were available. Is this
true?' I haven't been up to Cal Tech much lately (it's so near and yet so
far) since we finished that polyglycine thing, so I don't know what they
up there might know.  These seem to be cryptic days. First the RNA rumors.
Then you and Alex publish a collagen structure but don't let on what it
is.  Then Bear announces he has tested your structure, but doesn't state
how it came out.  Then Max writes he has an alternative to Harker's
method, but that's all he says. 0 tempora, 0 moreat  I have been tied up
with other structures - all non-biological - and have been going over to
UCLA often to use the SWAC with Ken Trueblood (who, by the way, will be at
Oxford next fall).  He periodically receives a bundle from Oxford, and
then is up to his ears in B-12 for several sessions, but it appears the
main job is done at last.

Regards,

i"`q ,/ Jerry Donohue

3d
Enclosure