This July, I am completing my fourth seven-yearterm at NIH.
It seems as exhilarating and certainly asworthwhile as in the summer of 1953, when
my wife and I arrived in Bethesda.
The last six years, however, I must confess,have been spent in the relentless company
of the administrative burdens of the Director.
I have decided with great difficulty and muchambivalence, that it's time for me to shed
those burdens for a while, lest I forget completelyhow to be a scientist and a physician.
And therefore, yesterday I sent to the Presidenta letter containing these sentences:
Dear Mr. President,I respectfully request that on the first day
of July you accept my resignation as Directorof the National Institutes of Health.
It is for personal reasons that I take leaveof this position, which I have been honored
to hold these past six years.
Before then, I was also privileged to spendmuch of my scientific career at the National
Institutes of Health.
I am most grateful, I wrote, for the continuingtrust which you and Presidents Ford and Carter
have extended in allowing me to lead thisremarkable institution.