Tl TECHNICON Interoffice Memo

COPIES TO:
TO Distr ibution

mm Edwin C. Whitehead
pert Pe | DROP *

 

SUBJECT. Dr. David Baltimore

IN REPLY: pare: August 1, 1980

Distribution:

Arthur Brill
Dr. J. Lederberg
Dr. G. Nossal
Stuart Peerce

Dr. L. Skeggs

Dr. H. Sokol

John Whitehead
Peter Whitehead
Susan Whitehead

On Thursday, July 31, 1980, Stu Peerce and I met at 9 AM
with Dr. Lederberg of Rockfeller University, and Stu has
written a rather excellent report on that visit. At 10 AM,
Dr. Lederberg and I met with Dr. David Baltimore. Dr.
Baltimore, for the unitiated, is a molecular biologist
with a profound interest in cell differentiap?*4nd is
currently a professor at MIT in the Biology Department.

He received the Nobel Prize, I believe some four or five
years ago, for his work in this field. ,

He is about 40 years old, and has been at the top of
every search committee for a director for the Institute
over the years. In the past he has always professed

no interest in the position; the reason given was that
he wanted to stay at the bench. In spite of this, Dr.
Lederberg contacted him, and he appeared in due course.

Although I had met him briefly in the past, I had no
real feeling for him as a man. I had been told that he
was a person of very strong convictions and opinions.

I was quite unprepared for the rather disarming and
friendly approach he took to our interview.

We talked about the Institute; what we were going to do,

how and where we were going to do it. The terms of this
interview were slightly different from the other two

recent interviews, in that the ground rules were somewhat
changed. Instead of talking about a Institute definitely
sited at Rockefeller University, we talked about an Institute
that might very well be at Rockefeller University, but

} (continued....)
opened up the choice of sites. This is more fully
explained by Stu's memo.

I think that Dr. Baltimore had considerable difficulty
in understanding the institutional relationship with
the host university. This is possibly due to his
experience, or possibly due to previous information he
had received. At present he is attached to the Cancer
Institute at MIT, which is funded by the government,
and is one of six such cancer institutes in the U.S.
Since it is only slightly smaller than our Institute,
he kind of thinks of it in the same way, witness our
conversation:

He did not understand what I meant by "governance."

He stated the Cancer Institute is independent, but

it turns out that it does not have its own Board of
Directors, all appointments are made by the University,
all scientists are members of the faculty of the University,
and, in fact, it is an organic part of the University.

In contrast, I tried to make him understand, although
I'm not sure that I succeeded, that we would have an
independent Board, faculty members may or may not be

on the staff at Rockefeller, and our programs, hopefully,
would be collaborative with the University, but not an
organic part of the University program. I still feel
that this particular point is somewhat murky in our
discussions.

He was not as quick to see the opportunities that one
might have in this new Institute as opposed to more
traditional settings. I think that on‘*issues such

as tenure, governance, peer review, budgetary control,
etc., he thinks of the more usual situations where
these functions are established and set up by the
University, and feels this pertains to what we are doing.
Probably this is a function of his role up until now,
which has not been in the role of management. Presently,
he runs a program of about $500,000 a year. It is
certainly an organic part of MIT. I'm sure he doesn't
realize it, but he leans heavily on the university in
his selection of people, review of his program, quality
standards, resources, collaboration, etc.

For example, he told me that he has $500,000 per year

to spend, and nobody tells him how to spend it. I
suggested to him that even in his present setting this

is somewhat unique, and purely attributable to his stature,

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-3-

but in a $10 million Institute, bhp

difficult to administer. He allowed ‘as this would
be the case. He feels, and I certainly agree with
him, that a man should be reviewed on his work, and
if he is productive the details of how he arrives
at a goal are unimportant.

Outside of this point, which we spent most of three
hours discussing, the interview went very well. He
told Dr. Lederberg, towards the conclusion of the
meeting, that he was very interested in what we are
doing. He certainly did not express disinterest in
taking it on. He also let drop in the course of the
interview that he felt that very few scientists at
his position in life really work at the bench, but
rather were administering other people's work. I
took this to mean that his disinterest in the job on
previous encounters had more to do with his lack of
interest in the site than his lack of interest in the
position. This, of course, could be a wrong interpretation.

It also might be that at that stage of his career he

was more heavily involved @f the bench. Regardless,

in either case there are two very positive signs:

1) His admitting that bench work would not prevent him
from taking _on this role, and 2) his interest in the
Institute. ft I were personally to compare Dr. Baltimore
with Dr. Kan and or aba! I would say he is more mature
than either. I would y that at his present stage of
development, he does flot have the experience needed

to establish the Institute.

On the other hand, I would say that by stature,
personality, interest and desire, he could more than
make up for this lack of experience. I suspect that

he would learn very, very quickly. The chemistry
between us, for whatever that is worth, seemed very
good, despite the difficulty in understanding mentioned
above.

In summary, I would say that he is by far and away the
most viable candidate of the three, and although ,young
and inexperienced, he could do the job, and thatAis
interest level is probably high. I feel, however, that
before we could entrust him with the responsibility, I
would like to know him an awful lot better, to a point
where I would feel totally comfortable, and some of the
issues as to independent governance, and relationship

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with the host institution, etc., would have to be really
worked out.

After our meeting, Josh got in touch with Dr. Kennedy, who
has just been appointed President of Stanford, and arranged
for a visit for me with him to Kennedy on Tuesday, August
26th at 11 AM. I thought it would be a good idea if
Baltimore could accompany us on this visit, but unfortunately

learned that he will be in Israel at that time and can't
make it.

Edwin Cc. Whitehead