10th Nay, 1966.

Dr. El. Nirenberg,
National Institutes of Health,
9000 Wisconsin Avenue,
Bethesda, Md. 20014,
?J . 5 . A .

    Relax ! Relax !  1 didn@t really believe that you had acted in
:::n elaborate underhand mzy, but I had to point out to you how it
might .?ppear to someone looking at it from outside.

   It seems to me that you were perhaps foolish on two pointsr
  (1) You might well have sent both Gobind and myself, as a
m2tter of courtesy, a Xerox copy of your PR4;AS paper at the time
you submitted it.

  (2) Having suggested that your paper on Holley*s eRNA be
published rJith Gobind's and mine you should have tried to write
It up promptly to avoid delays to our papers.

  I agree with your general remarka that the questions of priority
xx trivial, and as far as I know Brian Clark and Ral Narcker have no
complafnts.  (Inoidentally, it was Menninger who vi&ted you, not
bIarcker.) Nor does it greatly concern me personally how you pub&&
your results, since 1 am only doing theoretical work.
reaZ.ise that, ri.rrhtly or wron@y',               But you must

pnper appeared,            Gobind was upset lrthen.your PRAS
          I think therefore you should write him a nice, caSE
lettei- covering tha two points I have mentioned above.
this?                                 Will you do
   You may have told him on the telephone about your PNAS paper,
but that is not his impression.  He thought you wanted the reference
for your paper about Halley's aHMA.

  I do lsympathise with your problem of writing up work alreac!y
completed.  Sydney 2nd T often have the same trouble.
run T think it pays to write up things promptly.     In the long
Looking forward to seeing you at Cold Spring Harbor,

Yours sincerely,

.

F. H. C, Crick

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