Peter Pauling with his dad, 1931.
[Part 9 of 9]
Before he passed away in 2003, Peter Pauling saw his daughter Sarah marry, and also witnessed the births of two grandsons, Isaac and Malachi. Over time, he likewise learned to recognize the ebb and flow of his manic and depressive phases, at points struggling to overcome insomnia and drinking too much whiskey or beer, and at others walking the country paths around the mill so giddy with delight, that he felt he could not contain his joy.
In 1992, Jim Watson came to Wales to call on Peter and Alicia. Peter had recently seen a BBC drama depicting the discovery of DNA which, as he explained to his old friend, was not entirely accurate. When Watson asked what they had got wrong, Peter answered firmly that he had appeared only at the very end of the program, and that he showed up on screen driving a white Cadillac convertible. For a car man like Peter, being portrayed in such a vehicle was, apparently, an insult to his sense of personal pride.
Though thousands of miles apart, Peter remained in regular contact with his father. In 1992, Linus called on his son to ask his advice about what he should do with a collection of secret documents stemming from his years of involvement in the American war effort. As he looked through his files, Linus Pauling had been unable to track down an apparently nonexistent Navy patent for a substance, named “Linusite,” that he helped to develop in secrecy in 1945. Similarly, he noted, his invention of the oxygen meter had presumably remained classified, as was a cone shell windmill that he designed in 1952.
Indeed, Linus had a personal safe full of records relating to such top secret projects, and he had no idea which of them had been declassified. Now, at the age of 91, he wanted to unburden himself of these materials, one way or another. Wishing to help his dad out, Peter called a close friend of his from his undergraduate years at Caltech, Robert Madden, who was then working in the National Security Administration. The elder Pauling’s safe was subsequently inspected, and select material duly vanished into the hands of the federal government.
Linus and Peter Pauling in England at a model of Bourton-on-the-water, 1948.
A year later, the conversation had turned toward the introspective. As his cancer spread and his health continued to diminish, Pauling lamented to his son that he had never much been there for him during Peter’s childhood; had never thrown the baseball around the yard. His son responded in stark contrast, stating that he looked back on his childhood at Arden Road and Fairpoint Street with great fondness, adding
Well, you did not play much baseball, but then neither did I. You did, however, lie on the side of my bed and taught me how to count in French. Later, when I was old enough to get out and about, you were often out to rescue me, either because I telephoned or Mamma was worried and sent you out to do a general search of the whole of Pasadena and surrounding environs.
In 1994, Alicia sent a letter to Linus on his birthday, saying that she and Peter were thinking of him, and about to toast him, as dinner time was drawing near. The drinking, she hastened to add, would be kept moderate, but the thinking had no limits. She concluded by writing that “Peter hopes to come over shortly – and so do I.”
Less that six months later, Linus Pauling passed away. Peter’s younger brother Crellin wrote to him after their father’s death, and he was heavy with grief. Peter, though, had been experiencing both the depths of depression and the heights of elation for decades. The lesson in all of this, he confided to Crellin, was that when one’s mania had faded, and the depression has set in, one had only to hold on. Be patient and outlast it, for eventually change will come. In this, an entire lifetime of often difficult experience was summed up by Peter Pauling in three simple words:
“Do not despair.”
