Interview with David Baltimore - Caltech Oral Histories

Baltimore-36
BALTIMORE: Oh, yes, I met him many times. When I went to Salk, he was there all the time.
LIPPINCOTT: Did he involve himself in the work of the labs
BALTIMORE: He had a lab. It did very pedestrian things. Yes, he tried to continue being a
scientist, but he never did anything else important. And then the finances were complicated, in
what the National Foundation [for Infantile Paralysis] wanted to do. This was all money from
the March of Dimes that built the Salk Institute—it was a certain gift to Jonas from the March of
Dimes for having discovered the vaccine.
So Renato wasn’t sure it was going to happen, and we went back and forth through that
whole spring with him saying, “It’s going to happen! Come!” and then “Oh, I’m not sure!”
LIPPINCOTT: This would be the spring of 1965
BALTIMORE: Yes, spring of ’65. Actually, this must have started in the fall of ’64 and carried
through to ’65, because I finally left and went to Salk in April 1965, so it must have evolved over
the winter of ’64-’65. Finally Renato said, “It is going to happen. I’m moving. Come join me.”
And I said, “Fine,” and I did. We packed up our car and drove out.
LIPPINCOTT: You were married at the time.
BALTIMORE: I was married at the time.
LIPPINCOTT: And you moved to La Jolla
BALTIMORE: First to Solana Beach and then to La Jolla. Drove across the country in a
snowstorm in Colorado, had to buy chains to get over the mountains.
LIPPINCOTT: Oh, great—well, that’s the way to come to California, because it’s an important
metaphysical journey that you made.