Interview with David Baltimore - Caltech Oral Histories

Baltimore-71
BALTIMORE: No, it doesn’t. I don’t think he was on the search committee, because David
Anderson was on that committee from Biology. So I think Mel probably wouldn’t have been,
because they generally choose one person from each division. And I did talk to David about it.
It’s even possible that he was the one who first contacted me. That’s the only other possibility.
LIPPINCOTT: Did you know him well, or had you ever—
BALTIMORE: Not well. But I knew him because of contacts within the scientific community.
And he had also gone to Rockefeller, although a lot later than I did. And he was—and is still—
one of the brightest young lights in molecular biology.
LIPPINCOTT: Do you remember when he or Kip—either one—came up to Cambridge to talk to
you Or did you meet them someplace else [Pause] I’m taxing your memory.
BALTIMORE: You’re taxing my memory. You are.
LIPPINCOTT: [Laughter] I’m sorry.
BALTIMORE: You would think it would be ingrained in my memory, but—
LIPPINCOTT: Well, it’s thirteen or fourteen years ago.
BALTIMORE: It is, but still it was pretty important, but I don’t remember. I don’t remember. I
think not. I think I did not meet with them until I came out to California to talk to the whole
search committee. And that was very funny, because Kip was famous for having run this search
under the highest of security.
LIPPINCOTT: It was all off-site, right You didn’t meet on the campus
BALTIMORE: No. We in fact met in the place that Kip calculated was the least likely place to
run into anybody in Los Angeles.
LIPPINCOTT: Where was that