A Few Words from the Pioneers

By Leon Jaroff, James Watson and Francis Crick

Watson and Crick. Their names, like those of Lewis and Clark, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and Stanley and Livingstone, are enshrined in tandem. Yet a few years after their epochal discovery, the men -- James Dewey Watson and Francis Harry Compton Crick -- began to drift apart. Though they have remained in touch -- except for a cooling-off period after Crick took exception to some of the material in Watson's best-selling book, The Double Helix -- they have seldom met in recent years.

Watson remained a working scientist for only a few more years, then bounced back and forth in academe, studying and teaching at the California Institute of Technology and Harvard, and writing The Double Helix. In 1968 he assumed the directorship at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he has spruced up the once shabby campus and added to the scientific prestige of an already renowned institution. Taking on an added burden, Watson lobbied vigorously for the creation of the Human Genome Project and in 1988 became its director, guiding it through its first four years.

Crick, who had actually begun his career as a physicist, remained ever the scientist, first investigating the workings of the living cell, turning next to a decade-long study of developmental biology and finally, in 1976, moving to California. There, he joined the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, where for most of the past 17 years he has been involved in a study of the brain, specializing in the visual system because "I want to know how we see something." To requests for interviews or appearances, he politely replied by cards listing multiple choices ("Dr. Crick does not give interviews." "Dr. Crick does not do TV shows." And so on) with the appropriate rejection checked off. On this special occasion, TIME's Leon Jaroff received no such ! card. Some highlights of his interview with the awesome twosome:

Q. Your famous 900-word article 40 years ago seemed a little understated. Were you being modest?

Crick: The structure of DNA gives the game away, once you've seen it. A schoolboy can understand it. It's not something like relativity or quantum mechanics. It's a Tinkertoy, as somebody once said.

Q. Jim, your book The Double Helix, in which you colorfully described the events leading to the unveiling of DNA, gave many people their first glimpse of the human side of science -- the competition, the egos, the jealousies. In retrospect, do you wish you had written any sections differently?

Watson: No, I wouldn't touch a word. There were a couple of phrases they ((the publisher)) made me take out for good taste. I saw it as a story that was almost a novel and thought it would be useful to keep young people going into science from being disillusioned. A lot of people go in with idealistic ideas, only to find out that scientists are driven by the desire to make a discovery before someone else does.

Q. The first line of the book is, "I have never seen Francis Crick in a modest mood." Francis, I understand the publication caused you some distress?

Crick: Oh, it did. When Jim read me a chapter in a restaurant, I thought nobody will want to read all this stuff. You see how wrong I was. It wasn't what I would call a scholarly account. I objected to it because of that.

Q. Francis, why until now have you been rather reticent about granting interviews and making public appearances?

Crick: It's just the way I am. I decided I did not want to become what's called a celebrity. For a long time, I refused to let people put my photo in textbooks. Unfortunately, I have a very good press agent. ((He gestures toward Watson.)) Now it's hopeless.

Watson: I think virtually anytime you grant an interview and your name appears in the newspaper, your colleagues are upset. Publicity-seeking scientists generally aren't thought of very well.

Q. Jim, why did you resign last year as head of the Human Genome Project? Was it strictly over differences with National Institutes of Health director Bernadine Healy? And since she is now scheduled to depart this summer, do you regret having resigned?

Watson: No. I had the position for almost four years, and I was trying to hold down two full-time jobs. I was beginning to get worn out. Anyway, if you have no respect for your boss, you should quit, because you're going to be fired. I left over policy matters concerning the patenting of DNA sequences.

Q. What about the requested genome-project funding of about $200 million a year? How does that square with the push to reduce the deficit and cut spending?

Watson: It's a much better use of the money than many other ways we're now spending the money. The project will pay for itself many, many times over. They've already found a gene on chromosome 14 that is responsible for much early onset of Alzheimer's disease. Another medical objective is to understand why some women are at greater risk than others for getting breast cancer, and it's hoped that the gene responsible will be isolated over the next several months.

Crick: The fallout from the genome project will not only be for medical things. It'll illuminate, for example, the nature of evolution and the origin of life.

Q. Do you ever worry about where gene therapy will lead, especially the manipulation of germ cells that will affect future generations?

Crick: There could be problems. Patients in gene-therapy experiments can give their formal consent, but that's not quite so easy for a child that isn't born.

Watson: You can worry when we start trying to improve human beings. But if we could make ourselves resistant to AIDS, you would say that we should go ahead and do that.

Crick: All the worries about genetic engineering pale in significance with the question of what you are going to do about there being so many people in the world and the rate at which they increase.

Watson: Yes, that's what I worry about -- overpopulation.

Q. How would you summarize the importance of unlocking the secrets of DNA?

Crick: Everything we want to know about biology -- and ourselves -- will flow from the foundation of genetics, which is based in DNA. That's not to say that everything we do is determined by our genes. Heredity is modified by experience.

Watson: The molecule is so beautiful. Its glory was reflected on Francis and me. I guess the rest of my life has been spent trying to prove that I was almost equal to being associated with DNA, which has been a hard task.

Crick: We were upstaged by a molecule.