Interviewee: James Watson. DNAi Location: Code > Finding the Structure > Players > Linus Pauling > Would Pauling correct his mistake? James Watson talks about how he and Francis Crick felt about Pauling's helix.

That evening, you know, sort of, six o'clock, we went over when The Eagle opened and, you know, had a drink more or less, you know, to toast Linus' failure, it was, because you know we didn't ever contemplate it, we thought well propose a model and it might not be right but never did we think, well one day, we could reject so instantly. And so we were both pleased and a bit scared because we thought it was, you know, just awful, and maybe someone at Caltech would, you know, upon reading the manuscript would tell Linus this is chemical nonsense. Little did we know that, you know, no one at Caltech really had the courage to tell Linus it was wrong, no matter what, how good a school it was, Linus was like the Pope, and it wasn't a way to, Linus wasn't used to people saying he was wrong.

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