Speaking out

With the war ended, Pauling again focused on his protein-structure studies at Caltech. But he had new distractions, brought on by the dawning Atomic Age. Along with other eminent scientists (such as Einstein) who felt a moral imperative to voice concerns about where the post-Hiroshima human society was heading, he began to speak out against further development, testing, abuse of nuclear arms, as well as against new state-imposed "loyalty oaths."

During the infamous McCarthy era in the early 1950s, he was treated almost as a traitor. Despite his past patriotism, for several years he was denied a passport to travel abroad to scientific conferences. The State Department's reason: "Not in the best interests of the United States." Only in 1954, when Pauling received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, was an unrestricted passport reinstated.

The alpha helix

While a visiting lecturer at Oxford University in 1948, Pauling had a sudden insight regarding the fundamental structure of proteins, an insight that had eluded him for more than a decade. Working with a sheet of paper that he folded over at sites where he knew from theoretical considerations that the chain could bend, he found that the polypeptide chain, formed from sequences of amino acids, would coil into a particular helical structure, which he named the alpha helix. He based this theoretical configuration on chemical-bonding considerations plus x-ray diffraction evidence from certain fibrous proteins. This proposal, as well as a companion concept of a related "pleated sheet" structure, proved correct. Subsequent x-ray diffraction studies have found that the alpha helix is a major component of both globular and fibrous proteins and extensively controls their structure and function.

A few years later, in 1953, Watson and Crick proposed that the structure for DNA, the genetic substance of living things, is a two-stranded double helix, with one strand of the helix complementary to the other. Pauling's proposals of helical structure and molecular complementariness underlay their theory. (Possibly Pauling, who also pursued DNA's structure, would have discovered the double helix himself had he attended a 1952 London conference and seen, as did Watson and Crick, crucial new DNA x-ray diffraction data, but this trip was prevented by the denial of a passport.) Confirmation and knowledge of the DNA structure immediately launched the new field of molecular genetics, which has revolutionized virtually all of biology.

Nobel Prize in Chemistry

In 1954 Linus Pauling was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences cited his seminal work on the nature of the chemical bond and the structure of molecules and crystals and also acknowledged his application of the resulting concepts to the elucidation of the structure proteins, specifically the alpha helix.

Nobel Peace Prize

Pauling put his elevated new position as a Nobel laureate to good effect in his growing social activism. In the late 1950s and early 1960s he evolved into a fully heroic figure to hundreds of thousands of Americans who admired the chemist's courageous protest against atmospheric nuclear testing. He maintained, using scientific data and statistics to make his points, that radioactive fallout would increase the incidence of cancer and genetic disorders, including birth defects. As international tension and competition between the U.S. and the Soviet Union accelerated, he also riveted public attention on the buildup and proliferation of nuclear weaponry — preparations for thermonuclear warfare that he believed would destroy most of the planet's living creatures. He addressed both issues in his popular book No More War! (1958). He maintained that patient, reasoned negotiation and diplomacy, using the objectivity and procedures of the scientific method, would settle disputes in a more lasting, rational, and far more humane way than war. He asked scientists to become peacemakers.

In this most intense phase of the Cold War, Linus Pauling's name was often in the news — as when he circulated a petition against atmospheric nuclear testing and the excessive buildup of nuclear arsenals. The petition was presented in early 1958 to the United Nations after being signed by some 9,000 — eventually more that 11,000-scientists worldwide. The U.S. government's opposing position was defended— sometimes vituperatively — by most of the press and by various scientists, such as physicist Edward Teller, many of whom were federal employees.

Pauling's six-year unrelenting antitesting campaign was finally vindicated when a treaty was signed by the then-three nuclear powers — the U.S., Great Britain, and the U.S.S.R.

On October 10, 1963, the day on which the limited test ban went into effect, it was announced that Linus Pauling would be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 1962. A key member of the selection committee in Norway commented later that the treaty would probably not have been effected without Dr. Pauling's galvanizing impetus. Its timely inception has spared innumerable people from suffering from cancer and genetic damage. Linus Pauling was greatly admired and is still much appreciated for his courageous public stand by many people who lived through those years. Today, of course, preventing nuclear warfare and fallout from above-ground weapons testing, as well as curbing the proliferation of nuclear arms, is the position accepted by most people worldwide.

Peace activist

Pauling believed that the creation of nuclear weapons meant that war must be abolished and the reign of world law instituted. Seeking the means to achieve durable, equitable peace in the nuclear age through rational dialogue, he originated and participated with other renowned scientists in a series of international Pugwash Conferences, which included Soviet representatives. For almost a decade, in the role of an elder statesman for peace, he protested adamantly against U.S. military action in Vietnam and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. He also criticized the U.S. for interfering in Latin American nations, as in Cuba and Nicaragua, and or waging war with Iraq in the Persian Gulf instead of using economic sanctions and negotiation. Decrying the strife within the former Yugoslavia, in 1991 he wrote "An Appeal for Peace in Croatia" and signed other international petitions that cited gross human-rights violations.

Pauling often urged scientists to get involved in politics and society: "It is sometimes said that science has nothing to do with morality. This is wrong. Science is the search for truth, the effort to understand the world; it involves the rejection of bias, of dogma, of revelation, but not the rejection of morality… One way in which scientists work is by observing the world, making note of phenomena, and analyzing them."

In 1964 Linus Pauling left his tenured professorship at Caltech because of pressure from administrators and conservative trustees who disapproved of his prominent, persistent antinuclear and international peace-promoting activities. Pauling had been at the Institute for 42 years — first as a graduate student, then as a faculty member. (In 1937 he was appointed Chairman of its Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering and Director of the Gates and Crellin Laboratories — positions that he had abdicated in 1958 under administrative pressure.)

Pursuing humanitarian issues

Leaving Pasadena for Santa Barbara, Pauling became a founding fellow of the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, which enabled him to pursue humanitarian issues, particularly the use of scientific thinking in solving problems in modern society. Later he held professorships in chemistry at the University of California, San Diego (1967-69), and at Stanford University (1969-73).

In the mid-1950s Pauling extended his earlier interest in human physiology into studying the mental and somatic health of groups and individuals. Health statistics, which he had begun to use with his nuclear-hazard studies and antinuclear proselytizing, now became an epidemiological tool. For instance, he demonstrated statistically that smoking was a major threat to health, decreasing the average life span by eight years, well before the medical establishment began issuing strong warnings. He also studied other factors involved in longevity.

Orthomolecular medicine

Pauling had spoken about the importance of vitamins in the late 1930s. In the mid-1960s he became intrigued with the biochemistry of nutrition. Its roots were in the research he had done at Caltech on the mechanism of action of anesthetic agents in the brain and in exploring the possibility that mental retardation and mental illness (especially schizophrenia) were caused by various biochemical and genetic disorders. This work in brain-fluid chemistry — studying the molecular environment of the mind — later led to collaborative clinical research with Dr. Abram Hoffer on the therapeutic efficacy of vitamins in cancer. In founding the new field of orthomolecular psychiatry ("Orthomolecular Psychiatry" Science 160:265-271, 1968), Pauling proposed that mental abnormalities might be successfully treated by correcting imbalances or deficiencies among naturally occurring biochemical constituents of the brain, notably vitamins and other micronutrients, as an alternative to the administration of potent synthetic psychoactive drugs.

Pauling later broadened this concept into orthomolecular medicine. The concept and term (meaning "right molecules in the right concentration") characterized an approach to the prevention and treatment of disease and attainment of optimum health that was based on the physiological and enzymatic actions of specific nutrients, such as vitamins, minerals, and amino acids present in the body.

Vitamin C

Fascinated with the multifaceted role of vitamin C (ascorbic acid) in maintaining health, he began combing the scientific and medical literature for experimental and clinical evidence as to its importance. From published studies, from physiological and evolutionary reasoning, and from his and his wife's own experiences, he became convinced of the value of vitamin C in large doses as a prophylactic or palliative for the common cold. In 1970 he wrote the book Vitamin C and the Common Cold, which became a bestseller and brought wide public attention while creating a huge and continuously increasing demand for this micronutrient.

Later he became convinced of ascorbate's value in combating the flu, cancer, cardiovascular disease, infections, and degenerative problems in the aging process. He added other micronutrients, such as vitamin E and the B vitamins, to his list of helpful supplements and published two other popular books and a number of papers, both scientific and popular, on nutritional therapy. As happened during his earlier efforts in awakening the public to the dangers of nuclear weapons, Pauling's pronouncements on the subject of nutritional medicine were often assailed by physicians and physicians' organizations that ignored his long and insightful involvement with the biochemistry of human health and much of the published studies. They often dismissed his ideas as quackery.

The LPI

After retiring to the status of Professor Emeritus at Stanford in 1973, Pauling co-founded the nonprofit biomedical research organization that now bears his name. The Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine was established primarily to conduct research and education in orthomolecular medicine, following his belief that nutrition could prevent, ameliorate or cure many diseases, slow the aging process, and alleviate suffering.

At LPI Pauling and his staff worked on developing diagnostic tests and tools for analyzing a multitude of compounds found in bodily fluids. In his view, biochemical individuality — involving unique dietary needs specific to individuals — determines how optimum health can be achieved through the judicious use of natural substances. He maintained that biochemical individuality, molecular disease, or environmental stress may increase the need for certain micronutrients, such as vitamin C, considerably above the RDA. He also warned against overuse of such substances as sugar and chemical sweeteners. Unlike many advocates in the field of nutritional medicine, he considered orthomolecular medicine a crucial adjunct to standard medical practice and therefore did not rule out conventional treatments, such as surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, when considered appropriate.

As a prominent, knowledgeable, and articulate spokesman for the use of nutrients as means to achieve health, prolong life, and provide inexpensive, readily available, and nontoxic alternatives to drugs, Pauling gained a large number of ardent admirers among the public. There were also doubters and detractors. To the attacks from physicians and other authorities in medicine who through the years dismissed or ridiculed his assertions, Pauling responded with cogent research data and logical reasoning. As happened earlier with his outspoken antinuclear and peace activism, and even to some extent with his original work on the nature of the chemical bond, assaults from critics did not stop Pauling from maintaining his position, and he was often regarded as a besieged hero. He utilized the media's ongoing interest in him to good effect in promoting his "regimen for better health," with vitamin C as its keystone. Doubtless the public today knows Dr. Linus Pauling more for his advocacy of vitamin C and orthomolecular medicine than for his work on the chemical bond or for world peace.

The final years

In the last few years of his life, Pauling cut down on his previously frequent worldwide lecturing and associated travel. He largely divided his time between his coastal ranch, where he did theoretical work and wrote for publication, and his apartment at Stanford close to the Linus Pauling Institute, where he served as Director of Research after resigning from the chairmanship of the Board of Trustees in 1992.

Pauling continued to publish articles about health as well as reminiscences of his career in science and his peace work. He wrote many scientific papers on orthomolecular medicine and on structural chemistry. The latter included detailing his unorthodox close-packed polysheron theory of the structure of atomic nuclei and nuclear fission from a structural chemist's point of view, and an explanation (based on the twinning phenomenon in crystals) of the baffling "quasicrystal" diffraction patterns from certain alloys, which seem to show a five-fold symmetry contrary to the laws of classical crystallography. He pursued these subjects nearly to the time of this death.

In retrospect, the breadth of Pauling's interests and research was enormous and his published work prodigious — more than 1,065 publications, from scientific and popular books and articles to book forewords and reviews to letters to editors and printed speeches.

Numerous honors

To Linus Pauling came many honors. In 1933, at the remarkably young age of 32, he was elected to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, and in 1936 to the equally prestigious American Philosophical Society. In 1948 he became a foreign member of The Royal Society of London, the premier honorary scientific society of Great Britain. Many other scientific societies and associations throughout the world made him a member or honorary member. In chemistry, in addition to the Nobel Prize (1954), Pauling was given numerous awards, including the Davy, Pasteur, Willard Gibbs, T.W. Richards, G.N. Lewis, Priestley, Avogadro, and Lomonosov medals. He was the first recipient of the National Academy of Sciences Award in Chemical Sciences, in 1979. The National Library of Medicine gave him its Sesquicentennial Commemorative Award in 1986; he was given other notable medical awards, such as the Addis, Phillips, Virchow, Lattimer, and the French Academy of Medicine medals. He received the Martin Luther King, Jr. Medical Achievement Award for his pioneering work in determining the cause of sickle cell anemia — the molecular disease prevalent among African-Americans.

President Ford awarded him the National Medal of Science in 1975, and in 1989 the National Science Board presented him with the Vannevar Bush Award in recognition of his outstanding contributions to science, technology, and society. He also received prominent medals and awards in mineralogy, international law, philosophy, and the social sciences. Among the humanitarian awards Pauling won, the most notable, of course, was the Nobel Peace Prize for 1962; he was also given the Gandhi and Lenin peace prizes and the Albert Schweitzer Peace medal. Pauling was named Humanist of the Year in 1961. Pauling also received the Gold Medal of the National Institute of Social Sciences. In addition, Pauling was awarded honorary degrees by some 50 universities and colleges throughout the world. Several universities have created their own Linus Pauling Lectureship or Medal, to honor other scientists or humanitarians in his name.

Nine biographies and three anthologies of his writings and speeches have been published thus far, and a two-volume collection of many of his most important scientific publications was published in 2002.

Personal life

Linus Pauling always emphasized the importance of having a full and happy personal life. In 1923 he married Ava Helen Miller, who had been a student in a chemistry course he taught while still an undergraduate at Oregon Agricultural College. Dr. Pauling frequently credited his wife with influencing the development of his social consciousness. She was greatly involved in peace activities, both with her husband and on her own. Pauling said that his Nobel Peace Prize should really have gone to her, or at least been shared between them. In his talks and informal writings he often spoke both tenderly and humorously of their complementary partnership. She died in 1981. In tribute to her dedication to world peace, the Ava Helen and Linus Pauling Lectureship in World Peace has been established by the Paulings' alma mater, Oregon State University in Corvallis, where the Paulings' papers, medals, and other memorabilia are housed in Special Collections at the Valley Library. Additionally, the Linus Pauling Institute established the endowed Ava Helen Pauling Chair in 2001 to honor Ava Helen Pauling's memory.

The Paulings had four children. Linus Pauling, Jr., M.D., a psychiatrist, lives in Honolulu. Peter Pauling, Ph.D., a crystallographer and retired lecturer in chemistry, resided in Wales until his death in 2003. Linda Pauling Kamb lives with her husband, a Caltech professor of geology, in the home originally built by her parents in the foothills above Pasadena. Crellin Pauling, Ph.D., was a professor of biology at San Francisco State University until his death in 1997. There are 15 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren.

Following Pauling's death at the age of 93 at his ranch near Big Sur on the California coast, a memorial service was held at Stanford Memorial Church in Palo Alto on Aug. 29

LPI moves to OSU

The assets of the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine were used to establish the Linus Pauling Institute as a research institute at OSU in 1996 to investigate the function and role of micronutrients, phytochemicals and microconstituents of food in maintaining human health and preventing and treating disease; and to advance the knowledge in areas which were of interest to Linus Pauling through research and education. LPI continues to function as a working tribute to a great scientist, Linus Pauling.

Linus C Pauling