How Linus Pauling Finally Got the Priestley Medal of the American Chemical Society

Late in 1981 I started firming up plans for a symposium marking the 250th anniversary of the birth of Joseph Priestley in 1733. The symposium was scheduled for the 1983 Fall Meeting of the American Chemical Society to be held in Washington D. C. Because of Priestley's wide-ranging interests and activities, the speakers were to include not only chemists and historians but also a political scientist, a grammarian, and a Unitarian minister. The closing session was to open with Melvin Calvin speaking on "Artificial Photosynthesis"-a phenomenon Priestley was the first to observe, albeit somewhat confusedly. Next came Fred Basolo, then president of the American Chemical Society, on "Synthetic Oxygen Carriers of Biological Interest"-Priestley had abeen among the first to remark on the role of dephlogisticated air (oxygen) in the interconversion of venous and arterial blood.