COHEN 187into the operations. Congress did not have any great influence, but one
or two people had been turned down because they might have been
involved in liberal causes, and the memories of Senator McCarthy were
vivid. So there was some concern over the government or Congress giving
orders, but there was also concern over the stability and funding on
an annual basis.
As the end of December 1953 approached, I realized I would have to
begin with a staff largely composed of men called up for military duty
who chose assignment to the PHS in preference to the armed services.
I planned to assign the staff members to branches and/or laboratories
for which the chiefs had not yet been recruited. Although the final con
tent of the program would be determined by the staff who operated
it, I envisioned three main divisions in the clinical branches: one that
studied behavior disorders in children; one for disorders of mood and
thought (i.e., manic depressive psychosis and schizophrenia), and one for
psychosomatic disorders, while in every instance taking advantage of
our freedom to study and compare patient behavior and physiological
processes with those of normal controls. The disciplines represented
would include psychiatry, clinical and developmental psychology,
sociology, anthropology, physiology, biochemistry, and pharmacology.
An essential difference between the program I envisioned and that of
any psychiatric organization of which I had been a part was that studies
of the clinical condition would consider the relevance of interdis
ciplinary collaboration, and that whatever was studied in the patho
logical would be studied in the normal. I hoped that many of the
multidisciplinary staff would maintain a modest acquaintance with the
operations of the entire program, and that out of such relationships
useful ideas might come.
My entry date had been set for December 31, 1952, but when I arrived
at Building T-6 its only occupant was Hector Ragas, an administrative
officer, who fortunately knew that I was expected. He seated me at the
only available desk, that of Pearce Bailey,^9 who would be away for a week.
He gave me a folder of PHS regulations, a pad of paper and some pencils,
and disappeared. In mid-afternoon Edward V. Evarts and Josephine
Semmes wandered by. They had come to visit Marshall’s laboratory in