196 COHEN
Science, Robert B. Livingston took his place as the new scientific direc
tor of the NIMH-NINDB basic research program. Livingston had worked
with John F. Fulton at Yale University and brought Paul MacLean to the
NIH with him when he accepted. Livingston had even less contact with
my clinical research program than Kety had had. I had met with a small
committee of scientific directors, including DeWitt Stetten, Jr., Robert
Berliner, and G. Burroughs Mider, to discuss complaints about the way
the National Institutes of Health was being administered from downtown.
I ended up establishing a good relationship with them.^21 When Livingston
left, John Eberhart emerged as a good candidate to replace him as scien
tific director, given his experience with the extramural program of the
institute from the very early days.
Looking back, the plan I developed for the intramural clinical re
search program could be considered grandiose, but there was a sense of
urgency, a belief that this was to be a one-time opportunity not subject
to growth and gradual development. The NIMH budget in 1952 was
close to $12 million. Felix talked to the intramural scientists once a year
and he would tell them, “I need to have a gimmick when I go before
Congress; if any of you ever have an idea or, particularly, some little
discovery that I can tell them, it’ll be very helpful.” An example of his
foresight in those days was that when Felix testified before Congress at
the time the budget was about $15 million, Senator Lister Hill asked,
“How much do you think you’ll eventually come ask me for?” Felix took
a deep breath and responded, “Senator, I can foresee the day when I will
ask you for $25 million.” We speculated that in some far distant day the
government might support two or even possibly three institutes like the
NIH in different parts of the country because this was such a fantastic
opportunity to do full-time research. We believed we had already reached
the limit of workable size. As I look back, some of that was gratifyingly
successful, but I believe, in balance, we did not find the men and women
as much as they found us.^22