For those of you who missed the Cold War and its 40 years of denunciations, mistrust, and calumny, it is difficult to understand what life was like in science during those times. Not the major affronts like the persecution of Sakharov and the ascendancy of Lysenko. It was the little things, like sending research letters to friends or wondering how to send journal subscriptions with any hope of their arrival, or the care package of pilfered Eppendorf tips and microtiter plates sent with travelers

The case of Robert Gallo seems to have a life of its own and has dragged on with the perverse complexity of the O.J. Simpson story or the Dreyfus affair. The recent intervention of hitherto uninvolved individuals who seem compelled to create a reputation for integrity for National Institutes of Health scientists (J. Boa and D. Birch, Baltimore Sun, Nov. 4, 1995, page 1A) is just the latest chapter in a decade of accusation. It seems to me that the blame (if any) has been misplaced. When the fi