With the money in hand, Kövesi then had to convince a ship’s captain to consider a deal to smuggle Tamás aboard and out of Hungary. Kövesi learned that was a hard bargain. In mid-May, he approached a captain during a ship’s brief stopover in Vienna. Kövesi described the encounter to Monod:
My interview with the captain was rather brief and actually not a very bright one.
He was not quite happy about the business, and returned always to the point that he shant touch anything which is connected with politics or politicians. We talked about the possibilities all in conditionell [sic] form and parted with a formal agreement without obligations.
The captain told Kövesi that “it is against the law to smuggle out somebody of the country, but if somebody climbed his ship and smuggled himself in, it is no affair of his—as far as the police is concerned.”
What did concern the captain was his fee, which was $1,000 in advance, and another $4,000 when Tamás safely reached Austria. Kövesi explained that he also agreed to pay an “agent,” an acquaintance who’d put Kövesi in contact with the captain. His fee was another $500 up front, and $500 more upon success. Kövesi pointed out to Monod, “If we have no luck, just to start with we may lose fifteen hundred bucks.”
Upon making the agreement with what he called the “Linz Crowd,” which included the agent and a few other participants, Kövesi was given an address in Esztergom, a small town on the Danube about twenty miles northwest of Budapest, where Tamás (“the cargo”) would be picked up. Kövesi informed Monod of the text of a message he sent to Tamás via a courier, hidden inside a piece of Swiss chocolate. The message told Tamás the rendezvous spot, and how he would be given the exact departure date. The idea was for the Linz people to telegram Kövesi, who would then call Monod, who would tell Ullmann, and then Ullmann would phone Tamás and tell him that she was going to Marseille to lecture on a certain date—which was the signal for the departure date from Esztergom.
Just to be sure that Tamás got the message that the operation was on, the Linz people would also send him a telegram:
TOM TO COME TO ESZTERGOM WITHIN 48 HOURS—PRIVATE VACATION IS PAID.
The operation was planned for between June 10 and June 15. Kövesi, Monod, and Ullmann were very hopeful.
The Danube, however, had other plans. The river flooded, and river traffic was interrupted. The operation would have to wait.
THE OPERATOR
Fortunately, work in the lab was making much swifter progress.
Throughout the winter and spring, Jacob had worked to develop the genetic strains that would allow him to search for the hypothetical “acceptor site” mutations in the lactose system. He had also been thinking a lot about the expected properties of the acceptor site. He came up with an analogy—of an airplane carrying bombs that was equipped with a transmitter and receiver. The airplane was the chromosome and the bombs were the genes for the enzymes. The transmitter was the repressor, and the receiver was its acceptor site on the chromosome. Jacob pictured the chromosome carrying the lactose gene as a plane flying around full of bombs, with one transmitter and one receiver. As long as a plane received the signal “Do not drop, do not drop,” it didn’t drop its bombs (the genes were repressed). But if the receiver (the acceptor site) was broken, it would not get the signal, and the plane would drop its bombs.
By summertime Jacob obtained mutant strains that were candidates for the acceptor site (or receiver) mutations. He and Monod set to work characterizing the mutants in detail to see if the mutations had the properties predicted by the model.
They didn’t wait for the analysis before unveiling the next iteration of their rapidly developing model. In a short theoretical paper, Jacob and Monod predicted that mutations in the hypothetical acceptor would cause loss of repression—the plane with a broken receiver would drop its bombs. They proposed to distinguish three genetic elements involved in the regulation of protein synthesis: structural genes responsible for encoding the structure of a protein; regulatory genes that govern the expression of structural genes; and a new term for the receiver or acceptor site, the site of action of the repressor—the operator. They underscored how mutations in each of these elements would have different properties.
The brief paper was a double coup. Monod and Jacob were predicting the existence and properties of an entity that no one had ever conceived (but the evidence for which they would soon discover). And their terminology, introduced at the next reunion of the molecular biology elite in Copenhagen late that summer, was quickly adopted (and continues to be used to this day).
Jacob made it to one other notable meeting in the summer of 1959. On June 17, the anniversary of the founding of the Free French in 1940, he and a few hundred other members of the Compagnons de la Libération met for their annual reunion at the elegant Élysée Palace. They were welcomed by de Gaulle, who was now president of the Fifth Republic. After a short speech, “The General” worked the room, moving from one group of soldiers to another. Suddenly, he was in front of Jacob. They shook hands.
“Ah, Jacob. Pleased to see you again,” the president said. “What are you doing these days?”
“Scientific research, sir,” Jacob answered.
“Ah, very interesting. In what field?” de Gaulle asked. The president had recently implemented recommendations to support French research.
“Biology, sir,” Jacob responded.
“Ah, very interesting. What kind?”
“Genetics, sir.”
“Ah, very interesting. Where do you work?”
“At the Pasteur Institute, sir.”
“Ah, very interesting. You have everything you need?”
Jacob hesitated, “No, sir.”
“Au revoir!” The general moved on.
CHAPTER 30
THE POSSIBLE AND THE ACTUAL
Scientific reasoning is a kind of dialogue between the possible and the actual, between what might be and what in fact is the case.
—PETER B. MEDAWAR, Nobel laureate (1960),
“Induction and Intuition in Scientific Thought”
AFTER THE FLOODING OF THE DANUBE EARLIER IN THE SUMMER of 1959, the river dropped to very low levels due to a prolonged drought. The combination of extreme weather caused one of the longest interruptions in river traffic in many decades. As the weeks went by without any hope of action by the Linz mob, Kövesi became desperate to find a land route for getting Tamás Erdös out of Hungary and to Paris before Agnes Ullmann would have to return to Hungary.
PLAN B: THE FORD FAIRLANE
Kövesi got the idea to modify a car so that Tamás could be hidden securely in a secret compartment and driven across the border. To build a large enough compartment, it would have to be a large car, preferably a large American car. With Monod’s approval, and using the money Monod had raised, Kövesi purchased a used Ford Fairlane for about $1,600. He spent another few hundred dollars having a hidden compartment built and installed.
But time ran out.
Ullmann had permission to stay only until the end of August 1959. If she stayed any longer without permission, she would put Tamás at risk of being put back in prison. She had to return to Budapest. Conversely, if Tamás came out while Ullmann was back in Hungary, she would be in similar danger. The operation was canceled.
Monod was committed to getting Erdös and Ullmann to freedom. He and Kövesi would now have to figure out a way to get both of them out together, and to communicate with the two of them in Hungary without alerting the suspicions of the authorities.
Before she left, Ullmann had an idea about how she could correspond with Monod about escape plans while avoiding trouble with the secret police. She had worked for years with the amylase enzyme, which breaks down starch. Ullmann knew that one easy way to detect starch was with a solution of iodine, which turned the starch a deep blue. She suggested to Monod that she could send the most sensitive messages by using a starch solution as an invisible ink, and Monod or his secretary Madeleine Brunerie could
then reveal the message by simply putting iodine on the paper. The former resistant loved the idea, so Ullmann demonstrated how it worked.
Monod thought that they should also have a code in case any of the letters he sent were intercepted. He came up with code words that would make the letters appear to be innocent exchanges concerning their respective research. In Monod’s “Code Agnes”:
“EXTRACTION” = EVASION (ESCAPE)
“H2O” = BATEAU (BOAT)
“ORGANIQUE” = AUTO (CAR)
“LA SALMONELLE” = AGI (SALMONELLA—AGNES ULLMANN)
“LE COLIBACILLE” = TOM (E. COLI—TAMÁS ERDÖS)
Extraction du Colibacille would refer to the plot for Tamás’s escape, extraction de la Salmonelle to Ullmann’s escape. Additional code words were related to police activity. Ullmann would indicate any harassment by referring to enseignement (teaching) or leçons (lessons), and to the police themselves as élèves (students).
On her way back to Budapest, Ullmann stopped in Vienna to see Kövesi. Both were very disappointed about the failure to get Tamás out during the preceding five months. The two of them sent a joint letter to Monod in Paris. Ullmann tried to be philosophical about the situation. She wrote (in French), “This is like a game of cards. There are days when nothing works and in those circumstances one should know to get up from the table before all is lost. Other times, everything can go well. We have failed for five months, now a better time should come.”
She reported that she’d had many talks with Kövesi. The latter told her that there was still a possibility of escaping by boat. She made one request of Monod; “If it is possible to let us know the exact date before the critical hour, that would be best.” She added, “I hope that I am not going to cause you too many problems or much bother. Do not worry, if things work that’s good and if not, then we will try to find a ‘modus vivendi’ in the given conditions.”
Kövesi scrawled a short note below Ullmann’s, telling Monod, “If there is anything urgent I’ll write or call you in your office … I know I tried my best and I don’t feel too bad—just low. And I did not give up the hope.”
“X”
Before Monod could tackle the new challenge of getting both Ullmann and Erdös out from behind the Iron Curtain, he and Jacob headed to Copenhagen for a small meeting called to address the mystery inside Crick’s black box: the relationship between DNA and proteins. Most of the other leaders of molecular biology also went, including Jim Watson and Seymour Benzer, now both in the United States; Francis Crick from Cambridge; and even the Danish Nobel physicist Niels Bohr.
Jacob and Monod had been wrestling with that black box since the first success of the PaJaMa experiments and the formulation of their repressor theory. It was difficult for them to assert how the repression of enzyme synthesis worked when no one understood how protein synthesis worked. It was known that protein synthesis took place in ribosomes and that these structures were very stable, lasting several cell divisions. The prevailing view was that different ribosomes were each devoted to the production of different proteins.
But this idea did not make sense with respect to the very rapid synthesis of the galactosidase enzyme Jacob and Monod had observed upon entry of the gene into cells in the PaJaMa experiments. They doubted that such a structure could be assembled so quickly. Furthermore, they asked, if ribosomes were stable protein factories, how and why did repression start ninety minutes after mating? Did the repressor work on ribosomes? They doubted that, too. In his presentation to that select, immensely talented audience, Jacob shared the results of their recent experiments, and his and Monod’s doubts about the current picture of protein synthesis. In order to reconcile their results on enzyme induction and repression, Jacob ventured a suggestion: There was some unstable intermediate that would carry the information between DNA and proteins. The repressor might work then by repressing the production of the intermediate. Jacob, who had a knack for naming things, called the intermediate “X.”
There was no reaction from the audience, not a single question about his proposal. Indeed, Watson had spent so much time reading the newspaper during the presentations that when his turn came to speak, everyone in the audience pulled out newspapers and began to read them. The black box was not opened in Copenhagen.
PLAN C: THE FURNITURE TRUCK
When Monod returned to Paris, there was new correspondence from Ullmann and Kövesi waiting for him. Ullmann wrote to tell him that she was sending him a phonograph record via a Frenchwoman who had been in Budapest, and “at the same time I sent you a chromatogram … I am curious what is your opinion of the results.” This was code for a message written in invisible ink that Monod was to decipher. She also mentioned that she had received a letter from Kövesi, and she expressed her concern that “he is very upset because of his work.”
Kövesi had sent Monod a summary of all the money he had spent over the six months. Between advances to the Linz mob, outfitting the Ford Fairlane, and his expenses going to and from Paris, Kövesi had spent more than $8,000. Of all the money Monod had raised and made available to him, there was now little more than $300 remaining. And Ullmann and Erdös were still in Budapest.
Not only was the money nearly exhausted, but so were Kövesi’s nerves. He had become entangled in a dispute with the Linz mob over getting the advance money back. His agent informed him that various members of the mob had personal problems that were preventing the return of the money: the captain’s wife had committed suicide due to a quarrel over another woman, and another participant in the scheme had been detained by Hungarian Customs. The agent wanted out of the deal as well, but agreed to introduce Kövesi to a few more ship operators who might be able to help.
Kövesi wrote Monod: “I am not able to do any more waiting … I just cannot go on long with this stuff. More than seven months of tension and nothing happening—I must have a break, I really do. I am awfully sorry.”
Monod sought to reassure Kövesi and Ullmann, and to solve the money problem.
He wrote an encouraging letter to Ullmann using their code:
Thank you so kindly for keeping me informed of your work or rather our work since it is understood that we are continuing our collaboration at a distance. I have not had much new to tell you regarding the best methods of extracting microbes until recently. But fortunately, my colleague and friend, professor Andrews [Andre Kövesi], who has done a great deal of work on these problems, as you know, came to see me recently and we spoke at length. Like us, he has found that the extraction of Colibacille [Erdös] and Salmonella [Ullmann] has posed particular problems and there have been many failures. In confronting our results, we arrived however at the conclusion that by perfecting the previous techniques that you know already since we have employed them together, it ought to be possible to be achieved. He is going to make several attempts very soon to modify the pH and the temperature of extraction [escape], but while keeping H20 [boat] as the preferred solvent. He will send me a report of his results that I will communicate to you if they are really interesting …
In any case, continue to keep me informed of your work and I will keep you informed of the work in the lab. You know well how much I wish that this collaboration continues and how much I am counting on you for that.
Monod then tackled the money problem. He asked André Lwoff for a personal loan of $5,000. Lwoff promptly agreed to provide the money at no interest, payable in a year. Monod informed Kövesi by phone and followed up with a letter encouraging his beleaguered friend: “I am very confident, and if only the good [sic] damned Danube will consent to carry the right amount of water for a while, I feel sure that you will succeed and bring them out. I fully appreciate how miserable you must have felt during the last month, but your reward when you bring your friends out will be worth all these miseries. In the meantime, and on account of this enterprise, we have become real friends and this is already a little reward.”
In his reply to Monod, Kövesi expressed his gratitude and
the same sentiments:
Thank you for your good faith and for your friendship. I may fail in my doings but I won’t disappoint you.
Yours faithfully,
Kövesi
Love, Andre
Monod received the Béla Bartók record album that Ullmann had sent weeks earlier. In order to secure the sensitive message to Monod, she had opened the album jacket and written a message in starch solution on the inside cover, then resealed the jacket with a bit of glue. Monod developed the message with iodine solution and deciphered the text. In it, Ullmann voiced her concern about the reliability of the Linz mob. She then told Monod:
If you believe that this trip cannot take place this year, then it should be perhaps better to think of other possibilities and Eva [Kövesi’s girlfriend] might come to discuss the problems.
The situation [police activities] has not changed and it is quite uncertain. It is impossible to tell what might happen until spring.
However we are ready to do anything you will find proper.
Bela Bartok record album sent by Agnes Ullmann to Jacques Monod in October 1959. In order to transmit sensitive information in preparation for her escape from Hungary, Ullmann wrote a message in code in an invisible starch solution on the inside pocket of the album. The message was revealed by exposing the writing to an iodine solution. (Archives of the Pasteur Institute)
Madeleine Brunerie sent a short note to Ullmann to let her know the record and message were received. After the typical greetings from the lab, she told Ullmann, “I adore Mozart. But it may amuse you perhaps to know that I am beginning to discover Béla Bartók with much interest.”
Brave Genius Page 44