March 1, 1973 
251 
Dr. Willaim A. Nierenberg, Director 
Scripps Institution of Oceanogrpahy 
La Jolla, California 92037 
Dear Dr. Nierenberg: 
I write to express the gratitude of all the scientists and the scientific 
party, and of our Institutions, for the facilities and support your Institution 
provided us in making the research vessel Alpha Helix available for our studies 
in the New Hebrides and Solomon Islands. The expedition was an ambitious one, 
with twenty islands on our agenda, and through the wonderful cooperation of 
Captain Alan Phinney and the crew, we were able to visit and work on all of 
them. 
The logistics problems of handling our many landings and embarkations was 
huge, often dangerous. Capt. Phinney and his crew gave us every conceivable 
support with these problems, and our success in getting the scientific equipment 
ashore and back to the ship was amazing. 
Walter Schneider as a valuable member of our scientific party and without 
his assistance and liaison work with the captain and crew the expedition could 
not have been a success. He worked well with everyone in the scientific party 
and filled all the critical gaps in our training where our ignorance would have 
endangered the expedition. My colleagues and I wish also to particularly thank 
the mates and crew for their boat-work, the radio operator for his critical 
assistance, and the cooks. 
I would like to also inform you that a brief summary of our numerous 
medical and human genetic studies will be dispatched to you and to Dr. Garey 
shortly. I am sorry for the delay. Unlike most of your other expeditions, the 
work of the dozen-odd scientists on the Alpha Helix is strongly supported and 
complimented by an equal part of scientists who did not join the ship and the 
projects are, in general, joint projects of the whole team. 
No one, or few of us, had sufficient skills to cover the range of the 
ambitious studies we are undertaking; I use the present tense since the ship and 
shore based laboratory and clinical studies formed only the basis for further 
study and analysis which will continue for several years before the full 
publication of the results of the expedition is ready for press. Thus, the 
outline of the studies states more their scope than their results. 
In conclusion, I thank you all personally, particularly Dr. Walter Garey, 
for the invitation to accept as chief scientist and organizer my role on the 
expedition. Without the facilities of the Alpha Helix such a study in these 
remote islands could never have been undertaken. We shall keep in close touch 
with the Scripps Institution and send copies of each further study as it is 
completed. 
Sincerely, 
D. Carleton Gajdusek 
