COLUMNS
Comment
What Is MERF?
Amy E. Shaughnessy..............4
Kentemplations
A Bit Farther Out
Kent B. Van Cleave............. 5
Special Interest Groups
Guest Column, Again
Charles G. Schilling.......... 11
Puzzles
Sequences And Such
Phyllis Stewart............... 12
Wordplay
Mangled Monikers
Jean MacKay Jackson............13
Gifted Children
Personality Development and the Gifted
Linda Kreger Silverman.........14
Chess Puzzle
Tony Cantone...................33
The 2% Solution
Politics, Palestine... y Problemas
Toni Rizzo.................... 38
Music
Are You Still Listening?
Reader Listening Preferences, Part 2
Howard H. Ramsay...............35
Books in Brief
Better Than Candy
Margot Seitelman...............36
FEATURES
Famous Fathers Anonymous
Robert Graham’s Controversial
“Nobel” Sperm Bank
Interview by Nancy Phelps..... 6
Colloquium Ill
The Impact of the Arts on Civilization
Colloquium III Committee......10
Nebraska Mini-RG Sets Exciting Precedent
Jim Bunstock................. 10
The Peace Lottery
George T.S. Chalden...........30
Who’s Swinging in the Family Tree?
Ralph Rudolph.................31
The Coming of the Supermen
Jared Knott...................32
Think-Ubator A New Mission
For the U.S. Space Program
Lee Norden................... 33
Back on the Bus Again
Our Advice to a Curious Kid - Part 2
Alfred J. Farina..............34
DEPARTMENTS
Letters................................ 2
Mensa Gatherings.......................40
International Journal..................42
Classifieds............................46
CREDITS: Cover by Ed Eyth; art pp. 13,35,40 by Bernice Richmond; art p. 31 by LaVena Kay Kidd: art p. 32
by Henry Roll; back cover cartoon by Jim Gallagher.
FAMOUS FATHERS
ANONYMOUS
ROBERT GRAHAM’S CONTROVERSIAL “NOBEL” SPERM BANK
Dr. Robert Klark Graham is the found-
er and director of the Repository for Germi-
nal Choice, a unique non-profit sperm bank
whose donors are selected on the basis of
their accomplishments. This interview was
conducted at the Repository with Dr. Gra-
ham and his office manager, Julianna
McKillop. Interested recipients are encour-
aged to contact Dr. Graham at the Repository,
at450Escondido Blvd, Escondido, CA 92025,
phone 519/743-0772. Dr. Graham's book,
Future of Man, is also available at this
address.
BULLETIN: How did you happen to
become interested in a sperm bank concept?
GRAHAM: I became concerned in the
little town in which 1 grew up, when 1 was in
high school, that the people who really were
the responsible people and the most useful
people, the people who organized the com-
munity and essentially ran it - that is, the
mayor, the banker, the postmaster, the
doctor, the lawyer and so forth - these
excellent people didn’t have very big
families. In fact, they usually had small
families.
BULLETIN: Do you have any theories
on why that is?
GRAHAM: Yes, but none of them hold
water, because there are many reasons.
Some people are infertile, and some are
selfish and don’t want children, and some
are too busy, and some are interested in
other things....
BULLETIN: Did anyone express a con-
cern to you about the population explosion
as a reason for not having a lot of children?
GRAHAM: No. These people are not
the kind of people who are producing the
population explosion, so that wasn’t the
contributing factor there. At any rate, I
proposed, as a way to offset this poor
reproduction among the most useful types
of people, that we make sperm available for
women who wanted children but were pre-
vented from having them because of the
infertility of their husbands. At least in these
instances we can make up for the deficiency
of the husband. And that was Hermann
Muller’s idea, also. So the two of us learned
of each other, and since he was the older
and the more famous, and really had the
original concept earlier than I did, from the
time of our agreement we went his way.
BULLETIN: Can you tell us a little
about your background, and Dr. Muller’s,
before the two of you met?
GRAHAM: 1 come originally from north-
ern Michigan, but I got my technical educa-
tion at Ohio State University. I have a degree
in optics from the physics department there.
Most of my career was in Pasadena; that’s
where we founded the lens factory ... none
of which has anything to do with the Reposi-
tory for Germinal Choice. What brought me
to that was my acquaintance, because of
our similar interests, with Hermann Muller.
Now, Muller was the greatest geneticist of
his day; at the time I knew him, he was at the
University of Indiana, but he’s long since
gone. But he did win a Nobel prize for
exposing drosophila [fruit flies] to X-rays
and inducing the first authentic mutations.
BULLETIN: Do you have a medical
degree?
GRAHAM: No, neither Muller nor 1
have medical degrees, nor is that called for.
I really have no special qualifications for
this work other than a life-long interest.
BULLETIN: You met Muller in 1963, but
set up shop in 1980. What happened in the
intervening years?
GRAHAM: Well, first Muller and I
agreed to set up the Repository jointly. But
he wanted to think through a lot of problems,
some of which he resolved and some of
which he never did. He became ill, and at the
time of his illness he said, “Well, Bob, this is
the most important thing in my life; I want to
do it right, but let’s not do it until I’m well
enough to participate actively again." I
agreed, but instead of recovering, he died in
'65.
I was busy manufacturing lenses, so I
just let the project lie until I sold my lens
factory, retired and had the wherewithal
and leisure to start this actively - which 1
began in 79, having collected quite a reser-
voir of germinal material, mostly from...