Typed letter signed to Carol Bird

Carrel, Alexis (1873-1944). Typed letter signed to Carol Bird. 1 page. Rockefeller Institute, New York, 23 September 1935. 277 x 214 mm. Slight spotting but very good.

Carrel's letter touches on a less creditable side of his character: As the Nazis were rising to power in the 1930s, Carrel advocated the use of eugenics to develop a "hereditary biological aristocracy" that would govern the rest of humankind, and supported euthanasia for criminals, the insane and other "degenerates." He expressed these ideas, which he believed would ensure the betterment of human society, in his best-selling Man, the Unknown (1935), which his correspondent, the author Carol Bird, most likely had read.

"I have just had the pleasure of receiving your letter. I should be much interested in giving you an interview on the possibility of developing a race of super men, but I have only just returned to my laboratories. I am not a writer by profession, and during my residence in New York each year, I have a gigantic amount of research weighing down my shoulders. For this reason, it is impossible for me to find the time to discuss the subject you mention."

Bird was the co-author of Missing Men: The Story of the Missing Persons Bureau of the New York Police Department (1932), which was made into a movie the following year under the title Missing Persons.