So they, even though I had been approved enthusiastically by the FBI and all other people that reviewed me for the position, and Harold Varmus was very enthusiastic, they wouldn't approve it. For no reason at all, they just said no. I was prepared to stick it out, to wait until there was a new president, perhaps be nominated again, but I was enjoying revolutionizing the NINDS. Which itself had become a little stuck in the mud, but which everybody agreed, and in our years together there, rejuvenated the science.

But then a lawyer came to see me who was working with Shalala. And he said, 'Gerry, if I were you, I would leave because this is never going to stop. The Republican congressman will always fight you in whatever you want to do.' So, I listened to that and thought for a while, should I go back to Harvard? But I didn't want to disrupt the department and the new chairperson there. So, this offer at Columbia came up and I took it. Ruth had a job also in the bioethics group. She had her PhD, had got a good job. Our kids were all grown and out, so we went up to New York again.