In his role as LIBA's president, Arthur Page guided the Biological Laboratory through the difficult years of the Depression (at its depth, he secured a $1 donation from a then assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury!). His most important contribution was in 1940, when the flames of World War II were soon to engulf the United States. Entirely on his own, he secured the agreement of Carnegie Institute officials to coordinate the efforts of the Biological Laboratory with those of the Department of Genetics. A Carnegie geneticist, Milislav Demerec, was appointed director of both institutions, leading to a period of 20 highly fruitful years. During that time, Cold Spring Harbor acquired worldwide renown through the Nobel Prize-winning research on maize by Barbara McClintock and on bacterial viruses by Alfred Hershey, Salvador Luria, and Max Delbrück.

A new period of great institutional instability arose at Milislav Demerec's retirement in 1960. Unable to find a suitable successor, the Carnegie Institute made the decision to gradually withdraw its support of science at Cold Spring Harbor. Fortunately, by this time, Walter Page had assumed the LIBA presidential mantle long held by his father. In this capacity, he helped bring into existence the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), under whose organizational framework all science activities at Cold Spring Harbor would be managed. To help fill the financial gap created by the Carnegie Institute's withdrawal, Walter secured $25,000 pledges from several major universities and medical research institutions. In turn, representatives of these groups were appointed to a newly formed Board of Trustees. Walter Page, as LIBA's president, and several other prominent community members were also members of the Board.

During the next several years, Walter's responsibilities at J.P. Morgan increasingly limited the time he could devote either to CSHL or to LIBA in its new, nonoperational role as a mobilizer of community support. Seeing the need for a talented person to help him, Walter wisely chose Edward Pulling to take over as LIBA's Board chairman. Pulling would replace Nevil Ford, a banker who had held the position for many years. Having just retired as headmaster of the Millbrook School, Ed was living on nearby land inherited from his wife's father, Russell Leffingwell, a banker who was Morgan's chairman between 1948 and 1950. Under Ed, LIBA became effectively led by its chairman, not its president. In the capacity of chairman, Ed assumed the place on our Board held for the previous five years by Walter Page.

Walter returned to the Board in 1972, when Charles S. Robertson, owner of a large Lloyd Harbor estate fronting on Cold Spring Harbor, was searching for an institute to which he could gift his estate. In contemplating an even larger second gift that would be designated for research support, Robertson wanted the assurance that Walter Page's financial acumen would be at the Lab's side if the proposed Robertson gifts became finalized. Happily, Walter agreed to come back onto our Board, and Charles Robertson, now at ease, provided $8 million for the creation of the Robertson Research Fund. Today, thanks in part to wise spending guidelines set in 1973 by Charles Robertson and Walter Page, the Robertson Research Fund totals some $80 million.

Several years later, Walter persuaded the Carnegie Institute to sell to CSHL at a very reasonable price 20 acres of land it had long ago purchased from Jones family members. This was an asset that Carnegie had initially held back from the newly formed Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, believing that it might soon bite the dust. Now that our long-term survival was assured by Charles Robertson's great generosity, Walter informed the Carnegie management that we wanted to resolve the land question because we would soon need a portion of it for construction of a new building for our cancer research. Walter, who had once been on the Carnegie Board, went to Washington to see embryologist Jim Ebert, Carnegie's newly installed president. To our great relief, the visit was a complete success. Carnegie's asking price, which Walter immediately accepted, was $200,000, payable over five years with no interest. Acquiring the needed Carnegie land would in no way decrease the forward momentum of our cancer research.

Walter's negotiating skills again proved crucial to our long-term betterment when the Village of Laurel Hollow, seeing that the Lab's financial health was no longer precarious, asked us to cover village service costs that, as a tax exempt body, we were not legally bound to pay. Walter had the good sense to know that our community relations could only profit by our seeing that Laboratory activities did not prompt an increase in village taxes. On the other hand, he was firm in saying that we should never pay more than our village services actually cost. Luckily, common sense and good will prevailed, and both the village officers and CSHL officials were pleased with the final agreement.