FAUCI DIARY ARCHIVE — Monday, September 17, 2001
https://faucisdiary.com/diary/2001-09-17

Text below is verbatim from the released PDFs, with the original line breaks.
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DIARY ENTRY — Monday, September 17, 2001
Source: Diary Prequel, p. 34 of 2026.07.27_Diary-Prequel-.pdf
Words: 264
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While I was at DHHS for the smallpox meetings, Secretary
Thompson called me in his office and said that although he had said that he would not
ask me again to be NIH Director unless I brought it up, he said that he had to do so now
since “…the country needs me, particularly during these stressful times. I want you very
much and President Bush wants me very much”. Although I had been resisting this for
months (and years) (see above), I felt that I could not refuse this call to duty. Thompson
said to name my conditions. I wrote them down and deliver them to him the next day on
Sept. 18. The conditions were: 1) Dual roles as NIH Director and NIAID Director; 2)
Additional staff; 3) Direct access to him; 4) Good faith discussions regarding plans that
he has to do administrative restructuring (centralizing) at NIH OD and away from the
individual institutes such as budget, human resources, etc. I felt that particularly budget
and to a lesser extent HR centralization would not work; 5) $300,000.00 salary ; 6)
Continue to do editing with royalties (especially HPIM) and remain on Board of Trustees
of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. The Secretary agreed on all of these except he
decreased the salary number to $295,000.00. I told him that I accept the offer. He will
send all of this to the White House to clear that they also accept these conditions. I do
not expect anything to happen soon given that we are headed to war and likely additional
terrorist attacks.