Dr. Sucsy graduated Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in June 1942. He had a major in Chemistry and a minor in Metallurgy. He had been accepted as a Graduate Assistant in Analytical Chemistry and a Master’s candidate for the Fall Term at Cornell. The following accounts are taken from his autobiography, “This is the Life”, which was published in 1999.

CORNELL

When I started Cornell in the fall of 1942, the Japanese had already attacked Pearl Harbor the previous December, and the country was gearing up for its war effort. About the end of that first semester, which was then early in 1943, D Blomquist told me that he had obtained for me a Merrill Fellowship.

Apparently, the Japanese had already made great inroads in capturing quinine-producing sources in the Far East. Quinine was, of course, a very important medicinal for control of malaria. Since United States forces were expected to be fighting in that part of the world and would be susceptible to malaria, some strong effort on the part of the federal government, particularly through the existing pharmaceutical companies such as Merrill, required that we find a synthetic substitute for the naturally occurring quinine. There were leads that heterocyclic compounds would show some activity. One of the segments of the program given to Professor Blomquist was to prepare a series of many individual compounds based on a benzothiazole nucleus. These synthetic compounds, when prepared and purified, would then be sent to Merrill, who would test them for activity against malaria.

This anti-malarial project separated me from my previous lab partner, Don Spencer. I don't remember who was moved. I have a hazy recollection that I was temporarily in a laboratory with a Russian woman chemist named Nydia Goetz. It also separated me from Professor Nichols. I was no longer able to assist for him in Analytical Chemistry, because I was to spend the bulk of my time on the synthetic work involving benzothiazoles.

My new partner was Lincoln Diuguid. We were both working on benzothiazoles in the same laboratory. Apparently, Professor Blomquist had decided to have his benzothiazole chemistry all in one location. Lincoln Diuguid was a "black" and had come to Cornell one or two years earlier than I had. He had graduated from college some years before that and had been working at the Pine Bluff Arsenal on poison gases, including Lewisite and Sulfur Mustard. Linc was a good chemist, and we got along very well. By this time, the draft for World War II was effective, but we were able to obtain deferments, because of our work on the anti-malarial project.