Born in Africa_ The Quest for the Origins of Human Life - Martin Meredith [36]
To do so, Richard had to outflank his own father. Keeping his intentions secret, he accompanied Louis to a meeting in Washington of the National Geographic Society’s Research and Exploration Committee, the Leakeys’ main benefactor. The meeting was scheduled to hear reports on the Omo expedition and on other projects in East Africa and to consider their future funding. Louis duly described his plans for the coming season at Omo and Olduvai, and in the case of Omo, asked for $25,000 to enable the Kenyan team to continue its work there in 1968. Richard followed with his own account of the Omo expedition. But at the end of it—to Louis’s surprise—he brazenly suggested that instead of giving $25,000 to the Omo venture, National Geographic would do better to use the money to investigate sites on the shores of Lake Turkana that he had identified. For a moment, there was silence in the room. Then Louis spoke up, sighing over the impatience of youth and pointing out that there was already known to be an abundance of fossils at Omo awaiting searchers. The two Leakeys were asked to leave the room while the committee members deliberated over the matter. Behind closed doors, they decided to reward Richard’s ‘cheek and initiative’. Louis was given more funds for research at Olduvai and at a site in Kenya he had developed. But Richard gained $25,000 for his own expedition to Turkana. ‘You can have the money’, Melville Grosvenor, the society president, told him, ‘but if you find nothing you are never to come begging at our door again’.
The outcome was a serious blow to Louis. He had initiated the Omo project but was now cut off from it. The French and American teams were left to continue the work there on their own without Kenyan participation. He faced other woes. His health continued to deteriorate rapidly; his arthritis had worsened and he needed crutches or walking sticks to support him. He became irritable, constantly quarrelling with colleagues who disagreed with him. Many thought his scientific judgement was impaired.
His marriage to Mary, too, was failing. Like other scientists, she had begun to lose her professional respect for him. She had always been a more dedicated scientist than Louis, prepared to search patiently for evidence rather than to rush headlong into speculation, seeking the limelight. After closing down her Olduvai excavations in 1963, she had spent five years meticulously analysing the huge collection of material retrieved from the lower beds. Among the items were 37,127 artefacts; nearly 20,000 animal remains; and twenty fossilised hominids. The artefacts included the oldest known tools, dating back 2 million years. Her magisterial volume on the Olduvai excavations was supposed to have been written in collaboration with Louis, but Louis was invariably distracted, gallivanting after other projects and ideas. ‘I had to watch Louis decline from the height of his intellectual powers and the fullness of his charm, to become irritable and irrational’, she wrote in her autobiography. Mary was also weary of his many friendships with attractive young women. In 1968, she decided to resume work at Olduvai, living there permanently. They subsequently met for only brief periods.
The next generation was ready to make its mark. ‘Richard was always a competitive person’, Mary observed. ‘When he entered a new field it was with the intention of getting to the top, and the sooner the better. And who at the time was in possession of the summit, needing therefore in due course to be replaced?