Linus Pauling showed evidence for a helix and planar base stacking along the helix axis. Early in 1953 Watson and Crick proposed a correct structure for the DNA double helix. Pauling later cited several reasons to explain how he had been misled about the structure of DNA, among them misleading density data and the lack of high quality X-ray diffraction photographs. During the time Pauling was researching the problem, Rosalind Franklin in England was creating the world's best images. They were key to Watson's and Crick's success. Pauling did not see them before devising his mistaken DNA structure, although his assistant Robert
Maurice Wilkins Raymond [Gosling] and I got a clear crystalline X-ray pattern I was very eager to continue that work ... Trying to understand 'what really happened' when a very admirable scientist [Randall] models himself on Napoleon is not easy ... [but the letter] was very damaging to her and to me". By November 1951, Wilkins had evidence that DNA in cells as well as purified DNA had a helical structure. Alex Stokes had solved the basic mathematics of helical diffraction theory and thought that Wilkins's X-ray diffraction data indicated a helical structure in DNA. Wilkins met with Watson and Crick and