Darwin's Engineer

Robert K. Graham believed that modern welfare programs encouraged imbeciles to reproduce. As a result, he complained, "retrograde humans" were overtaking the intelligent minority, causing the evolutionary regression of mankind and increasing the likelihood of global communism. So in February 1980, the 73-year-old Graham, who had made a $70-million fortune by inventing shatter-resistant eyeglass lenses, announced the establishment of the Repository for Germinal Choice, a sperm bank stocked by Nobel Prize winners and other outstanding men. He intended to save America from genetic catastrophe. Graham was storing the genius sperm in an underground bunker on his Escondido estate and already had collected seed from three Nobel laureates, including legendary (and notorious) physicist William Shockley. He was offering the sperm to women who belonged to Mensa, the high IQ society. Journalists quickly dubbed the repository "the Nobel Prize sperm bank"—a nickname that stuck. Here, author David Plotz reveals the man with the unorthodox plan.

By David Plotz

June 5, 2005