Another often-overlooked factor that came to light when this letter recently went to auction is that she was ousted from her laboratory amid the conflict. That was despite her invaluable data, which she understood of course.
onlineonly.christies.com/s/printed-ma...

wellcomecollection.org/works/uquf8nsk

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Those who control the dominant narrative have a responsibility to free themselves of outworn ideas.

Those assumptions largely stem from Watson, Crick and Wilkins' own autobiography. Franklin died too young to write her own autobiographical account. There was momentous historical speculation of a joke she and Gosling sent proposing death of the helix. But her lab notes paint a different picture.

Those who control the dominant narrative have a responsibility to free themselves of outworn ideas.

The article offered an outdated version of events pushed by Watson's memoir. There's actually little evidence Wilkins 'abhorred confrontation' (you need only read his letters), or that he focused on B DNA (which Franklin analysed in her 1952/3 notebooks). Neither did she see it as a 'distraction'.

Indeed. Although if you compare Wilkins' submission to the April 1953, Nature journal, it contains far less evidence of the structure than Franklin and Gosling's. The key findings/data were from their x-ray studies in May 1952, including photos 49 and 51, the latter of which was seen by Watson.