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Editor
Stanford Daily
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305
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Dear Editor:

	Informed people differ on the merits of SDI.

	I have just received a brochure from Stanford Action for
Nuclear Disarmament (STAND) attacking SDI and including the argument that
SDI research ``impinges on academic freedom'', because unclassified
research now may become classified later.

The brochure goes on to advocate the following action among others.

``Expose SDI research on campus, and create a political climate making
it difficult to accept further SDI money.''

I fear that to STAND, academic freedom is a mere phrase, something to
club the establishment with.  It has apparently never occurred to
them that academic freedom might ever cover doing something
with which they disagree --- such as helping defend the United
States.

Circulating this message to the faculty, and I presume this is
the mailing list that brought it to me, constitutes an attempt to
intimidate faculty members and other scientists.

Therefore, I make the following challenge.  What do you thuglets propose
to do ``to make it difficult'' for me to make proposals to the SDI Office
for research aimed at making SDI computer systems more reliable
by automatically verifying proofs of correctness of their computer
programs?

	Who knows?  If they can make a sufficiently ferocious and credible
threat to revive the mob rule of the 1960s, maybe I'll give in.  Many did.

	On the other hand, it may be that ``create a political climate
making it difficult'' was merely over-enthusiastic bombast by people
with no actual intention of intimidating anyone.  The phraseology is
redolent of 1970, and some are nostalgic for that era.
  In that case my challenge is
different.  Let STAND tell us what academic freedom they advocate for
people who consider themselves as having some obligation to help solve
scientific and engineering problems related to defense and who differ
with STAND about SDI.

	What limits does STAND consider that academic freedom imposes
on what may be done to ``expose SDI research on campus'' and ``create
a political climate''?

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Sincerely,

John McCarthy
Professor of Computer Science
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