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.CB BARGAINING WITH THE SOVIETS FOR THE BENEFIT OF HUMAN RIGHTS


	At present the Soviet government is holding some hundreds of would-be
scientist emigres and has imprisoned many of the leading dissidents.
On the other hand, we are not letting them
buy a Cyber 76 computer made by Control Data Corporation.
The deal is being held up on account of objections that the Soviets
will get a strategic advantage from such a powerful computer, and the
agreement that the computer will be used only for non-military
purposes cannot be enforced.  Many opponents of such technology sales
are also motivated by their bad record on human rights.

	This is a proposal for a vulgar trade.  We let them buy the
Cyber 76 and possibly a second Cyber 76 in exchange for clearing the
books of the long-standing would-be emigres and the current crop of
arrested dissidents.  This is not a proposal that we let them buy
the computer and hope for their good will.  Such hopes have been
disappointed before, and will be disappointed again.  The proposal
is for an explicit swap - public or secret.

	Such a deal is justified
on several grounds.  The justification is based on a certain ideas about
the political situation in the Soviet Union and to a lesser degree
on some ideas concerning the world political situation.
The essence of the idea is that their political situation is such that
we can buy large moral concessions with small material concessions,
because Soviets who have little enthusiasm for their moral position
of persecuting dissidents and refuseniks
will value our material concession more highly than holding to it.
Some of them will even exaggerate the importance of the material
concession.

	1. We will relieve the suffering of the refuseniks and dissidents
whose emigration we secure.  While they are relatively few, the good
done there is clear.  All the other gains or losses from this or any
other policy are problematical.  The direct relief of suffering should
always be considered worthwhile.

	2. The strategic loss is minimal.  There is no magic in
a Cyber 76.  Any computation that can be done on a Cyber 76 can
be done at somewhat greater cost on computers of their own manufacture
that the Soviets already have.  As I understand it, the Cyber 76 is
to be in an unclassified location, and the bootlegging of even a shift
a day will hardly make an important difference in Soviet military
potential.  Free access to the purchase of Cyber 76 computers would
be a more substantial concession.  Then it might become worth their
while to adapt their major bomb or missile programs to it.

	The remaining considerations depend on the following model of the
Soviet political situation:

.item ← 2
	#. Communism as an ideology in the Soviet Union is in a state
of advanced decay.  While Brezhnev might like to restore some of the
features of Stalinism, he can't restore the enthusiasm that Communists
in the Soviet Union and elsewhere felt for Stalin.  Millions of people
were ready to die for Stalin or kill or torture at his command.
Brezhnev inspires no enthusiasm in the Soviet Union or elsewhere, nor
can Communism generate such enthusiasm on behalf of another leader.
Other Communist movements, such as the Chinese, are also decaying, but
the loss of enthusiasm and fanaticism is not so far advanced.
(It has advanced quite a lot in China, since the first draft of this
note was written).

	#. What holds the regime together is privilege, nationalism,
real and imaginary ideas about the defects of the Free World, and,
among many people, contempt for the weakness of the Free World.

	#. One of the most striking characteristics of the Soviet system
is its lack of dignity evidenced by (a) the special distributions
of scarce consumer goods to privileged people, (b) the foreign currency stores
that ordinary Russians are not allowed to enter, (c) the contrast
between the tourists who are free to come and go and the Soviet citizens
(even high-ranking ones) who are not, the secrecy that forces editors
to pretend that censorship decisions are their own and scientists
to pretend that they have gotten sick or have too much work to go
to a meeting to which they have been looking forward for years,
(e) the cheap bragging of the
newspapers, their fawning on officialdom, and their unmotivated
changes of position when the line changes, and (f) their previous
deals with the West - trading dissidents and Jews for wheat and
other advantages.  The control of the press prevents sentiment against
these and other indignities from snowballing, but
when this sentiment finally breaks loose, it will make a major
contribution to decisive change.

	The present importance of this lack of dignity is that our
intuitions about what kinds of deal are too undignified to be possible
tend to be incorrect.  As long as the Soviet press can ignore the
indignity, almost anything is possible - provided it has other
advantages.

	#. The regime's mistreatment of Jews in general, the refuseniks
in particular, and dissidents lacks moral self-confidence.  This is
shown by its many inconsistencies and the frequent concessions when
there is some outside reason to make concessions.  The Soviet regime
is somewhat susceptible to moral pressure, but in contrast to other
regimes susceptible to moral pressure (such as the Tsarist regime before
it or British colonial regimes), it is much more susceptible to
material pressure, however weak.

	One reason relatively weak material pressure often succeeds,
is that exaggerating the importance of Western concessions is one
of the main ways Soviet scientists and officials unconvinced by
the regime's moral position can struggle for what they would like
to do anyway.  People who do not dare argue that it is immoral
to hold Levich or Lerner or Shcharansky or Bukovsky will argue the
importance to the Soviet Union of whatever lure is offered to let
them go.

	#. Whenever the Soviet Union makes a trade of principle
for material gain, it damages their political position in the world
and the position of the Communist parties everywhere.  Fortunately,
the leaders cannot allow themselves to see this, because to recognize
it would cast doubt on the whole mechanism of privilege that
their well-being depends on.

	#. For these reasons, they may go for the proposed trade
of the refuseniks and dissidents for the computer.  We can rely
on Soviet scientists to argue for the importance of the computer
and minimize the importance of hanging on to the refuseniks.
Just as long as the Soviet negotiators don't personally lose face,
the fact that the regime will lose face can be minimized.
If any kind of subtle bribe can be offered to the negotiator, such as
publicity to the effect that he has outsmarted the West, this may
also help.

	#. They may easily convince themselves that clearing the board
of the outstanding cases of refuseniks and dissidents will wipe out
the problem.  Of course, such deals only further undermine the Soviet
moral position, so that the next outbreak will involve even more
people and will be fought even more halfheartedly.

	#. If they demand secrecy, it should be agreed to.  The truth
will come out anyway.

	[To propose such a deal now may be particularly worthwhile if
it has a chance to head off the trial of Shcharansky on treason charges.
This trial might be somewhat of a watershed in the mistreatment of
dissidents].  Since they decided not to kill Shcharansky, it wasn't
such a watershed.

	Perhaps, such considerations should not be published in
association with the names of anyone who takes part in the negotiation.
Otherwise, the Soviet negotiators will worry that someone will accuse them
of being outsmarted.  Our high officials should be willing to take a
certain amount of public criticism in connection of the deal without
explaining themselves too much.  They can be confident that the long term
humanization the Soviet political situation will outweigh any short term
loss of face.

	As a general policy, we should try to win humanitarian
concessions for individuals and groups with specific promises and
specific threats.  This
is much more feasible than getting them to implement the Helsinki
agreement as a general policy - although we should press for that
too.

	Besides government activity, individuals and non-governmental
groups can win concessions by bargaining.  For example, at the
international conference on artificial intelligence that was held
in Tblisi in 1975, we succeeded by threats of demonstration and
promises to be good in getting them to accept the presence of
a leading refusenik, Alexander Lerner of Moscow, and his participation
in a panel discussion.  Perhaps our businessmen should be encouraged
to help by suggesting that their sales of technology are more likely
to be approved if they can show that there is also a humanitarian
quid pro quo.
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John McCarthy
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Computer Science Department
Stanford University
Stanford, California 94305

ARPANET: MCCARTHY@SU-AI
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