COMMENT ⊗   VALID 00002 PAGES
C REC  PAGE   DESCRIPTION
C00001 00001
C00002 00002	%business letter outline to use with buslet.tex macros
C00008 ENDMK
C⊗;
%business letter outline to use with buslet.tex macros
\input buslet[1,ra]
\jmclet
\vskip 30pt
\address 
Prof. Jens Erik Fenstad
Mathematics Institute
University of Oslo
PB. 1053-Blindern
Oslo 3
Norway

\body
Dear Professor Fenstad:

I am writing about a problem in connection with the
Moscow meeting of
the Eighth International Congress of Logic, Methodology and
Philosophy of Science.  Vladimir Lifschitz, a Senior Research
Associate in Computer Science at Stanford, and I plan to submit
a joint paper on non-monotonic reasoning and causality.  We also
have learned that Prof. Yuri Gurevich of the University of
Michigan plans to submit a paper, and he may already have
written you about the problem.

The problem is that both Lifschitz and Gurevich are emigr\'es
from the Soviet Union.  Lifschitz is a U.S. citizen and Gurevich
is an Israeli citizen.  Even without the problem of being emigr\'es,
Israeli citizens have been able to attend international meetings
in the Soviet Union only when they have had very strong support
from the organizers of the meeting.  In the cases I know about
it required a threat to move the meeting to another country.  Pat
Suppes can tell you about one such case.  I don't know whether
such strong measures are always required.  Pat can also tell you,
if you aren't yet familiar with non-monotonic reasoning, that
our topic is entirely appropriate for the Congress.

My experience in a related matter concerns the 1975 International
Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence.   I enclose a report
on that meeting.

There is one precedent of an emigr\'e attending a scientific
meeting in the Soviet Union.  It happened last month, but it
required that Professor Burton Richter, the Director of the
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) and a Nobel Prize winner
say that unless Semeon
Kheifets of SLAC attended, he wouldn't attend either.  Other
prominent high energy physicists took a similar position.
  A report on that
is enclosed.  The Soviet behavior in that matter is quite
typical.  Informal assurances are offered that there will be
no difficulty.  Then it is stated that attendance is absolutely
impossible.  Then after sufficiently strong representations by
the international organizers, the Soviets give in.  If these
representations are not forthcoming or are not strong enough,
then the victim simply doesn't receive a Soviet visa, finally
perhaps being told that there are no hotel rooms and perhaps
being told nothing at all.

I am writing to request that the organizers of the Congress
make sure that Lifschitz and Gurevich can attend.

I believe it is important to inform the Soviet organizers as
early as possible that the problem exists and that the
holding the meeting in the Soviet Union is dependent on
solving the problem.  After that it is necessary to monitor
progress in order to be sure that Lifschitz and Gurevich get
accomodations and visas on the same schedule as other participants.

I hope for an early reply, because a year is none too much
time in such a matter.

\closing
Sincerely,       

John McCarthy    
\annotations
\vskip 1in
JMC/ra 
\smallskip
Enclosures: Report on 1975 AI meeting, account of Kheifets trip.
\smallskip
cc: Vladimir Lifschitz, Yuri Gurevich, Patrick Suppes, Dana Scott
%\smallskip
%\ps
%P.S.: whatever you wish to say here

\endletter

\makelabel
\end